Nathan BoltonBAGD_05

FedrigoniFeel Good Drinks Co.

Its Nice ThatUK GreetingsEllas Kitchen

Secret 7”HellfireMilkup

Spins & SnipsWedding InvitationModule Evaluation

Fedrigoni

_01a _Fedrigoni

Fedrigoni - YCN The Fedrigoni stock finder presents the paper ranges in a way that makes the printers interact with the stock. The main focus is being able to touch, see and feel the stock. Through using the stock finder, printers can identify which stock is best to use and read the specification of one. In order to bring the paper ranges to life within the stock finder, paper craft has been heavily used throughout. This presents the interaction of the papers with one another and is a good way to identify which stock to use together.

Stock Finder PublicationPackagingPoster

I chose this brief as my main brief for the module because I am very interested in stock and format. I knew that this brief would let me explore the use of stock and how to exeperiment with it through the means of format.

Throughout the brief I had many different ideas in how I could tackle it and it kept evolving the more I thought about it and developed it, but really it came down to what was necessary to answer the brief. This came from one of the crits near the end of the brief, as everyone in my crit thought what I was doing answered the brief - the publication, but i was proposing to do a set of posters and maybe an instalation. Looking back on this I think having done them that everything within the brief would have been much weaker, having this one product which i then created packaging and one promotional poster for, made it a strong brief.

The main element throughout the brief that I wanted to explore and use was paper craft, I felt as though I wanted to get away from the computer and designing digitally and do something more hands on and in my eyes creative, this allowed me to do this and the use of paper craft throughout the product has worked really well with the context of the brief and how it works with the stock. The images across show some of the ways paper craft has been used in the project.

The final area that i wanted to explore was format, I believed that this would be a strong brief to look at the format and use it to my advantage. I think the publication has worked really well, it shows the stock and makes it very interactive for the users, but this is down to the format of the pubication. It took a while to get my head around how the pages would work and where to place the text on each page within the document to print it correct, but this was all within the planning of the publication. After doing many mock ups and trying it out on test publications, i got the layout of the publication to work on each different shaped page.

This brief was very hands on and involved print throughout, this was great for me as it was in the direction that i could see myself working in my own practice. It gave me an insight into the areas of design that i was really interested in.

I felt as thought it did go on for quite a while, i know this first brief was meant to be linger because we were using it as part of the sessions, but i did feel that i could of done the same work and have the same standard of work in a much shorter time scale. For me this is a good thing, i have realised that i can work well under a limited time and work better with the knowledge of a deadline that is alot sooner.

Within this brief i felt as though i have developed the ideas well and continuely gone back to drawing out ideas and working out how things will work, especially with the publication - but this was nessecary as it developed the ideas further and created a better outcome. When i initially started to design in the project i had a lot of ideas floating around, so i digitalised them all and got them to a point where i could see what they were and how they could work, through doing this i have made them into products which work well in the set of outcomes and make the project broader and work over a set of products. The poster at the bottom was initially a digitial print poster, but when i was doing the publication and using the paper craft element, I came up with the way in which it could be taken over to the poster and make to make that more interactive like the publication. The dust cover in the packaging was another poster design which was for the promotion of the publication, but after doing the paper craft poster there was no need for it, so i made use of the design within the packaging, which i think works well and makes the packaging more up market and something that looks like it is there to be kept and used.

The final thing that i learnt form this brief was about stock. I was initially planning on using the fedrigoni papers throughout the publication. I set off for multiple samples of different papers so that i had a range to use throughout the publication, but then when i came to printing the publication and using the stock i didnt think about checking that it could be used with the inkjet printers. It turned out that only a small range of the papers could be used in the inkjet printers, so in the end i had to use different stock from the library and propse that it would be printed onto the Fedrigoni Papers. This taught me that i needed to look into everything first before planning on using a particular stock. In future if i use stock from outside of the college, i will definatly make sure that i check in the print room that it can be used.

_Fedrigoni _01b

Feel GoodDrinks Co.

Feel Good Drinks co. - YCNThe idea behind this is to change the style of Feel Good bottle labels, I wanted to create a more modern approach, but something that was in keeping with the brand ethics. They pride themselves on using 100% natural ingredients, so I wanted the focus of the bottle to be the ingredients, hence why the label is printed on the bottle, this enabled me to use the colour of the juice as the colour within the labels.

Bottle labelBottle neck label

_02a _Feel Good Drinks Co.

This was the final YCN brief that i decided to do, i wanted to do this brief because i felt that i had done alot of breifs which were quick turn around ones and not spent that much time on them. This i thought i could take a week to do and get a good concept to run through it all. I also wanted to do more bottle designs as i really enjoyed the Hellfire brief that i did earlier in the module.

For me the most important part of this brief was the concept and getting it work across all the products that Feel Good have. I wanted to update the design of the products and make them stand off the shelf within the stores. At the time that i took this brief on, we were doing the creative partners brief and i was focussing on that more than this, so i didnt get it finished in time for the submission date, which was a shame because i have really enjoyed doing this brief and i think that the concept and design for it is really strong and i thought it could of done well within the competition, but managing my time i wanted to concentrate on the partner brief as i couldnt let Greg down on that brief.

