End of module evaluation.

Throughout the module I have capitalised on existing skills but also learnt new ones that are going to be very relevent to my practice as a designer. I have also gained a lot of knowledge on areas that I was aware of but had linear understanding of. I'm going to evaluate below each brief induvidually because each has been so relevent to my growth as a designer but in many different ways. 

Black and white print

Originally, for me, the main focus of this brief was to gain a greater understanding of print processes but also apply these processes within my design work. I feel i've got so much more than anticipated from this brief because of the depth of development within the pattern design and also the product range became quite significant. This has however, not over-ridden the understanding of print processes because I found how each of my induvidual products would be printed and although I'm not able to apply all of this yet, It will be really useful to have this understand for the industry. I had no problems as such with this brief because everything was really straight forward, the techniques, processes and stock used were all so well considered that nothing seemed to go wrong. I changed the brief slightly so that the products had a realistic context (being sold in paperchase) but feel this didn't hinder the brief because it extended my research and my knowledge of the retail sector the products fit within. 

Strengths: The development undergone throughout this brief has been a definite strength because it has informed the final product range and in particular the visual aspect of this. The fact the product range works together is another strength because each product was created induvidually so it wasn't really until the end result that I saw whether it was successful. 

Weaknesses: The products weren't made for the purpose of submisson and really, if I'd have taken more care crafting then this range would have been quite nice to submit. 

Penguin Design Award 2012 'The Wind in the Willows'

I think this is one of the only briefs that stayed very true to what I originally wanted to get out of it. Initially I didn't have any idea what I was going to do with this brief because it was a new area of the industry to me. This put me off starting the brief for a while but I found once I got into it and just went with the flow of the design process, I was really pleased with the work I was creating. The design process I used meant that I focused on the competition half of the brief initially which was the book cover design because I knew that once I had this, the rest of the products would come together because they would be based on it. I still realistically have time to go back and re-visit the bookcover design for the purpose of the competition because I can't submit my entry until next year. There were no problems during this brief as such, things just seemed to take a lot longer than I initially anticipated. 

Strengths: The character design is really strong because they all stand out induvidually from each other and have their own characteristics but at the same time when they are put together they work as a set due to the illustration style. This was the first time I'd properly vectored characters too so this skill is definitely a strength. 

Weaknesses: Again, the crafting of some of the products has been a weakness because although the majority are put together really well, not all of them are and it would have been nice to submit these as a range together. Although it's not necessarily a complete weakness, I got way too into this brief which meant I neglected some others for a while. In future I need to prioritise all briefs equally. 

Illustrative type

I initially got really stuck with this project because I didn't know how to stylize the typefaces in order to make them fit to the particular film's I'd chosen. Due to the fact the whole type sector was relatively new to my personal practice I just didn't know where to start so for quite a while I put this brief off instead of trying to plough through it. In the end I spent a lot of time sketching typeface ideas and relating back to my visual inspiration because I knew I had to push on with the brief and didn't want this to hinder my overall module. I actually surprised myself because once I came up with ideas for typefaces the rest of the elements just seemed to come together quite easily so in future I'll definitely just encourage myself to stick at something until I feel i'm making progress. I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to drawing too so although the typefaces took me a while I feel as though it was well worth it. As well as achieving everything I said I wanted to from the beginning I also learnt a bit more about the film industry in terms of merchandise and I've realised I quite like this area so this may be something to extend within future projects. Theres so much research and so much to learn that I just find it really engaging and interesting. The overall outcomes do what they were intended to but I feel the product range could have maybe been larger in terms of the elements I found within the merchandise range. This isn't a huge worry though because the focus was on hand rendering, branding and type and not product range. 

Strengths: My hand rendering skills seem to have definitely developed. I have my own unique style when it comes to type and illustration now which is something I can continue to capitalise on throughout the rest of my practice. My persistancy not to just give up on a brief must be a strength too because I feel what I have achieved in the end has been worth it. 

Weaknesses: The product range is a weakness but I think this is more of personal thing because many of my other briefs have considerably more so I know I can achieve more. The general development of the brief isn't that consistent and comes from the typefaces mainly and this module is very heavily weighted on development so I maybe should have thought more about this. 

