Monday 4 June 2012

Brief 5 Evaluation

This brief had two parts, but both answered the same problem. I wanted this brief to stretch my imagination and the limits of menu design. I didn't want this brief to have a particularly obvious solution and I wanted the menu's to serve more of a purpose than an ordinary menu would. The solution to the Chaophraya menu I feel opens up a whole new window to take away food. I enables a quiet night in with a take away to still be one of an experience and memorable a memorable one. The Chaophraya menu design enabled me to research deeply into consumer experience within food and what people want out of the experience. I feel with my take away experience that I have designed I have created a service that has not been done before and that also answers the brief in generating more money for the company.

Pickles and Potter was the other half of the brief and I feel here that I have tapped into a part of the market that hasn't been explored digitally yet. The solution of a daily updated app helps to keep customers interested and involved in the company with an ongoing exchange of information. Throughout this brief I have learnt more about app development, which I think is a key attribute to have in the ever increasing digital side to consumerism. The designing of an app means that you need to think of the story and journey that the customer will take with your product and meant that I needed to deal with ease of use, readability, accessibility and the fundamentals of weather the app would work.

I could have furthered these projects by adding more food companies to the list, however I didn't do this because I felt that I had explored greatly the ways that the said companies could generate more profit through menu design. If I were to further the project by creating more apps and take away design I feel it wouldn't have helped me grow as much as the initial menu's had; I would have been repeating myself and only putting into practice skills that I already had.

Overall I have enjoyed this brief thoroughly because it has had many different sides and problems to deal with. It has taught me a lot about both the craft and digital side of advertising food companies and has deepened my interest in designing for food stuffs.

Brief 3 - Evaluation

This brief was a collaboration with myself Kim Sandford, Charlotte Warren and Becky Tipping. This brief has helped me learn a lot about working for a real client and tight deadlines. This brief out of all of my FMP projects has tested my design skills and knowledge the most.

This brief needed tight time schedules, good communication skills and determination. The brief timescale that we were originally set tured out to be much less that anticipated. Originally we were to be given a couple months to collect order and layout the yearbook. Instead we ended up with 3 days where we had to organise all of our information and transform it into a respectable and working yearbook for the fashion pathway B.

Because the deadlines that the fashion teams were given by their tutor were very late in the brief this meant that we only received the vast majority of the images for each student a couple days before the book was to be sent off to print. This meant that in the meanwhile we had to make sure that the layout grid, spacing, concept, covers, page numbering and anything else that could be done without the pictures was put in place. This meant that we had a yearbook of information, but nothing to fill it. As a group we found it quite hard to decide on the layout and cover ideas because we didn't have any of the content for the book. We therefore had to pick a fairly neutral concept and colours for the design so that the images could speak for themselves and weren't overshadowed by our designs.

We designated 9-10 students per person in our group so that we were in charge of their layouts to help break it down.

Further roles were:

Kim: Front Cover, Images grid, liaison
Charlotte: Front Cover, final tweaking, typography
Becky: Breaker Spreads
Me: Contents page, page numbering, Back Cover, acknowledgements layout, quotes layout.

Working for a real client and getting the book published in its 100's meant that everything had to be perfect and this but a great strain on our group, however I feel that we rose to the challenge. I have also learnt more about setting documents up to print looking at file types, sizes and layout.

I have learnt that deadlines can be very short but if you work to your full capacity it can be done. This seemed like an impossible task, however because we knew that it HAD to be done, we made it happen. It helped to encourage me to know that I am more capable that maybe I once thought. Communication between our group was good and I think overall we worked well together and came out with a result that we are all happy of.

Brief 2 - Evaluation

This brief has introduced me to a different side of graphic design that I haven't previously visited. Make up design branding has to be very versatile to work across a whole range of products. It also has to stand out amongst the crowd in a very saturated market. The direction that I took with this brief was to design the branding to see a different side to make up branding as it is seen today. Make-up brands are seen as very self assured and strong, however this brief wanted to appeal to teenagers. From research it showed that teenagers adopt many different styles and as they are at a very influential stage in growing up they are experimenting and finding out hy they really are. The rebrand of 17 therefore aims to help teenagers in this transition between teens and adults, helping them to experiment freely and be accepted for being who ever they want to be - through the medium of make-up.

I feel I have learnt a lot about print finishes and packaging during this brief. I have also learnt a lot about the importance of understanding the needs of the target market. Understanding the target arket can mean the difference between your product working or flopping.

This brief also enabled me to experiment with pastel make-up on a photo shoot as part of my concept. I found the photo shoot a very enlightening experience. It taught me the importance of having a design direction and being able to direct people on set. Getting the right shot is key to making the advertisement work.

Weaknesses within this brief I feel lie within the production of the packaging and label designs. I searched for somewhere that I could get prototypes made for the packaging however there were none that would be of a suitable budget or time scale. If I were to get the prototypes made this would have made the whole brief look a lot more professional. Instead I had to make to with my own best judgement as to how the products could look most professional and me produced by myself.

Overall I am quite pleased with this brief, I feel I has answered the problem and I think it would work well in a retail environment. The branding is unique and not like anything on the market at the moment and I have learnt a lot along the process that will aid me in future projects.

DC Book