The idea behind the brief was to strip back the design of the bottle label, i wanted to get rid of the label and print direct onto the bottle, this would modernise the design of the bottle and make it look more aesthically pleasing, i also think it makes it seem a more expensive drink. The main reason for getting rid of the label was to work with the concept - Feel Good pride themselves in using 100% natural ingrients and no added sugar throughout the whole range of drinks, so i wanted to put these natural ingriends on show and let the vibrant colours of the fruits used shine through and be the main colour to the drinks. The label works by using the drink colour to add colour to the design, this is done by using blending modes and outlined illustrations. Again i used the improved illustrations skills to create the illustrations of the fruits for rach drink to show what was in

them and the flavour of the drink. For me the main part of the bottle design was to get the hierarchy of the information correct, it was important that the main information stood out and that everything was read in the right order to know all the needed information. I stripped back the information to what was key to know when you first see the bottle on the shelf. This was then arranged into the hierarchy within the design, the font size and colour density changes as you go down the label.

Whilst making the design print direct onto the bottle to work with the concept and make the ingredients stand out, this was a problem for the back of the bottle, as there would be too much information for it to be readable. So i decided to make that information into seoerate label which would be attached to the neck of the bottle. This had two effects to the bottle, the first it again makes it seem like a more expensive juice drink as you see the more expensive brands use the seperate labels within their products and secondly by not having the information on the back of the bottle it leaves more bottle space free for the the user to see the drink and see the ingredients - working the concept better.

The label design was fun and creative, i came up with the idea straight away and after looking at different ones i kept the initial design because i thought it would work the best, getting the label size right was the hardest, it need to be inproportion with the bottle size but not too small that all the information couldnt fit on.

All these decisions and contraints to the brief made it more interesting for me to work on and gave me as a designer more design decisions to look at. This was definatly a brief which i enjoyed to work on because of this, it wasnt so straight forward and took some time to develop the ideas to make them work to best.

I liked working with the type on the bottles, it has been a while since

working just with type, but i did enjoy it and it make me think about the hierarchy of type and how to effectively design the bottle so that you could see everything whilst being sat on the shop shelves.

Another decision that i made was to keep the Feel Good type for the juice name, i thought this was important because it was unique to them as a brand, when i think about the brand i always think about the fun type, its not just a generic typeface, it makes it more personal to the brand and different to others they compete with. I think keeping that type and working with it within the design was the best option.

I really like the final design of the bottles and i think it works well across the full range of products. I have really enjoyed working on this brief.

Mainly i have learnt about making the right design decisions and trying things out before jumping into one thing straight away. Also mocking the designs up onto the bottles was a big part of this project, finding the bottles to do this on was hard and it took alot of editing to get to a usable state, but from doing that i have learnt many techniques I can take through to new projects about mocking products up.

Overall i really do think i have done this brief justice, i wish i had done it as my main brief and definatly wish i had it finished for the competition submission because I think this is one of the strongest briefs from the whole module.

_Feel Good Drinks Co. _02b

Its Nice ThatIphone App

Its Nice That - D&ADWith a rise of mobile technology and most of todays students having a smart phone the idea behind this brief was to create an app, which had the content of Its Nice That’s website to make a accessible app for all student to be able to search and browse to find inspiration for their own creative practice.

_03a _Its Nice That

I decided to do this brief last and over the easter holidays because when i was looking through the module briefs i had untaken, i realised that everything i had done was print based and i felt that i should have something which is digital. I had looked at this brief at the beginning when the briefs were first released and thought it would be a good one to do, me and Greg also looked at this brief for the partner brief, but we thought it wouldnt be sufficient for a two man brief. I thought that it wouldnt take too long to complete the brief in the way i wanted to which was to do a app. So i decided to set a day aside and do this within the day, which i did and proved myself right about the length of the brief.

I have found doing these briefs that i can respond to them in a short period of time if i sit down and devote a set amount of solid working time to them. This bodes well for briefs in the future as i have learnt how i work the best, so instead of trying to split my day down to do numerous briefs in one day, i now know that devoting a day to one certain brief will work better for me ad that way I should be able to get sufficient amounts of work done on a different briefs at one time.

The idea for this brief was simple and easy to think of. Its Nice That wanted to re launch themselves for the new intake of creative students this year and wanted a way in which they can do this. The most obvious, especially for a blog based website, is to create an app. All students today have a phone in which can support apps and the majority will be iPhones, so i believe this is the best way to relaunch and get a better student audience. Personally i prefer to browse and search for things looking through an app apposed to a website, especially on an iphone or ipad, it think its more interactive and the look and feel of the app is much better and easier to navigate around and find what you need.

For the app i was going to design, this was the basis to creating it. Making something simple and easy to navigate around, but at the same time look and feel aesthically pleasing so the target audience will use it.

The inspiration for the way in which the app would look when searching for things was taken from alot of design blogs, such as designspiration, pinterest etc where all the images are displayed together at once and fit within a block but arent all aligned all the time. I like the look of this and from using these types of websites i find it really easy to use and a good way to find alot of work for inspiration.

The app breaks down the main parts of the Its Nice That website and makes it an easier way to search the website through the app. Everything i have used within the app has come from the website, so it is all relavant.

I have touched on designing an app before in previous briefs and found it really interesting to do. I like that you have to work to certain sizes and are constrained by certain elements within the design, but because it is an app and digital you can propose and show so much more things that the app could do and work. I really enjoyed working on this brief and it has improved my knowledge and thinking of working with apps. I think I have a better understanding of the use and how to navigate around the design of an app. Also from the design point of view, i have learnt much more about what needs to be present within the design for it to work to the best of its ability and be something that if it was made would actually use.

_Its Nice That _03b

UK Greetings

UK Greetings - YCN For the love of writing is a range of greetings card which focuses on the user writing a message to a loved one. There are two packs of cards - male and female, each are based around general hobbies / activites that the gender would enjoy, this was a way to create the illustrations for the cards. I have extended the project further by creating a range of stationery using the illustrations.

Range logoGreeting cardsStationery

_04a _UK Greetings

The Greetings Card brief was the second YCN brief that i decided to do. I wanted to use the YCN briefs as the bigger briefs for me to tackle, as i felt that the majoroity of these briefs lent themselves to be easily extended into a range of products to the briefs easily grew into something much bigger than they were initially wanting and asking for in the brief.

I decided to take on this brief becuase i wanted to focus on a whole brief being illustration based. After the success of using illustration in the collaborative brief i wanted to carry on using it and developing my illutration skills more by doing this brief in this style. Also it seemed like something that was fairly straight forward, so it wouldn’t have a long turn around but still be fairly large as whole project. The format of the cards attracted me to the brief too, i havn’t really worked on this kind of design / small format that much so experiementing with it would be good to work with.

The idea behind these cards was to use simple illustrations to make them bold and stand out. I think i have used a good range of colour pallettes, that work for both the female and male genders. The illustrations for each cards are generic hobbies / things the majority of the genders do. I know that this is generalising each gender but I thought this was the most appropriate way to design the cards for both sexes.

This project was really straight forward in the design aspect, once i had come up with the concept and idea for the range of cards it was just down to the illustrations. It became quite tedious designing the cards as i had decided to do five for each set, resulting in 10 cards. Apart form that I enjoyed doing the project.

This project was again a good way in which i could work on my illustration skills, I thought it was appropriate to get them to a similar standar as the other areas of my design work, which i feel doing this has helped. I am one for doing simple ilustrations and for the type of work that i do and use illutrations for this style works well for me. I am happy that i decided to do this project, the designing of it has been different to something I would normally do and its a different design approach that i worked on.

I decided to submit the cards to the YCN competition because i had it finished it time, so for the presentations boards i wanted to have them photographed as i thought this would look better on the boards. As the print room was booked up, i had to print them in the studio, i used stock from the library, but the print quality wasnt the best and i think the outcome of that has let the project down. The colours on the cards, haven’t come out as vibrant as i hoped and some of the illustrations went funny on the blending mode when it was printed, but to photograph and show them in context, they were okay.

We had some photography lessons in the studios whilst i was designing this project and i realised that the photography of them would be really important, but again as it came down to the studio space not being available for when the competition needed to be handed in by i couldnt use the studio space. Instead i used a photography tent and made the best i could from the photos. Admitably they aren’t the best photos, but i edited them as good as i could for the submission. In future i am definatly going to make sure i can get down into the photography studio to photgraph my work as the result is so much better and it makes the work look alot better as a final outcome. Its a shame we dont have anything up in our studioes.

As far as extending the brief, i thought it was appropriate to design a range of stationery, this fits in with the theme of greeting cards and the illustrations lend themselves well to stationery. I have mocked up the staionery by using simple illustrations to show how they would look. This is another element in which i have improved upon thoroughout this module; mocking designs up onto products through images etc. From talking to people throughout our year, i have learnt new techniques and tools to use in various programs to get the best result for mocking up work. In this case illustrating the products worked fine and keeps the style of the project running through.

_UK Greetings _04b

Ellas Kitchen

Ellas Kitchen - YCN The creatives partner brief that I worked on with Greg. I worked on the publication for the projection which I have shown here. The purpose of the publication was to tell the story of the brand. I split this down into three areas and used a different publication bind to show this and make it more interesting. Within this project I also created the characters.

Story of the brand publicationCharacter design

_05a _Ellas Kitchen

This was the collaborative brief that i decided to do with Greg. We chose this brief together because we thought it had the opportunity to be something that we could create something different and have a wide range of products. This is what we set out to do, but we soon realised that the time scale we had on this brief was pretty short and we didnt have the time we wanted to spend on it and get all the products done that we initially set out for.

We planned on doing two seperate outcomes - one each that played to our own strengths and then to come back together and produce the third which was going to be a welcome kit. We managed to get the two intial products done, but i would of liked to of done the third one, i think this would have made the project a lot stronger and bring the other two products together to make more of a set in which would be proposed to the brand as a whole set of products to run as a body of products.

The two main products which we did create was the publication and website. I concentrated on the publication as this is my strongest area of design, whilst Greg looked at the web, which is something that he is interested in and much better at that element than me. I found that working in a pair was good in this sense because we could spread the work between us both and it can work to our advantage in that we are both better in different areas.

At the start we decided to both go away and come up with a concept which would work across the two platforms, we had a few meetings to discuss these ideas which we decided on using the concept that i came up with, this invloved creating characters which would be used throughout the products, as Greg wasnt interested in illustration or felt it was for him, I ended up doing this. At the beginning i wasnt too sure about doing this as i didnt feel that my illustration skills were the best, but after taking time over doing them and concetrating on getting them right, i was pleased with the outcome of them

and when i showed them to Greg he was happy with them too. This urged me on to do more illustrations for the brief and I ended up doing the illustrations for both the publication and the web element. This did give me alot more work to do and I did feel that maybe the work load wasnt shared out as evenly as it could, but in the end it was vital that these illustrations were apart of the project because they made the style of the work and made it all fit in with the style of Ellas Kitchen.

This brief was good for me because i have tried out new areas of design and realised that if i take the time over it, i can produce work in that area which is still strong, now i spent the time improving my illustration skills, i feel much more confident in using it in future projects and it can be something to work on to make my work different and both stronger at the same time.