Coca Cola

This brief was the final one that I started and has definitely been neglected because I spent the least time on it. Despite this, I have still really enjoyed the brief and feel as though there are many positives that have come out of it. This was another brief that once the character design was done, the rest of it just seemed to fall into place because everything needed to be consistant. Due to the fact I was using an existing brand and think this is another thing that made the brief so successful because I already had certain elements given to me such as a brand colour and logo so it was just a matter of what I was going to do with this. Initially I was panicing a bit about this brief because i'd left it so long but as soon as I started designing I relaxed and really got into it. There was a lot of existing material that I had access to in terms of the brand and previous advertising campaigns so I used this to my advantage and used it for inspiration. I feel that my dissertation has helped me relate to the brand better because a lot of the research i've done is balanced so i've seen both sides of it which means I can speak to the audience properly with the designs. I've enjoyed this brief because it's allowed me to explore branding in a different way by being able to research and existing brand and it's values and also what makes a brand so successful. I feel i've got everything out of it that I originally intended to which is also very good. Initially the brief wasn't meant to be completely digital based but I feel this has been another plus because it's made me consider context more within all of my briefs and how things will work in the real world. 

Strengths: Consistant design has been a strength throughout this project because I've taken one element and applied it throughout everything in order to create a successful campaign. The ability to apply research properly to a brief is another strength because the Jean Paul Gaultier campaign definitely inspired my own. 

Weaknesses: Time management has been a definite weakness with this brief because it could have been so much more if i'd given myself more time on it. This has definitely been a lesson learnt though and will make sure I don't do it again. 



One thing to note with all of my briefs is that I didn't stick to the time management plan at all. I started off really well with this but as I got into the briefs I spent more time than anticipated on some of them. I think if it had have stuck to it the Coca-Cola brief wouldn't have been so rushed so this is something to bear in mind within the next module. 

Submission boards.

Physical products to submit: sample of foil blocking

Products to submit: prints and postcards

Products to submit: printed typefaces

These are the PDF's of the final boards for submission. I've also listed the things i'm going to submit with each project as samples of the stock i've used, how things have printed and how the colours have come out. I'm quite happy with the layout of my final boards because they are clear, ordered and explain my brief well so that for someone looking at them for the first time, they will be able to understand what each brief is about. 

Submission form.

This is the submission form to go with my work when I submit on the module deadline. 

Branded elements for submission.

These are the branded elements I created for submission with my personal logo on just to add my own touch to the submission part of the module. I have created a front page for my A2 folder and as well as this there are dividers between each project to keep the physical submitted products seperate within the folder as well as the boards. 

Bibliography.

This is my bibliography for all the brief research I've undergone during this module. 

Final written briefs.

These are my final written briefs based on the changes that have been made throughout the module. 

I've written a short evaluation of each project to state how the brief began and how it has changed.

Black and white print
This brief came from Tigerprint as a competition where they asked you to design a maximum of five repeat black and white patterns. I submitted three entries but unfortunately I didn't win. At the very beginning when I first wrote the brief I hadn't even defined the product range but just stated that the patterns would be applied to a range of products. I then re-wrote this brief and wrote a list of products I was going to design. By the end of this project I have taken a few of these products out but for justified reasons. The biggest thing I changed was that instead of competiting against Paperchase, my products would be designed for Paperchase. This didn't mean changing anything massively as such, just revisiting the product range to make sure it fits with the company. I changed storage boxes to gift boxes because gift boxes fit into the product range a lot better in terms of there being stationery products and then gift products as before it didn't really fit into either category. The great thing about this was that I didn't actually have to change anything about the box but decided it suited a different purpose better. I also got rid of postcards because I felt that consumers are more likely to go for the greetings card option with this being blank and it seems to have more quality than a postcard. Postcard also didn't really fit in with the Paperchase product range because i've never seen anything like that instore. I knew the briefs would be subject to change and I feel these changes have made the brief so much better than the original intentions, i've feel i've learnt so much more by applying these changes.

The Wind in the Willows
This brief started off as a simple bookcover because I was just basing my own brief on that of the penguin design award one. I decided to extend the original brief and create a whole promotional range of material in order to go along with this cover and make the brief more substantial. The range went from being just a bookcover to a range of promotional posters, a range of bookmarks, shelf banners/wobblers, prints, postcards and window display. This was definitely a lot better because it meant I was pushing myself more and testing a range of skills so I was certainly going to get more out of this brief. By the end of the brief the product range had changed again. These changes were quite small and were with the promotional posters, window display and banners. I realised that if I create one substantial enough design for the promoting the book then this could be used on a range of different scales to suit different purposes and if the advertising was all the same then there would be no confusion. I also changed banner to bunting because after seeing something online I felt inspired to do something completely different that would be more engaging for children. This brief has shown me how much the research can inform design decisions and inspire my personal practice. 

Illustrative type
For me, this is the brief that has developed and changed most throughout the module. Originally I was just going to design typefaces based on themes of personal interest and create prints from them of the full typeface and then write quotes with the letterforms. I was really struggling with this brief intially and I think that it was because it was so broad and didn't really have any focus at all so I kept putting it off. I then came up with the concept of basing it on the theme of film and extending the brief via proposing a company and a product range. This idea was a lot better because it made it substantial and gave me a lot more to work with as well as focus. Once I had defined the product range and theme I was away with this brief and really enjoyed it. This was the brief that had the least amount of changes in terms of the product range and all that was changed was I took away the idea of creating personalised name signs. I decided to get rid of this product because it's only specific to a section of the target market and I want to try and make the products desired by all areas. Although this product range is quite small, I don't feel that effects the brief because the focus was still, at the end, on designing three full typefaces and I feel I have achieved this considerably well. 

Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola wasn't actually one of my original ten briefs that I had written at the very beginning of the module but I brought this in after being told we had to consider how our dissertation could link to our practice. I thought it would be great to have a brief running alongside my dissertation because one would constantly be informing the other and they should both hopefully prove pretty strong. I've always been aware that Coca-Cola produce a limited edition range of bottles every year so thought this would be a great and fun project for myself and there were particular things I could also get out of doing this brief. I chose the theme of christmas because we were getting to that time of year so thought it might help me be more festive but also because there are so many possible outcomes for this so I knew I wouldn't be stuck. This is also a big time of year for the company and they always have a design for it so there would be plenty of research. The product range shrank slightly with this brief because I decided not to use the floor sticker and not create the shelf banner. The reason for doing so is because the concept of this brief is to really create and promote the bottle designs and with these two elements I felt I was designing them for the sake of extending the product range. I don't feel that they promote the product as such and spread the message so they are particular necessary. This was a good project because I got to design things I haven't before and have a real focus on the context of things and how they would exist in the real world. 

This is a copy of the original penguin brief so that you can see how i've extended it within my own. 

Coca-Cola; final products//specifications.

This is the final product range for the Coca-Cola brief. The range of products works very sucessfully together because all the elements utilize the repeat pattern that I created for the bottles intially. Due to the fact the colour is consistent too this is something else that brings everything together and makes it all look visually appealing. The great thing about utilizing the Coca-Cola red within this brief has been that once things are applied in context you see just how much they stand out against other things which is definitely a plus. 

None of this product range has been printed purposely because when I looked at the products I had created, I couldn't really print anything to a realistic standard so the context wouldn't really make sense. Instead I have put most of the elements into the context which they will exist in so you can see how a range of methods are being utilized to really promote the range. As i've not done this for many of my other projects I feel it has worked to my advantage because it shows that I really understand the context of things and can work across a range of them. 

Photoshoot 2 of final products.

Based on the crit feedback and also as I was making my boards I realised I could have done with a few more images of certain elements for each of my projects so I set up a mini studio at home to take these extra photos. The quality isn't quite as good but they still represent the work well visually. In future this has taught me that I should definitely map out my boards before I go and take photos so I know exactly what I need. This wasn't however, a massive issue because it was only a handful of photos i'd missed. 

Final crit.

The boards I took with me to the crit to get feedback on so I could then finalise them. 

This was the final crit in which I presented my 'final' boards. Although the boards were complete for all my briefs and with text too I knew I still needed some feedback because more can always be done to improve something. I also needed people that knew nothing about my projects to look at my boards to see if they spoke for themselves and told the story well enough. A lot of the feedback is really positive which is great because it means i'm getting better at creating design boards. Many people mentioned having things in context so this is definitely something i'm going to alter within some of my boards because I haven't done this at all. People also gave me a few ideas of other elements to place on the boards in order to enhance certain things such as, the typefaces - make one letter larger to see the detail better. I put out a few physical products at this crit but most of them have been made for the purpose of photographs so in a way I wish they had all been made to be submitted as people seemed really keen to see them based on the photographs they'd seen. All in all a great crit and now I need to go make a few changes to boards. 

