Having Completed My Logo And Drafted My Brand Standards, I Began Trying To Figure Out Ways To Apply My

PROJECT ONE RATIONALE - BLOG POST #9

Project 1 - Environmental Redesign Rationale

ARTG371 - Sara Holmes

Product: Tsubazo Pairing Knife

Project Description: For this project, the goal was to find an overly packaged item and redesign it to create something more environmentally friendly. We were allowed to choose anything we deemed to be overpackaged, even if the packaging seemed alright. My goal was to create a package that could be used again, either as individual components or as one piece. I wanted to make sure that any waste from the project was one hundred percent recyclable. I also wanted to create a package that turned a simple pairing knife into a beautiful gift to be opened.

Environmental Considerations: When walking down the aisle of any store, it is unlikely that you will see more than a couple of packages with no plastic involved. Since the invention of plastic, it has been involved in packaging whether that has been as a plastic sleeve, bubble wrap, slips of plastic, etc. Even if it is made reusable (hard plastic), most of it ends up at the dump where it will take hundreds of years to break down completely. 

I wanted to create a simple enough package that could be completely reused, and if the person has no interest in reusing it, it could decompose naturally. For this project, I used the following:

Scrap Wood - 13 years to decompose.

Wood Glue - 1-3 years. Breaks down over a period of time when exposed to moisture. 

Cloth - 1-5 months to decompose.

Thread - 3-4 months to decompose.

Tracing paper - 1-4 weeks to decompose, could also be reused to wrap a gift, jot down notes, or even as tracing paper!

Recycled paper - 2-6 weeks to decompose. 

While a bit more effort is put into the packaging because of this, my audience could comfortably buy this product without worry of what to do with the package upon opening. The box could be reused to hold paint brushes, pencils, another gift, or even the knife. 

Design Concept and Solutions: 

My goal was to create a package for the product that could do a better job of representing the product inside. I wanted to completely eradicate the use of plastic, make a package that created less of an impact on the environment and was beautiful for the user to look at as well as. The original package that was cardboard and plastic and I did not think that it matched the quality of the product inside, a Japanese pairing knife.

The purpose of the item inside is to be used as an everyday knife for cutting up vegetables and fruit. My goal was to create a package that reflected the rich culture and heritage of the country that it was made in. I wanted to wow the user and make something that they would be inclined to reuse and if not, know with certainty that they could recycle it.

I began by looking at Japanese knives, the beautiful simplicity to the hilt matched with the rich texture of the blade. So much beauty deserved something more. I remembered reading about Japanese joinery a while ago and after reading up about it again, the idea came to me that I should make a box for the blade and use no nails. It would be better for the environment and would reflect Japan. 

I decided that I wanted my audience to be a culinary student or a professional in the industry. I wanted to create something that would give that person absolute joy to open. The idea was that I wanted the person opening it to have the same emotion a design student down when opening their MacBook packaging up for the first time. That feeling of excitement while opening up the layers of the box to reveal the item inside is what I wanted to promote.

Considerations:

Heritage - Japan has a very rich heritage and I wanted to make sure that the design was to that standard.

Environmental - The package should be simple but elegant, easily recycled.

Colour - Japan’s flag is a beautiful shade of red and the initial packaging makes attempts at that.

Typography - Japanese design loves geometrical sans-serifs.

Experience - This should be an exceptional experience for a culinary student.

Using these considerations, I applied myself to this redesign and my goal, which never changed during the entirety of this redesign.

I was planning to seal the box closed with a wax seal to give a sense of elegance. However, someone pointed out to me that this would leave a stain on the box. I also realized as I stood there with it in my hands, that a wax seal was too much, which is why I decided to wrap it in tracing paper instead. A great thing about the tracing paper is the auditory sensation of unwrapping it and the relation it has to actually receive a gift from someone. Suddenly, without me having to nudge anyone into thinking so, the package actually did look like a gift while keeping the box below visible. 

I also considered placing a seal anyway on the paper wrap but decided I loved the simple elegance of the wrap alone. Sometimes, even if you think you have a concrete plan, when it comes to the creation side they fall to the wayside. That is why creating a prototype is so important.  

Initially, I also had lofty plans for painting a beautiful scene on the lid of the box. However, during our feedback week, I had a lot of the students tell me that they loved how simple the box was, that the concept even reminded them of home. One of the girls told me that she was studying in Canada because she wanted to buy and sell products and she would definitely want to sell my product in Japan!

I was pretty attached to the idea of painting, but you learn a lot in design as you go through and build products, that sometimes it’s best to kill your darlings. Getting attached to one concept is a bad idea.

I found instead that I could create a colour pop by taking the wine red from the Japanese flag on the paper wrap and matching it to a fabric, which I then sewed into a handkerchief with the help of my mother and sister. I proudly did the inside seam and ironed it, but when the time came to sew the top, my sister, with her costuming diploma, stepped in for me. 

The end result is a beautiful, simple yet elegant gift. When opening, the user has to first slide off the paper wrap, open the tracing paper, slide back the lid and then finally unfold the handkerchief to reveal the blade inside, safely nestled within the fabric to keep it from moving while in transit.

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?

The Core Values of Place

If you build it, they will come.

Together we can do so much.

Do something today that benefits tomorrow.

You have power, do good.

A hearth should always be warm.

We share this Place with everyone.

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 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.)

Day One - Blog Post #1

I knew that class would be good today when we walked in and there was a picture of an egg on the powerpoint. I thought we were probably going to talk abt how an egg is a naturally good package, I didn’t think that we were going to have the opportunity to try and design a safe package for an egg in 20 minutes!

