Day Seven - Blog Post #8

PLACE - Mood Board

Rough Rationales Blog Post #5A

Project Title: The Nav

The Challenge:

A new visual identity for an 8 issue annual student magazine that should have a new energy but must be recognizable as The Nav.

Should appeal to and embody the whole student body.

Need to be able to leave the magazine layout to the design team with the confidence that they can do it.

Redesigning my own design from the previous year.

The Approach:

Pull it back and give it a cleaner look from the previous year while still maintaining the personality within.

New set of standards and styles

What I did:

Art director

delegated layout, gave standards and rules

Initial design and layout of mag

coordinated a new printer and rules for mag layout

Notes:

Figure out which Nav to focus on, most likely most recent.

Highlight the leadership role.

Project Title: Balanced

The Challenge:

Overwork is a social stigma that promotes an unhealthy lifestyle.

I wanted to change the way that people thought of overworking and give them tools to change their relationship with work/life balance.

Create something usable that could be integrated easily into a busy lifestyle.

The Approach:

Not trying to be a fix-all but guide the user to make healthier choices by offering an integrated scheduling system. 

An ecosystem that learns about the user through use.

What I did:

I created a web app, mobile app, smart speaker (ish), smart watch ecosystem that could be applied to all aspects of life. 

Ish - an ai that learns about the user through conversation and gives helpful tips on a healthier work/life balance.

Brand identity.

Research.

Art Direction

Notes:

Clarity!

Explain this project to someone who has never seen it outside of class.

Project Title: Fox & Koi

The Challenge:

Last year, I realized that I needed a way to reconnect with my passion for graphic design and push myself to create outside of class work. I’ve always loved enamel pins and so along with a business partner, I began an enamel pin shop.

The Approach:

A pin business is a lot more than just drawing pins, there’s a lot that goes into it including the business side of it, like speaking to manufacturers and suppliers, understanding costs, creating a website and a presence in the online world and community.

What I Did:

I run the business side of fox & koi. I speak to the manufacturers, find new manufacturers, coordinate locations and markets for selling the pins, create the websites, package the pins, do the marketing and I also design pins, stickers and prints.

Notes: 

Put focus on leadership roles.

Explain more about the pin process?

Erin Gibbs Response

This past week, we had Erin Gibbs join our class and present her process to us. She was extremely knowledgable and very thorough about her process. As someone who creates items for a customer base already, I found it really cool and helpful to learn about how she creates and how her items get manufactured. It was our task to come up with a piece in response to her work or inspired by it. I remember immediately scratching out this phrase after the class, perhaps the fact that she showed us a jungle-inspired line was to blame. Either way, I had a lot of fun making this piece though it alone took me 5+ hours. I can’t imagine creating a whole line based on it! 

Having completed my Logo and drafted my brand standards, I began trying to figure out ways to apply my brand. Here’s what I came up with for my presentation.

Before reading anything much about circular design I felt like I had a vague concept about what it was already. My understanding was that circular design focuses not only on the design of the project but the scope of it and the life cycle. 

Now I think I can understand that Circular Design is more focused on the reusability of the product and how many times it can be reused within its cycle, which seems like an interesting ideology as there’s been a lot of focus on proper recycling in the past few years. My dad likes to talk my ear off about how back in the day, people used to fix stuff instead of throwing it out. There’s evidence of that too when you look at food packaging from back in the day, cracker tins could be reused to hold bits and ends. Flour sacks were purposefully printed with fun patterns in the 1930′s after manufacturers realized that women would make clothing from them. 

Maybe they weren’t thinking about it that way at the time, but that seems to be a prime example of circular design. It’s the idea of the continuity of the design’s life after its expected death and giving it a new purpose. 

I think that circular design ties in nicely with design thinking but wouldn’t say that it’s here to replace design thinking. I think if anything, that it’s just something to consider when using design thinking. 

One concept I don’t like is the idea of subscriptions. While that works for single-use items like books or games that you might want to eventually pass on, it annoys the living hell out of me that there are so many subscriptions in the digital sense. For example, why do I have to pay monthly or yearly for the Adobe cloud when I’d be better off just buying it in one go?