This is my action plan of things to do before I print my boards and also leading up to the submission. All these things are based on crit feedback. 

I realised I've not really defined my target audiences on my blog yet, they've always been in my head when i've been designing things and right from the very beginning of my briefs so here they are. 

Target audiences:

Black and white print 

Stationery: females aged 16 - 30

Gift range: 16 - 45

The reason for this decision is because I feel that Paperchase targets the 'younger' generation in the style of it's products and the fact it's quite a modern company. There are two seperate target audiences because only females are likely to buy the stationery range (with only the exception of males possibly buying them for gifts) and both male and female will purchase the gift range because it's not for them but to pass onto someone else. The target audience for the gift range is also slightly larger because they would definitely be buying these products for someone else and may go to Paperchase for the quality and design to suit a younger age range. I think when you get past a certain age you tend to go more for affordability too and Paperchase tends to be more so expensive hense this very defined audience. 

The Wind in the Willows

Parents and children aged 11 - 15

The reason for this decision is because the original brief states that the bookcover not only has to appeal to children but also to the parents so the parents may buy the book for their child. I went for this particular age range because I feel it's best suited to the type of story and the content of the story. When a child becomes 16 they tend to be reading more mature books about fictional human characters and not animals but when children are 10 penguin books may be a little too mature for them. 

Illustrative type

Male and females interested in film

The reason for this decision is because you can't really apply a specific age range to films, although they have a particular target audience induvidually I can't list off all of these target audiences because the point of a target audience is to focus. This target audience is to be applied to the company as a whole but when I am designing each induvidual typeface they will obviously have their own specific audience that I will be designing to, to suit so this will always be in the back of my mind. 

Coca-Cola 

Supermarket shoppers

This is another brief that can't really be specified by age because the target market of Coca-Cola as a company is anyone and everyone really. I therefor chose a target audience based on where I feel the majority of the sales would be made and also based on research i've done where I've found the current Jean Paul Gaultier bottles in supermarkets. This is also the best way to target a broad range of people because everyone needs to go to the supermarket. I did consider having the bottles in shops such as Harvey Nichols because they are limited edition but this means that only specific people will buy them and this isn't the concept of the brief nor the technique of the company. 

Photoshoot of final products.

Myself and a group of friends hired out one of the photography studios and some lighting after having the workshop and being shown how to use all of this equipment. These are the photos I took of all the final products I created. I took multiple shots and moved things around in order to give me a lot of choice when it came to creating my boards because there was a higher chance i'd like at least one of the photographs! I shot with a single continuous light. 

Stock testing.

When I printed this first test I realised that the tree design could be seen through the type on the spine which isn't supposed to happen and also that on one of the final pieces the tree design colours came out a lot stronger even though the exact same files had been used to create both pieces. This showed me the importance of constantly printing things out in order to see if the design is how I would like it to be. These are both things I will go back and alter in the actual files. 

The first test print of the tree postcard also showed me something that I had not noticed on screen. The tree can't actually be seen on the print on the left so I needed to go back in illustrator and alter the opacity of the tree and possibly also bring this to the front or forward. When I made these changes and printed it again, as seen on the right, the design looked a lot better because I still wanted the tree to be faint but you can actually see it on this print out where as before you couldn't. 

I also made the changes on the rest of the products in the whole range so that everything was definitely going to print out the same and then printed out another example of the postcard in order to see if the changes I made to the tree worked across the products with more imagery in well enough too. 

To rectify the problem I had with the tree image coming out clearer on one of the final products I decided to take the opacity down on this piece only and this seems to have worked although I don't have a photographic example at this point. 