The publication in which i designed was focussed on the format and how the user would interact with it. The binding technique of it was the main feature and the way in which made it more interactive for the user. The publication split the company down into 3 main areas. The two biggest areas were displayed in the main publication, which once came to the middle the other half flipped, so that this publication could be read from either side, making it easier for the user. The middle publication held all the information about the products which was in a tab form, this again was to make it easier to find each product range, the format of this came down to working with the binding technique. The binding technique made the publication need no string or staples to hold it togther, the card insert goes through the middle of the publication and the smaller publication slides inside the loop that is created, this acts a stopper and keeps the insert held in place to hold the publication together. With the insert i exteneded it to fold over the front cover, so i could then use this as the contents for the publication.

I feel that the format of the publication

makes it alot stronger, the design within it is very consistent throughout and is still in keeping with the style of Ellas Kitchen.

Working with Greg has been a good experience, I feel as though we have worked together well and most of the time we were working along side each other so we could discuss things with each other, but towards the end of the project I did feel as though the communication between us both was lost a little. I would of liked to know more about the website and the things he was including in it, as I could of thought of different things to include or ways to display it. Maybe that was something that we could of improved as a group, we worked on our own element of the project on our own and didn’t really have any say in each other product, but there again if we did it together it would have been very time efficient, the balance probably just needed to be abit better. The one thing I was disappointed with was, we decided that Greg would do the presentation boards for the submission, which I was happy with, but I didn’t really have any say in them and I didn’t get to see them before they were submitted. I think it would have been better to both agree what was to be displayed on them and then for Greg to go away and design them to submit them. It was just abit unnerving not knowing what was submitted to the competition.

I do think that the project as a whole has come out with a strong concept and products we have created are well designed and communicate the idea we set out for. It has been a good experience working with someone else, I liked that the workload could be spread out and having different elements which are stronger because we are both better in different areas of design. Having the second person to bounce ideas of and the support off them to be more creative and work out of our comfort zone was good too, I would definatly work with Greg again in the future.

_Ellas Kitchen _05b

Secret 7”

Nick Drake - Rider on the wheel.Taking inspiration from the style of music Nick Drake produced, I have created the design to reflect the idea freedom and travelling the country roads. Using selected imagery I have built up the artwork.This design was chosen by the judges as one of the winning designs, which will now be displayed in the exhibition they do.

Vinyl Sleeve

_06a _Secret 7”

This was my main entry to the Secret 7” competition and the one i was backing the most because i felt that this was the better design and I liked it the best out of the two i had done for the competition.

This artwork was for Nick Drake’s song, taking a different approach to normal, i decided to go back to a style which i used to work around when i was in college. This type of design i think has started to come back more and there are more designers designing like this and I do really like the aesthetics of it, personally i like how all the layers you build up and the imagery with the textures etc tell a story within the artwork, you can read into the design so much that you can make your own interpretation of what its meant to mean or what you think the design meant by it. This is what i wanted to create within the artwork, as this was really the whole idea behind it.

From listening to the song I got a sort of country and western and folk feel from it and when i think of that music i always think back to a old western village with a horse and cart and dirt tracks. So this is where my inspiration came from, I interpretted the song as though the rider on the wheel was looking for freedom and taking an advernture on the country tracks.

From this idea i collected the imagery needed to communicate this and started to build up the design, compared to my other entry i have kept this quite clean and tidy within the whole appearance of the design, but there are still smaller details within it. Keeping the design this simple and stipped back has given it its own aesthetic and it still plays on that style I wanted to explore but has a very direct message and look to it. The main focus is in the forground and on the three main images i used within the design, this i why i have kept the background to a minimum as i didnt want any distraction taken away from the foreground.

I think with this design, i took linger with it and I think that that shows when you compare the two artworks. I connected to this song much better and had a clearer idea which i could communicate easier and better through the imagery i chose. This design definately fit into the style better and worked using the layering of imagery, textures and using colour and blending modes.

I have used photoshop for all the designing of this work, which was good for me because I don’t really use that program that often anymore, as the normal work I do has a more illustrated and clean formal look it, i always use Illustrator. Coming back to using this program has shown me that I do still have the skills within it and the techniques i previously learnt are still there, so iI should feel more confident in using for projects in future which hopfully i will have the chance to.

The one problem i did have with this brief. This design was chosen as a winner for the competition and I had to send off the orginal artwork so they could print it for the exhibition they put on. When i designed it, i did it in RGB as it would be viewed on screen, but to print it needed to be in CMYK, when i changed the colour modes the design changed colours all together and looked really different. After a good half a day sat changing different aspects using different tools, i managed to get it quite close to the original in RGB, but it took a long time. This taught me that in future i need to think about the way in which to design for things like this, I need to factor in extra time for problems like this that occur, to make sure i am not rushed right at the last minute. There are probably better ways in which you can change when transferring to different colour modes, which would be good to find out.

Like I previously said this design was chosen by the judges as one of winners for the Nick Drake song, which was great, i was really happy to hear this as i thought this design was the better one and it has shown that it is. Also the great thing about it now is that my arwork will be put into the exhibition which takes place in London, this is the first time any of my work as been exhibited which I was excited about and proud of,I also get a print of the work too, so that will be good to see the design in full scale and how it looks when printed on a hard copy.

This particular project has been really good for me, I have learnt new things and tried out a new area of design, which i have enjoyed, the results of it also prove that i can design across a number of areas and now it makes me think that i can branch out into different aspects, instead of staying in my comfort zone.

_Secret 7” _06b

Secret 7”

Laura Marling - The BeastTaking the song to its simplest representation, I wanted to create something that was simple and clear to identify the meaning of the song. Imagery came from the lyrics “And here comes the beast”.