I think when it comes to our show at least, we can definitely think about circular design. Here are some ideas:

reusable frames for the display that we can leave to the next year or take home for personal use.

personal branding that can be reused for other purposes, eg. a program booklet that refolds with guides into a paper airplane.

Renting table cloths instead of buying them.

I think we need to also think about the environmental impact of printing for our show and consider less projects but a more careful selection on what to show.

DAY THIRTEEN - BLOG POST #15

So there we have it, the last day of class and our final submission was due. I’ve pasted in a photo to give you guys a little look-see of how it turned out. As you can see, it really evolved from the initial concept to the final design. I know I say it constantly, but you need to ‘Kill Your Darlings’.

I don’t think I could have gotten to my final design if I wasn’t willing to flex on what I was doing and I’m really happy with how it turned out. I’ve learned to let go of my initial vibrant idea during my time in this class and I think I’ve learned that just because my initial concept works, it doesn’t mean it’s the only concept that does. 

Due to printing, my design shifted a little on the page and cutting it became an issue. I didn’t get as clean a prototype as I would have liked as a result, but I’m happy enough with the results! We went from a complicated little box with a pour spout to as little paper as I could manage and I think that I accomplished the goals of this project in that sense.  

I loved working with a real-life client and while my design was not chosen, she told me that she really liked it, so I feel happy about that. 

Day Five - Blog Post #6

Today we got started on redesigning a package of our choice. It’s a project I was kind of looking forward to since I first saw my friends working on it two years ago!

I had two packages I wanted to work on at the start of conceptualizing. One of them was an easy choice, an over packaged, instant matcha tea satchet, four box extra, plastic wrapped disaster. 

The other, was a beautiful knife pushed inside a plastic cage.

Though I knew which one would be easiest for me, something about the knife called to me. I started to paint pictures in my head of what my package could be and I knew, in the end, that was the one that I wanted to do. 

I have started ideating and drawing thumbs but I think I know what I’m heading towards. I want my audience to really enjoy their experience of opening the package to reveal their tool, in the same excited way that a graphic designer might unwrap their gorgeous apple packaging to reveal a macbook. 

To a culinary student or worker, a pairing knife is the ultimate tool, like the macbook is to the graphic designer. Both are equally important, both give the same delight and ease of use.

Portfolio Website

The Links I’ll Use

about me, small joys, resumé

Which 3 (or more) projects will you showcase on your site?

Balanced Balanced is a project that I did last semester where we had to choose an issue and then try and solve it as best we could through graphic design. Balanced ended up being an integrative system to promote a healthy work/life balance for the issue. It showcases an app design, web page, smart watch, smart speaker and welcome pamphlet as well as a colour brand.

The Nav The Nav Student Press is a magazine that I have been art directing the past two years and worked on for the last three. It showcases my editorial skills and features two different base designs for me to show on my website.

Place Place is a branding project that I am currently working on for design for business. At the end of this project I will have a fully branded guide for a new business. This will include a logo, a pattern, style guide and branding elements. I will add it at the end of the term.

Fox & Koi Fox & Koi is the enamel pin business that I run with Teigan Mudle. Through fox & koi, we have designed over 30 pins and I have personally been responsible for 15 of them and collaborated on 5. I have also done some illustrative print work, designed backing cards and created stickers.

Where do you need to fill holes in your showcase?

photography

mockups

sketches/roughs for all projects

more active dribble, design instagram

What will you do specifically to fill holes?

write rationals

do photography of products and/or mockups

post more on my design instagram

post more on dribbble

organize past sketches and roughs into something legible.

What platform will you use?

Wordpress, powered by semplice

What is your domain name?

saraholmes.design

Client Survey

General Company Info 

What is the name of your company?  Place

What is your business/what do you do?  Place provides a single location for a range of events in Nanaimo’s downtown core. It can be a pop-up market, a venue for a reception, an intimate concert, a wedding, a dance, an art class, the possibilities are endless.

How old is your company?  The company has yet to exist.

What is the size of your company? A small core of people involved in bettering downtown Nanaimo. two people leading a small team of 5-6.

Are there specific dates the project needs to be completed?  No.

