Packaging Design: Fashion Research

Although for the Packaging research task we had to look at a lot of different fields and categories of packaging, after being delivered the brief I decided to have a look at more packaging which would be more specific to the brief, which is to come up with a packaging solution for underwear for BOX clothing.

I think this is an interested way to package a box away from the traditional rectangle shape, the pentagon adds a lot more interest to the box itself. Although the company we're completing the brief for is called 'BOX' there could be an opportunity to stay away from that normal shape. 

I like how simple this packaging design is, it's very modern and fresh and I think is successful in packaging different garments as each box has a different size specification with different icons according to the product inside. The use of icon is definitely something I should consider in my designs as it's a great way to differentiate the products.

I love how this packaging design is purely based on using white. It looks so fresh and clean and I definitely think it reflects the very scandanavian style of design which Nordic House has. I love how modern and sleek this looks, you definitely get the impression that it's an upmarket company.

I thought I'd include this one as I thought it was a good example of putting more than one product into a packaging solution. I could have different sections or smaller boxes to go inside a larger box depending on the different products.

I love how elegant this design looks, the black box looks very luxurious especially with the small white text which contrasts hugely. I also love the tissue paper, I could possibly look into creating a pattern to go onto tissue paper for my design, it could be decorated with different icons or perhaps even the BOX logo.

Packaging: Research Task

After handing in our Digital Skills Acquisition, we were given two weeks to put together a presentation showing different examples of packaging design with no specific category - all fields should be covered. I found so many different interesting examples which I will post my favourites here - mostly sourced from Pinterest so if you'd like to see more please check out my packaging board which is here!

Packaging Design: The Brief

Today we were introduced to our second project of the year, packaging design. We had the opportunity to complete a research task of putting together a presentation showing innovative packaging design so that we could see for ourselves just how creative this field of graphic design could be.

Our brief for this project is once again a live brief, which I think is good experience as we're working for an actual client who has specific needs and desires for what they want, which I think is good for getting prepared for industry.

THE BRIEF
The client is BOX  - Men's apparel, and has been set by MONOGRAM London.
BOX is an Internet-based men's fashion brand focused on driving a fundamental shift in the way men purchase their essentials (underwear, socks and undershirts). The products will be sold to consumers via rich web experience, which is not yet live, however during the briefing we have had the opportunity to see shots of the website and their logo, which have helped to give us a feel of what the company's style is like.

We are required to design and develop a range of packaging for the BOX brand products. The full range of products needs to have the following information across all packaging routes and will be communicated for each as follows: Product name, sizes S,M,L,XL, colours, grey, black, white. We must consider that all packaging must be designed with postage in mind, but must maintain a high-end rich brand quality feel for the end user and brand experience.

SWAT Analysis
STRENGTHS - I have completed quite a lot of research set by the research task so I feel quite prepared for this  brief, (you can see a lot of it on my Pinterest board here) 
WEAKNESSES - I've never completed a packaging design before so this is completely new to me!
OPPORTUNITIES - I feel I can gain some useful experience from this brief, especially with it being so restrictive as this is what it will be like working in the industry with client's having specific 'wants' for a design.
THREATS - There are quite a lot of restrictions and things to consider for this live brief, and the BOX identity is quite simple with a mainly black and white colour scheme so I feel quite worried that I can't be very innovative with my design.

TIME PLAN:

Digital Skills: Final Pieces

I've successfully handed in my first project of the year - Digital Skills Acquisition! 

This TIFF image shows my final stationary design for the Instant Print gardening category. I'm really pleased with how these have turned out, I especially like how successful my artwork has turned out on the flyer, if I was to improve I would possibly edit the background colour to a different shade of green so it stands out from the colours on the art work a bit more, I'd also possibly edit the text so a slightly larger font and perhaps try it in white, as I don't think the black text looks 100% effective. 

I'm also really pleased with how my business card designs have turned out, I remained consistent by using Bebas which I also used on the flyer design. I think the white background gives the illusion of white spice and the small icons has quite a modern look to it. I also wanted to include the artwork on the business cards to so that as a set, they went together well.

Digital Skills: Developed Ideas

I feel like a lot of my digital skills have developed when putting together the artwork for the gardening stationery category. I used Adobe illustrator to play with different brushes and effects to come up with this leaf/grass effect which is seen in the picture below

After playing around changing the colour of the plastic flower I photographed in Adobe Photoshop, I started playing around with different layouts and also adding in the grass effect behind the flowers which I really liked the effect of...

I then started to add 'rain drop' effects by adding circles, triangles and rounded rectangles and amending their shapes until I got the desired effect. I also added some flower motifs in a vector style which I think contrasted nicely with the photographed flower.

FINAL ARTWORK:

This is the final artwork which I will consider for use on flyers and business card designs. I'm really pleased with how it's turned out and I would also like to experiment using different coloured backgrounds, especially with the summery/pastel colour scheme of the artwork!

We also had a group presentation this week where we had to show the group our initial and developed ideas and basically what we had come up with so far. I was really pleased with the feedback I had been given - especially since Allah the girl from IntantPrint was there to give us her opinion directly which was a great help - she told me my designs were looking on the right track and to keep going which was very encouraging, especially hearing it from someone you're working a brief for!

Digital Skills: Initial Ideas

After taking photographs I felt a lot more inspired about this project, so I finally felt like I was able to come up with some initial ideas which I started to sketch out on paper - I think it's important to begin initial ideas on paper or in a sketchbook rather than jump straight onto a computer without any idea of what you're going to do! 

With these rough scamps I can now progress onto moving onto the computer to put these together in a more realised manner!

Digital Skills: Taking Photos

For the InstantPrint live brief I had chosen Gardening as my chosen category to design some stationary for. I took this opportunity to take some photos of a fake flower in the front window, and some plants in the back garden as well as some of my dad's gardening tools I could use to start developing some art work!

The next step after taking these pictures is to start coming up with some designs and initial ideas, I'm also hopefully going to be able to use these pictures to come up with some design work, perhaps by using the pen tool to go over the shapes so I can have a good play about with them. I'm hoping this will be very beneficial in terms of the development of my digital skills!