Visit to Gibside

As part of our research for the National Trust brief, we decided to go on a little research trip to Gibside, which is about a half an hour drive from our college, located just outside of Gateshead.

It was a very peaceful and quiet place with some really lovely scenery, it was nice to walk around and appreciate the fresh air! We also noticed a lot of den building in the woods which we assumed was from younger ages, and we liked the 'adventure' feel this had! We also saw some posters in the toilets which were from the current National Trust ad campaigns, which we thought we would very effective to include in our research and to also get a better understanding of how the National Trust brand usually approaches their advertising.

I'm pleased we went to Gibside, I definitely feel like I have a better understanding of the company now, and I feel that we can now move on to coming up with some ideas and get on our way to come up with this campaign!

Alternative Techniques: Final Posters

These images show the final posters we came up with for our National Trust 'Escape The City' advertising campaign. I'm really pleased with how they've turned out, our aim was to use some really stunning photography from the National Trust and combine in with some modern typographic styles so that a younger audience would be more drawn to it as it's more on trend in advertising and design these days. We added the low opacity coloured circles to go behind the text as a modern design feature, I think these work well to make the text stand out, if we didn't use them the white colour would end up getting lost in the photographs.

Alternative Techniques: The Brief

Today we were briefed on our next project titled, Alternative Techniques. This project will actually revolve around the briefs set by the D&AD New Blood Awards. Myself and two of my classmates, Jade and Anthony, have decided to team up to tackle the very interesting National Trust brief, which requires us to come up with an innovative campaign to reinvent the perceived image of the National Trust and make it more appealing for the age range of 25-40.
At a first thought this brief does seem like it will be quite difficult, especially as it's an advertising campaign and all three of us are graphic design students! But with a lot of research I feel quite confident that we can come up with an interesting concept to tackle this one!

THE BRIEF:

SWOT Analysis:

STRENGTHS - As graphic design students we have developed our digital skills over the year so that we can hopefully come up with and design some creative and interesting visuals for this project. There's also no specific client to work for as it's a competition brief so we can really push the boat out!
WEAKNESSES - This is an advertising brief, we've never worked for an advertising brief before so I feel that we may find this quite challenging, however this is an alternative technique towards design so it will be a great aspect of experience.
OPPORTUNITIES - There's a huge opportunity to expand our knowledge on advertising, there's also great opportunities for research as we can actually go out and visit some National Trust sites and get a real feel of the place instead of solely relying on internet based research.
THREATS - Whatever our ideas are we must keep going back to the brief and checking to see if what we're doing appeals to the desired 25-40 market, which is a very wide age range. 

TIME PLAN:

Packaging Design: Final Pieces

The image below shows my final net for the packaging design module. I was quite pleased with the outcome, the net on the right shows the interior which would be stuck inside of the box whilst the black and white design on the right is for the exterior of the box.

I'm pleased that I went for a shape which was slightly off a normal rectangle, I think that added a bit more interest to it just being a regular shaped box to go with the brief. I also wanted the exterior of the box to be kept quite simple like the logo of the company so that I'd stay within the whole feel of the brand. However I wanted the inside of the box to be bold and colourful, something the customer would experience when opening the package. Each product would have a different colour between red blue and yellow.

I am quite pleased with the outcome of my packaging design however I do feel that I could have pushed this a lot more. I felt quite held back by the brief because the identity and website of the company was so specific, I feel like there was no real opportunity to push the boat out and experiment with design. However on a positive note I do feel that this is good experience with working with a client! 

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: