RESEARCH & INITIAL IDEAS
TIPS FROM OHH DEER:
Ohh Deer stocks a wide range of illustrative styles, however the common themes are: 1) Colourful 2) Feminine 3) Positive 4) Humorous I needed to design with these identified themes in mind. My process was then to identify stationery trends (aided by my experience at UK Greetings), brainstorm autumnal & Halloween themes and then connect those back to trends in order to make the outcome commercial.
WHAT
Current trends
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Seasonal themes
KEEPING IN MIND
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Ohh Deer style Current trends
OUTCOME
A relevant, commercial theme to design from
Polly Vadasz
259578
PAPERGANG
LAU603
Polly Vadasz
259578
PAPERGANG
LAU603
COLOUR PALETTE From mood boards of autumnal images that appealed to me, I created multiple options. Each aims to balance the moody, natural colours of autumn with a pop of femininity to suit Ohh Deer’s female target audience.
Polly Vadasz
259578
PAPERGANG
LAU603
THEME & RATIONALE After research and initial idea generation I used the formula on page 2 to create the theme ‘Treats’. For all sketches please see the ‘Sketch development’ PDF.
I took the ‘Trick or Treat’ phrase from Halloween because as a subscription box it arrives at your door. This is additionally visualised by a Halloween stamp. The contents are then themed around treats, and must include hot chocolate as hot drinks are a stationery trend and is considered a treat.
OCTOBER
Halloween
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Cold weather
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OHH DEER
Self love / positivity TREND
Hot drinks
OUTCOME
Trick or treat: a box of treats including hot chocolate & ‘treat yourself’ tone of voice
Polly Vadasz
259578
PAPERGANG
LAU603
PRODUCT MAKING
GREETINGS CARD: What should the greetings card be for, and how should it link to Treats? Outcome: a loving card to give to anyone for any reason.
Here are some of the considerations I made for each product. How they were designed according to the Treat theme and the relevancy of the design to the product itself.
My experience at UK Greetings encouraged me to be non specific with the occasion and recipient in order for it to be as usable/versatile as possible.
COASTER:
DESK PAD:
Using a coaster as a place to put sweet treats seemed like a novel, humorous idea that linked with the ‘treat yourself’ tone of voice.
Using the layout that was given to us, I filled in the four sections with titles that would be useful to have on a weekly planner. I then decorated the edges with a hot drink/takeaway cup illustration, made punny with a ‘ready to go?’ phrase and placed after the to-do list. Although it does have an autumn /
Polly Vadasz
259578
winter feel with the dark colours, I tried to keep it as non specific as possible so it could be usable at other times of the year. For instance I removed the scarf from the takeaway cup. The ‘end of week treat’ space continues the Treat theme.
PAPERGANG
LAU603
THE SLEEVE: The sleeve is the one item that can afford to be novelty and Halloween based as its essentially a throw away item to advertise the products within. Again, as the subscription box arrives at your door in October, just like Trick-or-Treat-ers do, it bares that slogan on the front. The stamp is also Halloween themed, with a little group of pumpkins to represent children knocking at the door. The box is then displays the night sky, with a slight pink texture running through it to bring all the colours together.
Polly Vadasz
259578
PAPERGANG
LAU603
THE PIN: I have designed numerous enamel pins over the last few years and what I’ve found is that the most successful ones somehow describe the wearer; their personality, identity or emotion at the time. For the treat box this pin links to the cold weather and how a hot chocolate treat can warm you up. It’s feminine and self loving as it promotes taking care of yourself.
WRAPPING PAPER: What does wrapping paper wrap? Gifts, which are treats to others. That is where the phrase development came from. Visually it links to the collection with the stars and colour palette.
Polly Vadasz
259578
PAPERGANG
LAU603
COMPETITION ENTRY: Finished! My entry to the @ ohhdeer @thepapergang October #designapapergangbox competition is “Treat� themed, in the spirit of Halloween and cold autumn/winter nights! Each product hopefully stands alone as usable and fun (I had to resist putting pumpkin friends everywhere...) What do you think?
Polly Vadasz
259578
PAPERGANG
LAU603
In this project I formulated a theme that combined multiple considerations to produce a commercial and relevant outcome. Success in this brief was in accordance with three points: - Is it relevant to October? - Is it usable? - Is it suitable for Ohh Deer? The ‘Treat’ theme came from a combination of the season and known stationery trends, while the design was executed according to Ohh Deer’s identified style; Feminine, colourful, positive and humorous. Although the theme had a solid basis, I believe the actual design was let down. Of the 5 days, 3 were spent concept and colour palette building, leaving a small amount of time to create the artwork. I found that although I draw in a consistent style, I still don’t have a go-to digital drawing
Polly Vadasz
method which resulted in taking half a day to decide, before I could complete any of the designs. This lead to a final outcome that could have been developed further for a more aesthetically pleasing outcome, however the concepts are strong. I also decided to go for the product design angle rather than a pattern to deconstruct and apply, because this represented my practice more. However, after seeing the shortlisted entries, Ohh Deer seem to prefer illustrative patterns, so maybe my method wasn’t appropriate for this competition. As this was a social media competition I received responses online. Many people commented on wanting individual products which reinforces my aim of creating multiple usable products that could stand alone successfully.
259578
PAPERGANG
LAU603