Watercolour and gloss

I wanted to choose stock for this brief that would give a high quality finish because not only are bookcovers usually on high quality stock to enhance design but the rest of the products are limited edition so they need to have a really sophisticated, well considered finish. I thought both watercolour and gloss would be perfect for this because watercolour has a high quality texture to it and because my designs have a watercolour effect, this fits in really well and gloss/varnish tends to be applied to a lot of book covers to give them a high quality finish but probably considerably more low cost. Although both of these stocks made the colours really stand out and give a high class finish I definitely think I prefer the watercolour in terms of the enhancing factor of the designs but I know this isn't practical for the bookcover because I've never known a bookcover to be printed on this stock. This is not to say that it can't be used for the other products though because everything will still link together in terms of colour and design. The gloss is really effective but I think if I were to go with the watercolour for other products and gloss for the bookcover the two wouldn't link 

together as well. 

This has helped me make the decision that the bookcover will be printed on matt white stock  (as traditionally seen through bookcovers) and the rest of the products on watercolour card. 

When it came to stock testing for the illustrative type brief my printer decided it had, had enough and was printing out a blue background on everything as seen above where there should be white space. This just showed me that you had to be prepared for problems such as this and it was always good to be ahead of schedule incase this happened, which luckily I was! I spent a while trying to resolve the issue and eventually I did. 

Cartridge paper, white card, medium silky paper. 

I went for a range of completely different stocks to test this brief on because there wasn't really a particular constraint I was working to as a lot of the products were prints that were to be printed onto stock. I chose cartridge paper for it's cheap cost yet interesting texture, white card simply for durability and cleanliness because this wouldn't interfere with the colour of the designs and a medium silky paper because the texture was really nice to the touch and also would not interfere with the colour of the designs. All of the considerations were to do with the fact these products are going to be interacted with and need to be visually high quality. 

Cartridge paper is most successful I think because although it's a slightly off white colour, it doesn't effect the colours and the texture of it is both visually interesting and nice to the touch. It's also a very afforable stock and for a company starting out I think this is something that would definitely need to be considered. Cartridge paper will work also work well across all the print products because its durable and isn't too thick to be framed if the consumer chose to do this with the product. 

White card, catridge paper, bulky newsprint, gloss. 

I didn't feel it necessary to actually print the black and white design onto the products because obviously the colour isn't going to change based on the stock it's printed on to and because it's black and white it's very likely that it will already work on a range of stock, it just depends what sort of finish i'm looking for and if i'm applying any actual print finishes to the designs. The majority of the products also need to be very durable because they are to be used numerous times so this is definitely something to consider with stock choice. At this point i've already decided that i'd like to foil block my floral design on some of the products so this rules out the gloss finish/stock because the foil blocking won't really have any impact at all and will blend into this. I could use gloss for the products I'm choosing to not foil block but then the range won't work together as well so it doesn't seem apropriate. Cartridge paper and bulky newsprint don't seem to have enough durability that I mentioned previously which is something that a lot of the products need. The only way these would work is if I used two layers and put these together but then at industry standard this wouldn't be practical or possible really. 

The white card is definitely be the best option not only because of the fact it's clean white so best represents the 'black and white' status of the brief but also because it's very durable and this is something that the consumer will be looking for when purchasing products. This also makes the products really afforable and simple to produce because theres a uniform asthetic. 

Some of the products that would be covered with the design would be covered with a medium white stock with the same texture as the white card eg. the ring binder. 

Coca-Cola; floor sticker.

This floor sticker would be placed within supermarkets and possibly even multiples in order to guide the consumer to the location of the Coca-Cola. I didn't really experiment with this much because there are only so many ways you can have the imagery within a shape and I didn't want the characters to look as though they were floating. I've gone for the circle shape because Coca-Cola are known for having their logo like this at one point. I feel if I applied the repeat pattern to this consumers would spend too much time stopping and looking at the floor and this isn't what anyone wants in the supermarket. Going for simplicity in this design also means that consumers may be more inclined to go look as this doesn't entirely give away the whole design. 

Coca-Cola; online advertising.

Due to the fact online banners take up a small amount of the space, there wasn't much that can be done with this layout so I went for a really simple idea of using the repeat pattern backgrounds I had created for the bottle design and applying this to the banners. I feel that by simply having the logo on there and the imagery it's enough because consumers know that if they click on something like this then it will take them out to a website and in this case, the Coca-Cola site, featuring these limited edition bottles. These could be applied to sites such a youtube and apps such as spotify but realistically any site that realies heavily on advertising can take these on. The banners would be static because I feel that the imagery has a big enough impact in terms of colour so will capture the audiences attention. 