We weren’t given a lot of direction other than to make the package, so my group wondered if we were supposed to focus on appearance, function or perhaps both. We decided to go for both and used two rolls of duck tape to encase the egg, paper to cushion it and then we wrapped it in foam. We also gave our package a little bit of decoration in the form of a pipecleaner bow and an origami butterfly. 

I think we focused too much on the appearance of the package instead of putting as much focus on the function. Our package was poorly taped and when Nancy shoved it off the table, unfortunately, the package burst a bit and the eggshell got a crack in it.

It was really fun to do something so fast and right away and got our brains thinking for the rest of the day!

We learned how to score paper using a bone tool and tried it out ourselves on a box shape. So far, I’m really enjoying how hands on this class is.

Our assignment for this next week is to take a package that we were given in class and reproduce it three times, let’s see how it turns out!

Something to reflect on: We’re always wanting to think of the environment as graphic designers but when it comes to packaging and brand, brand needs to come first for a corporation. I think that makes it the graphic designer’s job, to provide a sustainable design for the company in question from the get-go. When redesigning for a brand, however, and working for someone like coca-cola who uses tons and tons of plastic each year but is so iconic, how much room does a designer have to play and is it that designer’s duty to do what they can to help the environment even if it means deviating from brand standards? Is it possible to stick to brand standards with the environment in mind?

DAY ELEVEN - BLOG POST #13

Today we met with our client for the first time since our initial meeting two weeks ago! We also had a visit from Gord Wright, a Hemlock Printer rep. He had a lot to tell us about the printing process and he was very informative. 

With that though, I realized that the seed paper that I was so attached to might not be the right way to go. The problem with seed paper is how moisture effects it. Grocery stores and the Goodlife Juice store may not be a great environment moisture-wise for that. Then, there’s also the seeds that are used and whether or not they are native to BC. If the seed in the paper is an invasive species, that would not be great for our environment. 

Oh well, kill your darlings.

My client liked the box with the pour spout best out of the ideas I showed her but then we realized that the granola will probably be packaged inside a plastic bag inside the box to keep it dry. I’m wondering if I can come up with a solution for this, like a tearaway that’s attached to the bag and box so that when you pull the spout out, the bag is torn open. I’m not sure how this will work, but I’d like to give it a try.

If that doesn’t work, I’m also thinking of just cutting a corner of the top of the box out so that when it’s on the shelf, the bag can be seen. The user can then just tear the bag open without even having to open the box and reseal it with a clip.

I guess I’ll have to try both of these things.

Competitor Analysis

My main competitor for Place is the Nanaimo Entertainment Centre. This is the only sort of location downtown that serves a similar purpose to what I’m going for with Place, even then, it isn’t quite the same. The Entertainment Centre is an old movie theatre that offers the use of the entire building for $500/24 hrs.

Unfortunately for me, the centre does not seem to have any actual branding and is sadly, a building that seems to be in disuse. When I walked through it, I felt this vast feeling inside me, nostalgia for a past I didn’t participate in and awe at the high ceilings. The place is a gem in the downtown core that gets overlooked because the building itself is in disrepair and it is not much to look at from the outside. With some proper branding and some money poured into it, I think it could be a good competitor for what I want Place to be. Still, the goal of the entertainment centre is to offer a rental location for various events in the community for a relatively cheap cost. 

Unfortunately, the competitor analysis for the group that I was in for class was far too different to be of use to me. My group was dealing with tour companies, a museum and a water taxi service so costs and branding were all over the place. My audience is also different as they are not tourists, but members of the community who I want to be tourists in their own city.

Learning about the Entertainment Centre only cemented my feeling that Place would be a good fit for Nanaimo.

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.

In a world where most people have access to the internet, having an opinion is a dangerous thing. Bringing facts to the table along with your viewpoint is essential for anyone who wants to start a conversation on a topic and while there were some points that I thought made sense in Natasha Jen’s talk, I can’t help agreeing with Richard Banfield’s critique of her critique. 

While I’m not a person who really believes in the use of ‘buzz words’ to prove my point, I think that in some cases buzz words just appear naturally in conversation between two graphic designers. Buzz words are also often important to the client, depending on who you’re working with, they want to know the mystical process behind the design work. 

Now, I don’t personally believe that just because you’re using a design term it’s a buzz word. I was looking at Natasha’s list of words and while some of her concerns seem to be valid, a lot of the words she listed are common, easily understood terms. (scale, empathy, user outcomes, etc.) I’d have to agree with Richard that her talk leaned more towards making jokes it seemed than actually proving anything.

I’m open to see both sides of the story, and I do think that there are probably some cases where a process is mislabeled as design thinking because it’s trendy, but I think it’s incorrect to write off a whole process just because of some outliers. 

Also, though it’s popular to say so, a messy or cluttered space does not necessarily mean that the designer is a genius, nor does it mean that the designer did not use design thinking. (That felt like a desperate point in Natasha’s talk.)

The issue of ‘where crit fits’ in the process too is an odd one to me. Obviously, as a trained graphic designer, I know that crit comes at any and all stages of the process whether you’re asking for it or not. As someone who regularly critique’s my colleague’s work, I know that as soon as I show anything to them I will receive crit. Crit is in every single step of the process, for Natasha to focus so directly on where it fits almost makes me feel like she does not actually have a full understanding of her own design process, despite her lofty position. 

Perhaps that is incorrect of me to say, but hey, it’s just a little bit of crit for her.

I think that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and can certainly choose to follow their design process how they see fit. Critique on a process is always welcome at any time and will be thoroughly dissected, ingested and critiqued in return by the graphic design community. The coolest part about graphic design is that we are a collection of creatives, all with different opinions and ways of doing things. If you’re going to give a talk where you critique an entire school of thought though, it’s probably best to come prepared with more than just some jokes about post it notes, buzz words and demands to see evidence when you could just google search some case studies.