Vinyl Sleeve

_07a _Secret 7”

This was the second entry of the Secret 7” competition i entered and was for the Laura Marling track. For this project i wanted to experiment with an older style that i used to work around when i was in college. I really enjoyed working like this back then and thought it could be a good chance to try that out again and see the results of it now I am a much stronger designer than then.

This artwork was built up of various layers of textures, colours, shapes and prints, this all made the background to the artwork. On the top of this i did the beast. Again using the illustration skills i have developed throughout this module, i drew out the outline of the beast and then added colour, making it this dark block colour was to communicate the personality and idea that you have a about a beast. The shadow on the floor was to make it look like the beast was coming towards you and looking out of the artwork to the on looker. This was taken from a line in the song.

I felt that out of the two I submitted this was the weaker design. I think this because it doesn’t have as much to it within the design, there isn’t that much you can read into it and its more literal with the design approach. Normally when I would use this style to design, the background would build up a story and the more you looked it you could read into the design more, but with this I didn’t really take that approach, I don’t think that song was as good as the first one, but still I still think it is a worthy entry.

At the time when this competition came around, I was looking at doing some sort of project based on music because it wasn’t an area that I had designed for before and I thought it would be quite interesting to try it out and see what I could make of it, in this case i definatly prefer my normal area of design but this was enjoyable and I got alot out of this project.

I liked this project because of the approach i took toward designing the artwork, but more because of

the constraints on the design, you couldnt use any reference towards the artist or song or use any words which would give it away, it was all about the artwork interpretting the song and communicating an idea which links into the song to make people think about it.

From looking in our group and at the people that had done the same song as me, it was really interesting to see how they had designed their artwork and how much difference there was between everyones work, but yet still on the same song. It just shows how everyone thinks differently and that we arent all robots!

_Secret 7” _07b

h e l l f i r e

c r e a t i v e n e t wo r k s

h e l l f i r e

c r e a t i v e n e t wo r k s

Hellfire

Hellfire - Leeds BreweryHellfire rebrand for Leeds Brewery in connection with Creative networks.

The concept of this design for the beer label came from looking into the meaning of an eagle. The natives honor eagles for their opportunistic ways. They dipicted this as work smarter not harder, this as a message and symbol would fit in well for a creative network, targeting young creatives.An eagle also represents masculinary, dominance, power and ruler which all have a relevance to the beer itself - its a masculine beer as it is as bitter, dominance shows through in the strength of the beer and power and ruler are reperented by it being the best on the market.

Bottle label Bottle top Beer mat

_08a _Hellfire

Leeds brewery hellfire brief was something I really enjoyed. It came around at a good time for me, because i wanted to do some branding and this brief came along which fitted in nicely. Not only was it branding, but it was something different to what ive designed before. I hadn’t really done any sort of beer packaging or bottle label designs before, so it was a good experience for me to try this.

The concept of this brief was the most important thing and i wanted to create something which i thought would be able to last a long time and have multiple design aspects coming from the one concept. I feel as though the concept i came up with for this brief was that.

Designing within the contraints of the lable size was a good exercise - when i originally designed the main part of the label (double headed eagle) it was alot bigger in size and had more to the design which made it an akward size to fit within the label. After looking at the size of the label and the design iof the label i chose to fit in with the whole style of the branding, i had to re-format the eagle part of the design to make it fit the label. The type at the top was easy to adapt to the label size. This was good in the case that it made me think about the content of the design, part of it wasnt appropriate and needed within the design, but if it hadnt been for the label size i probably wouldn’t have seen or thought about it like that.

I used this brief as a quick turnaround brief and spent a day on the design of the products and then just time to create the presentation boards for submission and explain the concept and design element of the brief.

I found doing this type of design really interesting and liked working within the contraints of the different elements to make the bottle labels, it was something which i wanted to continue to explore and try out more bottle design in future.

In the case of this brief I am happy with the outcome of it, i think the concept for the branding is strong and the design of the labels communicates the concept and idea. I am happy with the illustration on the label and think this makes the design alot stronger, its the main focus of the whole branding and stands out as a icon for all the products.

I extended the brief to create the beer mat design and the bottle cap design, these both incorporate the main label design, but there are variations of these which use different elements of the bottle design within. I wanted to show this across the range of products to show that the design within the label can be used for more than just that.

_Hellfire _08b

Moisture RichSmooth & Silky

1000ml

S u p e r C o n d i t i o n i n g

N u t r i e n t S h a m p o o

Milkup

Milkup - Design CrowdThis was an entry to a competition on Design Crowd. The competition was to design a bottle label for a dog shampoo. The client wanted the label to be based around type and not focus on an image of a dog as the main part of the label. The client gave me lots of feddback throughout the competition which I kept updating and changing the design to what he wanted. This eventually resulted in me winning the competition which was $200.

Bottle labelTypographic logo

_09a _Milkup

After doing some bottle label design in the Hellfire rebrand, i got a liking for it and decided to try out some more bottle designs. I found a website called designcrowd, which has various design competitions running from all around the world, this is where i found this next project.

The project was to design a bottle label for a dog shampoo, which was mainly to be typographical in the label design. Again i wanted this to be a quick turnaround project so spent the day designing it and submitted it that night - it was a live brief which if i won i would win $200.

The constraints of the bottle size was there again, but this time i knew to plan it out better, i worked within the label size right from the beginning, so the end result would be alot easier to finalise.

As the design was mainly typographical, i decided to get the best result i would draw the name of the shampoo myself - I tried alot of different typefaces and they weren’t working out for me, this was the next best option.

