Competitor Analysis

Activity One - Blog Post #2

Activity One turned out to be a more fun challenge than I initially thought. I picked up a package that had a hole cut into it and when I unfolded it, I actually found that there were two holes! I was dreading trying to cut it. However, I decided not to worry about it too much and just enjoy the process.

I started out by tracing the package twice on tracing paper. I found I had to be careful with the tracing paper because it crinkled up easily when I used my eraser. I had trouble with tracing the entire package without it moving because it was too long for my hands. Eventually, I realized that if I folded it halfway, it was doable. 

After taking the measurements and making note of all the writing on the little package, I finally decided to draw it out with my ruler using the measurements that I had taken.

Before cutting it, I carefully used my bone tool to create folds in the package. It was actually really good to struggle with getting the same effect in class with a pen lid, only to do it so easy with the actual tool at home. Even so, my tool got a bit ruined by my ruler because it was only hard plastic so I’d like to find a better material to use in the future. 

I decided to opt out for drawing the fold marks, going off the measurements and bone fold lines instead. The hardest part was definitely trying to cut holes into the package and unfortunately, I didn’t do the best job at it. I need to figure out better tricks for cutting holes in the future. 

This time, I tried cutting a pie into the holes, hoping that I could cut them out section by section. This just resulted in a choppy cut.  

Still, it was a joyful experience to fold my little package up and understand just why each flap had to be different, and understand how it fit together. 

While I wasn’t entirely happy with the recreation, I was satisfied with the way it folded together and when I pushed the flaps together correctly, I knew some glue would keep the holes lined up. I decided to leave it unglued for further work in class as it held together perfectly otherwise. 

Reflection: Working with something tactile for the first time in a while was a joyful and happy experience. It reminded me what I love about graphic design, the simple happiness of making something that works. I need practice cutting holes too and I guess I’m going to need a steady supply of fresh blades in order to get through this semester and my fresh pad of bristol paper. 

Portfolio Progress #2

What a time to be alive, a worldwide virus has put most of the world on hold at this time but that doesn’t mean we’re any less busy. We’re finishing this term remotely and it looks like my part-time job will be unavailable for the time being so I guess the silver lining here is more time to work on my portfolio?

Accomplished:

Figured out the Nav bar

Have got a footer going

more pages have been made

a hover feature has been added

project pages are slowly being built

To Do:

nav photoshoot with the latest issue

bilk out project pages

reduce image file sizes

about me page

lightboxes for photography and sketch page

Day Seven - Blog Post #8

Today we had our prototypes ready for other students to look at and discover. I got some really cool information and feedback about my package just by watching my students pick my package up and open it. The reaction I received from the students who looked at my package was exactly what I’d hoped for. It helped though that the class that came in was made up of international students, many of those being from Japan.  I had two Japanese students and a student from China who had been to Japan many times look at my package.

They were delighted with it and told me that the package was really similar to what you would actually see on the shelf in Japan to hold a good knife. They told me that the packaging style felt expensive and luxurious. I also got many good tips on how to make it even more authentic, such as possibly carving a pattern, making sure to give it a smooth finish and adding the Sun from the Japanese flag to directly behind the brand name on the paper slip.

Watching students interact and open my package made me really excited to work on my package further. It was great to see people’s reaction as they opened the box. No one had trouble opening it and they also told me that they liked how simple it was. They also told me that they would definitely keep the box and use it to hold other items or even just display it in their home.

I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I am excited to keep going.

DT: Secondary Research

So last time I posted about this, you know, before the world was ending, I was talking about the importance of coffee valves in a bag of coffee beans to keep the bag from exploding from the buildup of gasses. The valve allows carbon dioxide from the beans to escape, making it necessary. The problem with this, is that means it’s one of the things that makes a coffee bag not entirely compostable. So I was looking into that in particular and found that there’s a company called TricorBraun Flex that is working on a sustainable bag line called Biotrē that currently has a 60% compostable coffee bag and is working on a 100% compostable bag, so that’s great for the future of coffee. 

On that note, we researched what’s already out there for improving the coffee making process and I found it interesting that despite how old coffee is and the multitude of different ways of brewing it, most cultures have a certain way of doing it and have predominantly stuck to their methods and tools through history. Of course things have updated as technology evolved but there’s definitely been an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach to at home brewing or, people have developed their own methods.

Of course, there are many influential coffee shops and brew masters out there, even on the west coast, that are constantly developing new methods and shortcuts that often make their way to the home via baristas but we’ve yet to see a significant, single method in coffee brewing. 

The reason for this is that brewing is a very personal, particular thing. People like their coffee a certain way and everyone stores it, grinds it and prepares it differently. Still, I did find some neat little things that have been introduced to the brewing world in the last century!

I mainly looked at spoons when doing my secondary research and really enjoyed this concept:

Using the spoon as a clip as well to keep the coffee bag closed is a neat idea because the spoon would always be around for measuring and the bag gets closed, meaning the coffee keeps fresh for longer.

Alternatively, a coffee scoop with a sliding lid could help when scooping coffee. This is a picture of one used for medicine. 

Another cool thing is that there are a few drip coffee makers out there that actually grind the beans for you. It’s a no mess method because it also portions out the beans, making a pot of coffee is just keeping the water tank full and clicking a button.

We’ve Got Colour

So with a chosen logo to work with, I now have to figure out colour. I know these posts have been a little bit long-winded but bear with me here, typing all this out is helping me think as well. 

When working with colour, it’s important to think about emotions you’re trying to get across as well as what your audience is. Since my audience is the community, I want to use colours that are welcoming and friendly.

I started by collecting some colours that I like. I usually do this by looking at other work I’ve done and picking from photos that fit the mood of the project.

Lately, I’ve been really into softer, bright colours. 

These are some of the colour combos that I played with for this project but ultimately, I’ve ended up on the pale yellow, red and blue. They’re a softer take on a fully saturated primary palette. I may use the light pink as well later in some pattern work. 

Yellow = optimism, happiness, enthusiasm, hope red = passion, love, fire, determination blue = sea, sky, confidence, calm

Design For Business

One of the biggest things that people think of when they think of graphic design is logo design. I must admit that it isn’t necessarily an area that I feel particularly strong in. Conceptualizing a logo isn’t easy though, I shouldn’t speak like it is. Sure, you can go online and pay someone five dollars for a logo for your business, but when you do that, you’re getting the quality of work that you pay for.

The process of branding a business is definitely more than a five dollar job. A logo takes thought and care, it shouldn’t be taken lightly because a logo can and usually stick with a business forever, depending on how successful the logo is. A logo can even add to the success of the business it’s for. 

The current project that I’m working on to develop my branding skills, is creating the logo for a business designed to promote tourism for Vancouver Island. 

Because I noticed a real lack of it and I love taking the opportunity to promote tourism within my own city, I decided to imagine a venue downtown that could be used for a multitude of things, its main purpose being to promote a sense of place and provide a venue for activities in Nanaimo such as open mics, community classes, receptions, showcases, art shows, intimate concerts, etc. The opportunities are pretty endless. In the summer it could double as an information center downtown for tourists and hold informative talks about Nanaimo’s history. It could be a gathering place for those that come in on cruise ships and a banquet hall. 

I decided to keep it simple and name it ‘Place’. As in, “That could be a good place”, “This is your place”, “This Place is so cool.” I felt that calling it Place gives it almost a sense of ownership to Nanaimo.

Before getting into sketching, I started with a mind map. Mind maps are a really good way to get some concepts and ideas down on paper, things that you maybe didn’t even realize were connected before can all come together in a mind map. I also filled out the survey seen in the post previous to this one. I decided to focus on uses, anatomy of the place, emotions that should be evoked when thinking about the Place and associations I wanted to be made with it. 

Then I went on to starting to draw out some logo concepts. These all look a little goofy but there’s a reason to the rhyme and a rhyme to the reason. Before you can have some truly good ideas, sometimes you need to get rid of the excess thinking in your brain. I worked fast to try and get some of the bad ideas out first and tried a lot of different things, in some simply trying symbols, and others only trying word marks.

I’ve got a couple of pages more of these little logo sketches but they aren’t much better. While I worked on them, despite getting out a lot of ideas, in some instances I only felt frustrated. I know there’s a logo concept there that’s truly great but just out of reach. If I need to get all of these ones out first before I can get at it, then so be it. In the end, I wound up with around 100 little sketches, give or take. 

Having definitely exhausted my creativity when it comes to the letter ‘P’, I’ll probably work on narrowing these concepts down to just three choices and develop them for the next step in the logo process. If I don’t like anything I have, I’ll just have to sketch another hundred up. (The joys of being a graphic designer. :)

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?

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.

DAY TEN - BLOG POST #12

The aim for this stretch of the project was to create thumbs, mapped layouts and sketch model mockups. It’s hard however to get the appropriate size when you don’t really know how much space 250 grams of Good Life Granola is going to take up. 

Now, something I was told to work on was my ideation component so I worked really hard to come up with at least 50 thumbs to work with. I’m not the type to put myself into a box (*bdm tss*) so I found that just letting my pencil take up the space it wanted was the best way to go for me. This created a bit of a flow of ideas rather than me just trying to fill little squares with thoughts. Sometimes, you need to think outside of the box. (*bdmmmm tsssss*)

Here are the ideas I came up with.

I wanted to make sure that I worked through as many shapes as I possibly could think of to be thorough about the ideation period. Although I came up with some really fun, crazy shape ideas, I found myself drawn to a simple box for ease of production and cost when it came to the packaging and decided to develop those concepts further.

After fleshing those out a bit more, I decided to just sit down and have fun. I forgot how much I loved this part of the ideation and creation period. Although I messed up a couple of times, I didn’t let that frustrated me and instead just enjoyed the tactile puzzle I was dealing with. 

These are the design solutions I have come up with thus far:

I can’t wait to get proper measurements down so that I have a better idea of what I’m working with. I’m not even sure at all which one I like best so far, although I can tell you that the most interesting one to try and create was definitely the rectangle with the pour spout! (I thought my brain was combusting a little bit as I tried to visualize what I had to do in my head.)