Refined Rationales Blog Post #5B

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.

Opportunities for Change & Innovation

This seems like a very self-centred approach to this project because I might be one of the select few that faces this problem. But hey, I think it’s important to do a passion project every now and again.

Design & Thinking Documentary

Design & Thinking is an interesting documentary to watch as a designer because it has designers in the working field that agree and disagree with it, and designers who don’t know exactly what it is. I’m always fascinated when we get to hear from other designers in a visual sense, much more so than the written word. I thought some interesting things were said, here are some ideas that I really quite liked.

“Design Thinking is applying design methods to the working class and world.”

I thought that this was a neat little concept because it really helps me as a designer understand more what Design Thinking is and what we’re trying to do with it. This makes it feel like Design Thinking is less a scientific method and more of a way to bridge a gap.

“Design is a sport where you have to participate.”

I think a lot of designers, myself included, feel like we have to figure everything out on our own but Design Thinking really cements the idea that design thinking is a team effort. I really like how this phrase puts it into such easy terms. 

“Rapid Prototyping: It’s ok to have a bad idea.”

Luckily, this is something we’re taught well in our program but it’s nice to see this concept out in the real world. I’m so nervous about having to be perfect when I leave school but making wrong decisions seem inevitable. 

“Ask Why”

This I think, is my favourite idea from the documentary. I feel like it’s so easy to just take a client’s request and push it out without thought to exactly what they asked for. It’s easy to fall into a rhythm and just forget how to use our design minds, but I never want to forget how to be creative.

Place Brand Brief Schematic

Brand Statement

Hi, my name is Sara. I am a graphic design graduate. When I’m not designing, I’m running my small enamel pin business or slinging coffee at White rabbit Coffee Co. No matter what the task, I put my all into it with gusto. I work bright and fast. I want to create real, positive change through my work, no matter how small. 

Brand Promise

I’ll always do better than before. (WIP)

Pushing the limits on every project. (possibility?)

The biggest challenge I have when looking at portfolio websites is that oftentimes, the user experience is poor because of the amount of focus the designer has put into the user interface. I can appreciate a flashy website with a lot of moving pieces but I don’t think that there’s a place for them on a portfolio website unless it’s serving a purpose. For example, it might make sense for someone whose career is in uiux to show off what they can do, but something that’s been drilled into me as a design student is the concept of function over form.

When looking for a portfolio website that inspired me, I found that I leaned towards websites that used grids, that had a definite branded look (colour, style, etc) and that was easy to navigate.

Kate Moross is a bit of a hero of mine. (Kate goes by they/them) They’re a fantastic designer that has been in the business for over a decade and is based out of London. Their work is vibrant, stylized and unique. 

Their website neatly links to each piece and gives many examples of it in different lighting and with great photography. They lay out their involvement in the project in most cases and Kate’s site seems to update each year.

I really like the way Kate’s site is laid out because while they utilize a grid, it has a couple of quirks to it which stays true to their nature as a designer. Kate isn’t afraid to be themself on their own website and I think that’s important, as it was discussed in class, it’s vital to represent yourself truthfully.

I also really like how easy it is to navigate Kate’s website.

The sidebar is bright and easy to find and it pretty much takes you anywhere you might think to go. Kate also has an extensive background though with a lot more experience than I’ve had. They’re well known worldwide and even if you think you’ve never seen their stuff, you most likely have. While my portfolio will be smaller to start, I think a simple layout like this would be easier to keep building up.

Summary of takeaways for my own portfolio site:

Keep it simple, only use flashy stuff if it’s necessary. As a designer, I tend to lean towards a minimalistic approach so my website should reflect that.

Be honest. Don’t use language that you don’t mean when referring to yourself. 

Give users the information that they’re seeking with minimal effort. 

Try to use excellent photography and avoid unedited/poor quality imagery for the website. Reshoot if you have the time or use mockups for now. 

Explain what you did for each project so that people can understand what they’re looking at and why.

Let’s Take a Sec Here

So last week, I took my hundred thumbs and whittled them down to three choices. Those three choices didn’t really feel that great so I started working on more thumbs but found that throughout them, I was fixated on geometry. I was drawing cubes, cones, triangles and a lot of circles. I thought that was maybe just me doodling mindlessly.

Perhaps it was or maybe it was my brain compartmentalizing my thinking, literally putting my thoughts into boxes to be taken off the shelf and stacked up later until I had the semblance of a thing. Design, in all of its facets, can be boiled down to one thing: making things. Sometimes our brains make in chunks first and we work so closely with those chunks that we don’t realize there’s a whole big picture we’ve missed until someone else points out what’s been right under your nose all along. 

Last week my prof took my circle design and asked me why I didn’t just continue with that, but with a whole line of slightly wobbly geometry. I want to show you my emotions about that through this excellent clown illustration above by @nerimative on instagram. 

As you can see, it perfectly displays the feeling within when one performs the blunder described by my oma as ‘looking with your nose instead of your eyes’.

Anyway, back to it.

Day Two - Blog Post #3

Today we swapped the packages we’d worked on this past week and our assignment was to recreate the new package but digitally! My new package is fun because each text block has a gradient colour scheme. After getting a close to accurate digital outline, I made sure to grab the correct swatches for the gradient from the Pantene swatch books that my professor provided in class.

I’m lucky that I’ve had quite a bit of practice with the pen tool this past summer or I may have found this a bit more frustrating. At this point, I think that illustrator is my favourite program to work in. I still need to get on buying some replacement blades for next week to ensure a good cut. I really want to make sure I get this package as accurate as possible so I’ve scanned the package itself to double check my work.

Reflection: Taking this tactile work back to digital adds a fluidity from hands-on to computer work, something that I’ve always appreciated about design work. 

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 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.