Drawing the type was something new for me, I haven’t really done it that much before, so i set out a grid for each letter to be drawn within and set to it. I wanted it to be quite big and bold but reflect water and bubbles - to show it was a shampoo. After drawing it out i digitalised it and then added colour. I was really happy with the way the type came out and I think this makes the design so much stronger, better than having a generic typeface anyway.

For the rest of the design i just fit it all into place around the main title.

I finished the label and submitted it that night, i did a few variations of colours and submitted three designs. From then on i was in contact with the client. I didnt think anything would come from it, but the next day i recieved feedback from the client asking me if i could make some changes to the design and received a notice that the design was

under condsideration. This was great for me, as it was the first peice of work that i had submitted to a competition and it looked like something was coming from it. The design hadn’t taken me that long to do either. Each time i made a change i kept submitting it back to the competition and every time the client came back to me with additional changes, this happened about four times and the competition closed. Now because i had so much contact with the client i was thinking to myself that this must mean i was in for a chance to win it and a couple of days later i was the winner and won the $200.

As a very first entry to a design competition and winning it, this was great for me, it boasted my confidence and made me think that i can actually do work and get paid for it. This brief was good because i was in constant contact with the client, it was good to work on their feedback and make changes to the design, but also designing something that is for them. I dont particulary like the design and I think it could be better, but its what the client wanted, they asked me add and change aspects of the design, so i did.

To say that i spent such a short time on this intially and then every change i would spend a maximum of 20 minutes on, i was amazed that i won, it just showed me what i capable of and how things can turn out.

This urged me to try some more designcrowd competitions.

_Milkup _09b

Spins & Snips

Spins & Snips - Design CrowdThis was an entry to a competition on Design Crowd. The competition was to design a logo for a salsa dancewear brand. The aim of the brand is to create limited hand made dancewear pieces that doesn’t just look unique and trendy but are movement friendly too.These are the 3 variations of a logo that I created. It was specified that they wanted a logo with the full name and then a monogram of that for the clothing labels.

LogoMonogram

_10a _Spins & Snips

From the success of doing the last designcrowd competition, I thought id try another. This time when I went onto the website, I found myself being invited to this competition, so I thought I would enter it.

This brief was even shorter again, so I decided that I would do it in a night, which I did achieve because all they wanted was a logo which consisted of the full brand name and a monogram logo too. The brief had been outlined on the website really well and the client was very specific with what they wanted, even uploading sketches of what the sort of idea they wanted the logo to be like, so this made it even easier again and shortened the length of time for the brief.

I produced three variations of the logo again and submitted them to the website. Unfortunately I wasn’t successful with this entry and nothing came from the entry.

From doing this project I found myself working really quick and turning over the project in a night, this was the fastest I had worked on a brief, maybe it was because I had been given alot of the information and the direction of the work, so there wasn’t really any planning i just set straight to it. It was good to do this though and see the results that I can produce in such a short time. Its made me think that I can work at a faster pace and produce the work when under pressure and still deliver, so hopefully this will make changes to my workflow and I could start to work faster and produce more work.

From feedback in one of the crits, I was told that I could extend some of the projects especially the smaller ones, just to make them bigger and have a wider range of outcomes. So i decided to do that with this one, I have mocked the logos up on garments and then worked on the business identity. This was good to work on and actually use the logo within the design of something else - it showed me how adaptable the logo was

and that it was actually usable for what the client wanted in the first place.

I think as a whole this project has shown me that I can work on a project in a short period of time and still get the same result, it comes down to how well I manage the time when working on it and this one has proved to me that I can do. When extending the brief, this has shown me that the logo’s etc look better and work better when in context, I think it looks better for the project as a whole to mock it up so you can see what it will look like in real life, it makes it easier for the reader to see it and visualise it more. I think from now on in every project I will try and mock everything up that needs to me - also this is a way of showing the work in context without having to print it all out and take images of it, it is good to have a hard copy, but for smaller projects like this, I also think mocking them up on branding images works just as good and gives the same effect.

_Spins & Snips _10b

WeddingInvitations

Wedding InvitationMy sister asked me to design the wedding invitations and dinner menus for her wedding. She had the idea for the formats of both of the products, which I was able to achieve, but the design of them was left down to me to create. The products had to be in keeping with the colour scheme and style of the wedding.

InvitationsDinner Menu

_11a _Wedding Invitation

The live brief was to create the wedding invitations for my sisters wedding. I did this as a gift to her, so i didnt get paid, but it was something I wanted to do, as i hadnt done anything like this before.

I think wedding invitations are quite hard to design, they have to be personal to the wedding couple but as a designer you still want them to look good. The hardest part for me working on this, was that my sister was stuck to her own views and wanted them to look a certain way, but as a designer i didnt think they looked good at all and wanted to change it.

In the end we came to an agreement that I would design them to the format she wanted, but I would work on the design for the inside of the inivitation and show them a couple of designs or variations of designs which they could choose from. This worked out better because my sister was still getting the style of inivitation she wanted, but i was still in control of the design and made communicate the needed information to the guests.

Within this brief there was 3 main products to create - the day and night invitations and the wedding menu’s. The invitations would be very similar in design, the difference was that the night ones were only a one sided print. The menu were to take on the theme of the evening do, which they were basing it around retro games.

The process of this brief was good for me because i could get the needed information and go away and design it then come back to my sister to get feedback on the design and if they like it fo follow up the design further. It was like working for a real client in that aspect.