Coca-Cola; billboard.

The billboard design is also simple because it follows the same layout as the magazine ad and the busstop poster so that they all link together. It's great to see that the design also works landscape as well as portrait. It shows that it has been well considered and that simplicity is sometimes most effective. As with the magazine ad, all bottle designs would be utilized in the advertising in order to make the most of them. 

Coca-Cola; magazine ad.

The magazine ad was really simple because I wanted to use the same concept as with the busstop poster but I only needed to add a line about the copyright to the company. The design on the left definitely works better because on the right the line of copyright gets too lost in the website address. If this were to be printed in magazines all four designs for the bottle posters would be utilized but I just used the collective shot here as an example. 

Coca-Cola; bus stop posters.

I didn't really know where to start with the busstop poster design. In previous projects i've always began with a white background and laid everything out and then kept the background white. I didn't want that the happen with this project as I wanted to experiment more and do something i've not done before. 

This time I began with the background experimentation and because i've enjoyed using textures is on of my other briefs I explored that. Initially I used an icey texture because I know existing coke adverts tend to use ice cubes within them. The blue however, wasn't really working with the colours used in the bottle design so then I went for something completely different and tried a snow texture. The snow texture links in quite well because the theme is christmas but I don't want the background to stand out too much because the bottle need to be the main focus so i've applied opacity to this in order to knock it back a bit. I still wasn't completely satisfied and didn't like anything i'd experimented with so I decided to move on to the layout and come back to this. 

I started with the three bottles because I thought once I had a general layout for these, the rest should be pretty simple as they all need to link together. I found an existing advert in a magazine so had this whilst desining these posters for inspiration. My natural instinct would have been to centralise everything without this ad for inspiration. I want the logo to be big enough to be seen and recognised but not so much that it overpowers the bottle design. This general style of layout i've gone for works quite well because theres balance with having the logo at one side and the bottles at the other. 

As well as experimenting with further layouts I then thought could I bring the tag design into the equation because you can't actually see the back of the bottles but this is part of it. This would really emphasise the whole christmas concept too. No matter where I placed this tag it just didn't look right, I even tried to make it different sizes in order for it to fit in but this wasn't working so I just decided to scrap the idea. 

However, I could bring emphasis on the christmas idea via the Coca Cola logo in creating my own christmas version of it very simply. Christmas is very highly linked to this brand now so simply by having 'Coca Cola christmas' it speaks for itself. I've used a font called Zapfino for the 'christmas' and amazingly it fits really well with the original logo so can be seen as entirely new logo. I definitely think having the christmas in red works better too because it makes it seem like one rather than two seperate things. 

Once I came up with an idea for the layout I went back into researching background ideas. I found this background on google images and thought it was perfect because it link in nicely with the background of the actual bottle designs. 

When I applied it to the background I took down the opacity in order to knock it back a little bit but just enough so you could still slightly see the snowflakes. The fact the background was already red was also great because this compliments the bottle design brilliantly. I then needed to consider adding in the website that people could visit and how this would work with the rest of the design. It doesn't need to be particular large because people will look at it as an option as long as they see the main product. 

Having it here doesn't really work because it seems to be quite hidden. 

I finally came up with this design on the right that i'm pretty pleased with because its simplistic but it communicates and delivers. I'm still not completely satisfied with it though because there looks to be something missing. 

I took one of the single bottles and played around with the layout of this. Due to the fact it's a single bottle the design differs slightly from the design of three bottles. Although I came up with a few possibilities, I feel having the front and the back on the ad is really important because the back is just as well designed and considered as the front. It also utilizes the space within the advert. Larger bottles also work in this sense but I feel if I keep them the same size as on the first advert, everything will link together better. I also came up with the idea of placing the repeat pattern as a strip down the side of the ad. This looks great and just adds that little thing I thought was missing before. It makes the background look less washed out with a hint of boldness in it. 

I then applied the same layout and style to each of the posters and feel the result is really strong! They work great together as a set and will also work really well when they are not together because each speaks for itself. Although I initially felt quite stuck, i'm really pleased with the result because the designs look unique and different to others i've seen from the company and they are all about keeping things fresh.