OUGD203 Evaluation

1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

In this brief I really learnt the value of working collaboratively, I think we both brought different skills to the project, Amy was very good at coming up with ideas and the bigger concepts behind the project and I feel I was more interested in the technical side of the project. It was really good to have someone to bounce ideas off and someone who understood the project to make all the decisions with.

I did a lot of things in this project that I hadn’t really done before such as using the lighting studious, and setting up and adjusting the flashes with little help from the college staff, I think this worked out really successfully and the photos came out way better than I could have expected. I feel I would definitely be more confident using the lighting studios again in the future.

I also used the vac former for the first time in this project which turned out to be quite a complicated process due to the fact we had to make, then lacquer the former, then use the vac former itself and then cut our final bubble shape out of the plastic. Amy was mainly to thank for taking the time to get the bubble finished and although it was quite a long drawn out process I feel I learnt a lot from it.

Another thing I hadn’t really done before was using the lighting tents to take product shots of our final pieces, this gave us much more professional looking photos for our boards and I learnt a lot about shooting camera RAW files from talking to the guys down in the photography department which was really useful.


2. What approaches to generating work and solutions to problems have you developed and how have they helped?

I really enjoyed using photography during this project it gave us a lot of visual material to work with and we were able to consider a lot of different ideas quickly. I also found mocking up my ideas really useful as a tool to work through and choose the best solutions.

We discussed the project a lot and it was really good to have someone to bounce ideas off, I think this helped us come up with some strong concepts.


3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

I am really happy overall with how our project turned out. I think the packaging looks beautiful and really professional, and I am pleased with how well the typography worked out. I think the bubble photos worked great.

Both of us worked really hard and we and we weren’t afraid of trying new things, I will take this attitude into future projects.

I also think we managed to be quite decisive and we didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about what direction to take the project in and which ideas to use and which ideas to discard. I think this is a really positive way of working and something I will take forward into future projects.


4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how could you exploit these more fully?

I wasn’t entirely happy with our final boards I think they could have been a bit stronger, if we where to do it again I would have allowed a bit more time to get them right.

In terms of quantity of work I think there where people on the course that did a lot more than us, but really it is the quality that matters. Maybe we could have spent a bit more time at the beginning considering a few different concepts and a few more alternative ideas for our packaging.

6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas:

5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor

Attendance - 4
Punctuality - 5
Motivation- 4
Commitment - 4
Quantity of work produced - 3
Quality of work produced - 5
Contribution to the group - 4

Final YCN Boards

These are the final boards Amy and I did for the O2 YCN brief

Final YCN O2 Animated Identity

Animation Test Pieces

As part of our O2 brief we decided to do an animation that would appear on the O2 website and instore on screens as a point of sale. Here are a few test pieces.


This was my first test piece experimenting with an idea similar to the channel four idents. I was pretty happy with how it turned out.



Similar idea behind this one using a slightly different camera angle and movement, the "connected" type is only readable for a few moments as the object rotates.



More of a 2 dimensional idea. I like the idea and want it to work but I don't think it is effective as the 3D test pieces.



Another 2D piece again I'm not as keen on this as the 3D test pieces but with a bit more developement I might be able to get it to work better.

Vac Forming

So after a lot of messing about we finally got our vac formed bubble finnished.

First we had to create a half sphere former on the lathe.

Once we made our former we took it through to the jewelry making room to use the vac former. Unfortunately the grain of the wood meant that the transparent plastic went slightly mat when we formed the bubble. So we had to lacquer the former which ended up taking a few days because John the guy from woodwork who was helping us was busy.

Once we had lacquered the former the bubble came out perfectly, with a clear, shiny finnish. Because we used fairly thick plastic to make the bubble we had to cut it out with a Dremel which again took ages. Amy did a brilliant job waiting around in the jewelry making room to get it done.

Our bubble finished inside of the box.

We're Better Connected

I made a mock up today to see how the "connect" type would work between the box and the slip case.

Mobile pnone box.
Slip case.


Overall it worked really well, the type lined up pretty easily and the word is legible. I made the slip case a bit small and on the final piece I would like to make the inside of the slip-case black.

CONNECTED

This was another idea for the type on the front of the box. It is really just a natural progression from the other connected that I thought about before. I wanted to experiment with using colour in the typography on the top of the box, so I created some swatches from the colours in the photographs of bubbles that we took in the lighting studio. Instead of slicing up the word connected into 2 layers I sliced it into four and set each layer in a different colour from the bubbles. The type could still work on the two layers of the mobile phone box and its slip case because I would put two colours on each. 

The four separate slices of the word connected all in a different colour.

The two layers of connected that would actually be printed on the slip case and the mobile phone box, the top one would be printed on the slip case and the bottom one on the box. Obviously the slip case would be die cut to let the layer below show through.

All four layers combined to create the word "connected". 

I quite like it when the layers don't line up perfectly (CLICK TO VIEW LARGER), it creates a really interesting effect, also as the layers move into position or are moved away from each other so the word is illegible they look really colourful and interesting, this could be easily animated.

Research/Things I've Been Looking At

Here is some research from The Packaging and Design Templates Sourcebook by Luke Herriott

This is a business card design by Sagmeister for Anni Kuan. It is similar to my idea for the word "connect" on our box. I'd like to point out I came up with the connect idea before I saw this!

Greetings card designed by Octavius Murray

These cards, designed as a self promotion project for Iris Associates, could have been an interesting idea relating to 02's "we're better connected" slogan.

Greetings card designed by Kysen Communications Group.

Below is some research from Packaging Design Now!
Packaging design for Selfridges by R Design. They are very simple but I love the bold typography and the way the use of colour clearly and simply differentiates between different products in a range.

Packaging for Dragon Fly Tea designed by Pentagram. I am very interested in the way the packages work together or "connects" when they are stacked.

Box designed by Sayuri Studio.

More Mock ups

So today we decided on a size and shape of box to use, we are going to base our box on a net used for a current Sony Ericsson phone. We measured up the net and the I built it on Illustrator which was surprisingly easy. We had a crit. at 1 so i quickly put some of our bubble images on to the net so we could better explain what we where planning to do.


I accidentally put the image on the top of the box on the wrong way round.


Also I left all the surfaces which were going to fold away white, I realised that this didn't work very well as even when the box was all folded together a lot of the white was still visible.


After the crit. we had a few new ideas and me and Amy set about laying out a much better net. we got all the images the right way round this time. We also researched all the information that appears on the outside of the box and made sure we fitted it in on the layout.


75% scale net.



Unfortunately the ink from the laser jet printer is not that strong and a lot of it came off when we folded and assembled the box. However it gives you a good idea of what we are going for and I am pretty happy with it.

We haven't done the slip case and we are still working on the "we're better connected" type and how the type on the slipcase and box interact. Also because we are vac forming a plastic bubble for the phone to go inside of on Friday we still may have to change the dimensions of the box slightly so the bubble will fit inside it correctly.

Boxes

I've been coming up with some ideas for the 02 packaging.

Each box is exactly the same with 'we're better connected' printed across all four sides. When they are stacked it appears across all for boxes.



This is an idea for a slip case for a box. The bottom layer would be printed on the box, the top layer would be printed on the slip case, with holes cut in the slip case allowing the bottom layer to show through. When the two layers are combined it creates the word connected.

Collaborative Brief

Me and Amy chose to do the 02 brief of "bringing to life the idea that we're better connected". Our plan is to re-deasign the packaging for the 02 mobile phones so that the boxes interlock or connect in some way to communicate the idea that we are better connected.

We were also thinking of ideas to go on the outside of the box. And to put a new twist on 02's current image that involves bubbles we thought of using a photograph of 2 people blowing bubble gum bubbles towards each other so they touch or connect. Again to communicate the idea that we are better connected. Because there were only 2 of us in the lighting studion we didn't have enough hands to push the shutter while both of us blew bubbles I had to photoshop the image below, but it gives you an idea of how the idea would work. If we decide to take this idea further we would obviously shoot it properly with lots of different people.

Bubbles

While we were in the lighting studio we wanted to consider some other ideas for the outside of the box. We were shooting photos of bubbles, we decided to shoot them on a black background so that it would give a slightly different twist on 02's current blue bubbles. We took over 400 images, above are 80 of the best.





One of our ideas was to use the spectrum of colours that appear in the bubbles as a colour scheme for our packaging. In the brief 02 said they want to keep things simple positive and fresh "As a brand we aim to be warm and optimistic. Like a breath of fresh air", I think the colours and images that you get from the bubbles would communicate this quite well. And we could use the interconnecting way the packaging is designed to communicate the idea that we are better connected.





Another of our ideas was to use an image of a bubble touching a hand to communicate the idea we are better connected.



The very millisecond that the bubble burst.