Your budget dictates how much time can be spent on your project. What is the budget?  Open

Describe your business in one sentence.  No matter what event you are hosting, this is the place for it.

Describe your business in two words? Convenient, Reliable

Describe your business in one word? Perfect

What doesn’t your business do, or do well? Does not host large concerts, or sporting events.

What differentiates your business from competitors? Ease of access, Place’s main interest isn’t how much money can be made but in creating a place for the community to use without burning a hole in people’s wallets.

Is there a story that is unique to your company? When searching for a location for a grad show, Sara realized that there really wasn't’ anywhere in the downtown core that was appropriately sized or available for a small reception.

Or perhaps a unique story to the company name?  Every city should have a place, somewhere that you can go that would be good for a range of events, but also a safe please for youth to hang out and host community events.

What are your business objectives?  To create a beautiful place to host events that can host a range of things from shows, events, receptions, to tourist attractions in the summer months like a large market or informational sessions.

What do you want the design/redesign to do for your company?  I want it to give the company a modern look and feel that is also welcoming to the community.

General Image of Company 

If you company/brand was a person who would it be? Why? I don’t know if it would be a person so much as a representation or even an animal. Place should be able to represent Nanaimo and the future of Nanaimo and its community. If anything, I’d say that I’d want it to be represented by the Orca because of its sense of community and ties to the Salish sea.

Is there an important object, building or person for your business? The building for this business is what makes the business and it would be located right downtown, on the water.

How do you want the public to perceive your image?  A meeting hall, a place that represents Nanaimo, a sense of place for Nanaimo. It should feel like home but also fresh.

What do you want to be famous for?  Being the place that people go to when they need a place.

What words should the general public associate your business with? Name at least 3. Modern, Inviting, Perfect

How do you want your image to be seen in 2 years? 10 years?  Comfortable, familiar, renowned

Competitors 

Who are your competitors?  Vancouver Island Conference Center, Port Theatre

How are they better/worse than your product/service?  Vancouver Island Conference Center has a larger space to host larger events, Port theatre has better space for theatrical events.

Who might you compete with in the future? More developments. 

The Target Audience 

Who is your customer? Describe in detail. My customer is anyone who is looking to use a space but is having trouble finding a good venue for it. A lot of people in Nanaimo have to settle for a venue that isn’t necessarily ideal and we are lacking a community spot. 

What do they do?  Live in Nanaimo and actively work towards bettering the downtown community via productions or events.

What do they watch? Community productions, local musicians, short plays, open mics.

Who is the ideal customer? Someone who perhaps wants to bring more culture to the city but lacks the funding/space.

How old is your ideal customer? 20-60

How do they find out about you? Through advertisements downtown, facebook, Nanaimo’s website

What do they want from you?  A place to host an event.

What customers do you not want to attract?  People who want to host an extremely large event or have the money to do so elsewhere. (Large corporate events that exceed capacity)  

What do you offer your customers that your competition does not? A place that can be molded easily to fit their needs. The place isn’t designed a certain way to format one specific thing so it means its a space that can be used for a variety of things without many spacial issues.

Current identity 

Do you have an identity?  No

What are two identities or logos that you like? Dislike? I like the CBC logo and the CNR logo. I don’t like the Nanaimo Chamber logo   

What colours do you like? Dislike?  I like sunset colours and when you just use multiple shades. I don’t like intense greens or dull colours.

Anything else? 

What did we not ask that you want us to understand? The Place isn’t like anything that’s already in Nanaimo because it isn’t held back by a small size or a regular business, it isn’t meant to make money from events, just enough to cover expenses. It’s meant to be somewhere rentable that people can use to host a variety of events and promote community within Nanaimo.

We were asked to think about where we’d be in 5-10 years and what we’d like to be doing. This is a good tool for portfolio work because it can help guide what you want others to get out of it.

My Vision:

I want to be changing the world in a positive way through design.

Steps:

Work full time at Common Foundry and develop my design skills.

Create work for clients and passion projects for myself that is effective.

Involve myself in the community and take initiative.

Create every single day and travel often, meet new people, learn, grow, adapt and problem solve as best I can.