To start with on the design of the invitations, I found it hard because I didnt really know where to start and what to do for them, it was tricky to get the information within the given area and make the main parts stand out whilst still being in a design which works

with the style of the wedding. Once i got an idea and started working out the layout and how it would all fit together it became easier to do. I was lucky that the first design that i created for the invitation was what they liked and they just had a few changes to make to the design. To make the night invitation this was easier because i used the same layout as the main invitation but changed the easthetics around it, so it wasn’t as extravagant - this was to show a difference between the day and night do. Within the invitations the information inserts also needed to be designed. These were designed at A7 size purely because I could fit more to an A4 to print off as there had to be enough for all the invitations which was around 90. The design of these were really simple and just centered on the format, being well spaced out to make easy to read all the information.

The last part of the brief was to create the wedding menu. They wanted this to be in the style of a ‘cootie catcher’ as they were aparently known in schools. It is a square which is folded in a certain way so it has flaps which you lift up to reveal information. In school, they were made as a simple game to play. The idea of these were to fit in with the retro games theme, along with this they had a pick and mix table. Each course of the menu would be displaye under each flap and the outside would have the information of the day printed on it. This part of the brief was the hardest, making these all together was difficult, first the design of them was hard as it wasn’t just desiging them as you would see it on screen, i had to make a template with all the information shown it so when i unfolded it flat i could see where each element of the design needed to be placed. It ended up that none of the information was straight on the page, it was all at 45 degree angles which made it hard to layout out the design, especially getting the spacing between everything right. I definatly made good use of the guides and line tool creating these. Even though it was

hard to design, it was good for me as it was a challenge. I had to take a different approach to designing it and not really rely on seeing if it looked right on screen, there was alot of test prints to get everything lined up right, but again this was nessecary to do and another learning curve I gained from doing it. After getting the design right, the next part to tackle was to fold them. There was numerous folds within the menu and if one went wrong or was out a little bit then the rest of the menu wouldnt fold right and it would make it look untidy. Eventually getting the folds right I managed to fold all 80 menus.

The best part of this brief for me was at the actual wedding seeing all the guest interacting with the menu and playing with it as if it was the game they used to play in school. They all worked out well and served the purpose of telling the guests the menu. The other great thing was having all my relatives ask me about the invitations and if it was me that designed them because they loved them, the praise was good to here and it made doing this as a brief so much more rewarding.

It was definalty a good learnign curve throughout this brief, everything i had to design was to be done on a scale, i wasnt just making a one off and i didnt have a lot of money to play around with. I would of liked to use some printing techniques in the invitiations but with designing 90 of them and the limitation of time it wouldnt have been possible to get them all done in time with the techniques in use. This was a good constraint to have and a good way to see how i could use digital print and stock to make them bit more special. Adding the 3d hearts to the front of the day invites made them more aestheically pleasing and wasnt hard to do either. Thats what i liked about this brief making the best out of the materials and money I had to create them. Along with the challenging formats to create the products.

_Wedding Invitation _11b

Module Evaluation

This module for me has been great, i have really enjoyed doing the live briefs and taking part in work which is set outside of the course. The briefs have felt like they are set to a standard which would be expected when working in the industry so this has been a good experience for when that happens.

The time scale on these has been a big influence for me, I have realised that alot of the briefs haven’t taken that long as i expected and i have been able to do alot more than i thought when i first set out. Its been a good way to break up working on other modules too, especially with the research part of the module we are doing at the minute, its been great to be able to have another module there which is purely design and the great thing thing about it is we could use a brief just to cover a couple of hours which is good to get away from another module.

I have liked being able to choose my own briefs and working around work which i think is good for my own practice, things which influence me and what i would like to do in the industry. I have always looked at selecting briefs which i think would look good in my portfolio and working to the standard which i would want to have in my portfolio, I have found that these type of briefs have been the YCN and D&AD briefs because they have more background to them and have more information which makes them a better brief and something that you can work on to expand into a wider range of products. Along with that a couple of the smaller briefs i have undertaken I would still think are on the same standard and would use within a portfolio - the Secret 7” and Hellfire i definatly would consider and I still think these are as strong as the others.

The range of briefs that I have covered has been another attribute to the module, I think i have worked over a large range of products throughout all the briefs, which again is something i wanted to do when i set out. I didnt just want to work on publications or branding, but i wanted to look at briefs

which required me to so different design work to what i am used to doing. Take for instance the Feel Good and Milkup briefs, both of them are packaging briefs which require bottle label designs, usually this wouldnt be the sort of design direction that i would go down in a normal brief, but because these were the set outcomes it seemed a good challenge for me to take on and in doing that i have found myself enjoying these types of brief just as much as a publication or print brief.Which takes me onto working out of my comfort zone. I have definatly found myself doing work which id different from my usual type of design, but this has been a great experience for me, i have ventured out of my comfort zone and when i did start doing them i was unsure what to do and where to start with them but once i got going, i loved it and now i wouldn’t think twice about taking on a a much wider variety of briefs in the future. It has also broadened my idea of products and what i know i can design and produce well.

The main thing with working out of comfort zone is that i have learnt so much new things and techniques. The major one for me is that i have improved so much on my illustrations skills, from doing the partner brief which left the illustrations down to me to do, I learnt alot from that, mainly having the confidence to do it and do it well, which has proven in the rest of my briefs because from then on, i think i have used illustration in every brief since. Another skill i have imporved upon is mocking up designs, the best one for this is the Feel Good Drinks, the tehcniques and tools i have learnt from doing the bottles in that brief have taught me alot for in the future and i learnt this by just trying it out and seeing what happened. I think that is something else i have taken from alot of these briefs, not to be afraid just to try it out, nothing can hurt by trying and if it doesnt work then rethink and do it again.

