Design Practice

All of this was to help us towards writing our own brief for Studio Brief 2.

My brief:

I have decided to focus on Branding & Identity and Product & Packaging, as I haven't really focussed on branding design before.. I feel confident when it comes to Product & Packaging, and I think that these two areas of design go along hand in hand.

But what will I produce an identity for?...
An exhibition?
A design shop?
A restaurant?
A Russian circus?
A shop?
A bar?
A flower shop?

I felt as though an exhibition of Russian Avant-Garde was a bit of an obvious choice, and wanted to go for something that would create quite a strange combination of avant-garde and contemporary design styles, with a Russian influence.

I have decided to work with branding a restaurant, as it would be quite a unique experience, eating in a Russian Avant-Garde style restaurant building.

Collaborative Feedback:

What are we looking for in terms of feedback for design boards:
- Effective layout of presentation - boards, consistency, project report, blog
- Project management:
   - how do you evidence it?
   - have you evidenced it?
   - is there enough evidence for the time available?
- Have you answered the brief(s)? If not, why not?
- Visual quality and technical ability
- Suggestions for improvement
- Evaluation
- What works? What doesn't? And why?

In our collaborative pairs, we were asked to give feedback to two other people around the table.

My feedback was as follows:

Effective Layout of presentations
Strengths
- Clear and consistent

Suggestions
- Even spacing between images on Secret 7" board (vertical gutter)
- Even spacing on Type Triathlon
- 1st person is not allowed - 3rd person only

Project Management
Strengths
- Time has been well managed
- Could show more evidence of development

Have you answered the brief(s)?
Strengths
- All briefs clearly present solutions to the problems provided
- Body Shop goes further than answering as it proposes apps etc

Suggestions
- Photograph in Type Triathlon - what is the relevance?

Visual Quality
Strengths
- Colour schemes wok well

Suggestions
- Hightone Book type could be smoother. The background of high tone work could be less intrusive

Product Posters





Campaign Poster


Other Channels




Supporting Photographs

For the crit, we presented what we had produced, and then went around the table leaving written formative feedback for one another.

Strengths
- Strong layout structure throughout, consistent and easy to read / follow
- Design really reflects the topic
- Each full title page has impact and is relative to each artists
- Strong layout, although I do really like how the left hand side was slightly larger. I think the stock choices work well - you could experiment with other stock to show development.
- I like how the quote is displayed on pg 12, 10 and 6.
- Stock selection is fine, ties in with colours already used.
- I like the stock and the effect it has on the colour
- Keep these colours - they compliment each other effectively, more colours would only distract from the content.
- The content and layout is strong and appropriate to your chosen topic - it is evident that you have put a lot of research into the specific artists.

Areas For Improvement
- Improve the back page - develop what is already there into something further influenced by Russian Avant-Garde
- I would add sub-headings on pages, or a little title next to pagination to indicate what section it is, as it's not always clear what content is about at a glance

Considerations
- Perforation could mimic artwork / vinyl, in the way that you open the packaging
- Boxes within boxes like a matryoshka
- Red and black stitch binding
- This could work effectively with a red and black thread to bind it. The thread could also be used as a part of your packaging?
- Your packaging could mimic artwork inside using black or red stock to allow your cover to be revealed slightly. Your back cover could be used / linked to your packaging in some way.
- For packaging, use a contrasting shape to complement topic?
- Slot packaging mimicking the red triangle going into the white circle art thing - would be really good, appropriate packaging.


- Progressive Avant-Garde stitching (see figure 1)


- Would have red or black staples / thread - both binding options would work well.

After the crit, I made final changes to the book from the feedback:





I decided to print my publication in the classroom, as I quite like the fact that the printer isn't high quality - this will make my publication seem older and more authentic. I'm also going to hand bind the book with wax thread.

I sent my edited photos over to James, as he was going to work on making them a set of final posters ready for submission..

The first lot of posters he sent me were as follows:

I loved what James had produced, as he managed to edit the photos down to the detail of removing the glue so that they weren't so shiny and much more legible and aesthetically pleasing.

However, I had a few changes for him, as a few things weren't quite working!

- The White Musk poster seems a bit empty, can you add text to it to fill the space?

- The 'Colour Crush Lipstick' text looks a bit awkwardly placed and different to the rest of the posters, have you tried right aligning the text so it aligns with the right hand side of the body shop logo?

- Could you try adding 'perfume' to 'white musk' to make 'white musk perfume'?

- Try adding a 6pt leading or so to the body copy of white musk, to add the illusion of extra words?

James then sent me the reworked posters:



First of all he made the words 'white musk' bigger, and the words 'colour crush lipstick' smaller, but I still felt as though these looked a bit strange.





I preferred the logos when they were white, but the white musk poster still looked a bit out of place..




It's starting to come together, however I think using the word parfum looks a bit strange on the white musk poster...