I believe that this module has taught

me the value of presentation skills and photography skills. For every brief i have done part of the deliverables is being able to present the work to the client or for submission, which has meant to do presentation boards. In the past these have been the thing i hate the most, just because i never felt confident in the work i was putting on them was right and making them communicate the idea through images etc on a laid out peice of paper. But now after doing it for the last 10 briefs i have done, I think that i have got alot better, both with the images and content i am including in the boards and the general layout of them, i feel as though this has been a good skill to learn more about and something i have definatly taken with me throughout the module. Along with this having the photography session part way through the module which showed us how to photograph our work to the best ability by using certain set ups and lighting to get it looking the best has made me realise that the photography of the work is crucial especially if you are presenting something through images and not having the actual object there. I have always taken images of my work in the past, but never thought that much about it and just taken it where ever, but after doing that workshop and seeing the results of using the photography studios, it is so much better and makes the work look better too. Its the finishing touches that count and get that given deal or extra marks.

All of this module has been about working on live briefs, i have done a mixture of big and small competition briefs and some live briefs from clients. Having the work there that could actually be used by a certain company, does put the pressure on, but i felt that i worked better under this pressure. I wanted my work to be better and produce a much higher standard of work because i wanted it to be chosen or be the winning entry, this definatly worked in my advantage. The best experience was having two of the competition briefs winning prizes.One of my Secret 7” designs was one of the judges choices

_12a _Module Evaluation

and is now going to be displayed in an exhibition, which for me is a first and something which i find exciting. I loved the idea of the brief and that its all for charity, but having my work exhibited where there will be other professionals is a great start to getting into the industry and getting contacts. The second was the Milkup brief which was a Designcrowd competition. This was for a client in China and right from start when i submitted my design i had a feeling i had a good chance because the client was in constant contact with me asking me to resubmit and making changes to the design. I did eventually win and won $200, which again was the first time i had been paid for design work. Not only getting paid was an advantage, but the way in which the client was always talking to me made it as though it was a client brief and not a competition which again having feedback and constant contact with a client is good experience, along with the fact my design will be used in China.

The creative partner brief for me was a good learning curve. In the past when we have done group briefs i havent really enjoyed it because in most of them the brief didnt go aswell as planned and ended up being a failure. This time it was different though because it was only one other person, which i was working with Greg. Overall i did really enjoy working wth Greg and we had no upsets or argument thoughout the whole brief. I think we played it right with the way we worked together and split the work down to work on the area we were both good at. This is the element which i liked the best, being able to split the work and get twice as much done in the same amount of time was great, but i did also think that the communication on this was abit of a let down. I didnt really get any input or knowledge about what Greg was doing, unless i asked him about it and had to keep asking him what he was including etc to find out about what he was doing whereas i feel as though i asked Gregs opionion on the work i was doing more and made sure he was happy with it as i was working on it and going along. A couple of times there was the

incident of not turning up or on time which is soemthing you have to take into consideration when working as a pair because on certain parts we needed both of us there to do it. I would of liked to do a third element to the brief aswell but Greg was too keen on it and we did run out of time, so that wasnt really anything to do with us working, the time scale was just rather small. Through doing this brief as a partner i did learn that compromise was important, you had to take into consideration how other people work - Greg preferred to work at home on his own whereas i preffered to work in the studio, i think this i why i felt a little left out on his side of the project because he would do it all at home on an evening or just not come into the studio when he was working on it. Working over two different media like we did in our and the digital not being my strongest area proved evident when i had ideas which neither of us knew how to do - compromising on the idea or what we wanted to produce definatly came into play on this side of things. I did think this brief was a good experience and it proved to me that i can work in a group, i just prefer it to be a smaller group - this could work in my favour for looking for industrial experience, i now know i prefer smaller groups so looking for a small studio would work better for me as a designer than looking at big companies.

When looking back over this module at the work i have produced, just through this document i think it illustrates what this module has done for me as a designer. I feel as though i have learnt so much in this short time of doing it and that my work has moved on leaps and bounds from the experience of working on live briefs and doing things that i find interesting. I think i found the areas of design that i like the most from working through a wide variety of briefs, but there are also some area which i like but want and need to work on more to get them up to a better standard - Branding.

The briefs that i have enjoyed the most are Fedrigoni, Feel Good Drinks, Secret

7”, Its NIce That and Hellfire. I belive that these are the best briefs out of the ones i have completed and i think this because i have found them most interesting and connected with the brief better which in turn made me think of a better concept and idea. I like to know about the subject to get the best out of the design, but to do this i need to be interested in it or i wont get that much from it. When i know i like a brief and i know i want to work on it, it always has the best result. I now know that whenever i take on a brief or start a new brief, i need to find something within it which makes me interested in it, be it the subject itself or looking for an interesting format, concept or idea for me to work on and carry it through.

If I was to do this over again, I would spend as much time on it from the beginning as i have given towards the end, because in the last 3 weeks or so, i have loved working on these briefs and i think created the best design work from these so far this year. I just wish i had of done this from the start.

Taking away from this brief i have areas of design that I am realy interested in - publication, branding, packaging illustration and certain ways to takle these by looking at stock and formats. I still think that i need to work on some of these areas more than other in particular Branding, but that will come in the next module i am doing.

I am happy with this module and the work that i have produced i think it has had a big influence on me as a designer and shown me new things about meself.

5 Things I have taken from this module:- Presentation and Photography is essential.- Being confident in working on areas out of my comfort zone.- I can work well within a group.- Compromise is always going to be present within a brief, but I need to find ways around it or make the most of it.- Identifying the area of design that I enjoy and work the best in.

_Module Evaluation _12b

OUGD503_Responsive Module Briefs & Evaluations

Nathan BoltonBAGD_05