OUGD201 - Self Evaluation

This module was definately more challenging for me than I expected. As a starting point, I feel that research has been my strength within this module; I tried to gather information from a range of appropriate sources for example on my ‘What is Good’ brief, when I was planning my questionnaire, I knew I didn’t just want to ask students on my course so I thought about where would be an appropriate environment to ask people and I chose to put them in a hair salon as I thought people who take pride in their hair, care about their appearance and braces obviously effect your appearance. Leading on from facts about braces, I looked at a variety of sources to inspire my packaging which definately benefit my development work.

However, I feel that I kind of lost track of the basis of module. specifically on the ‘What is Good?’ brief and I should have researched more into print processess; instead of just reading about them, I could have actually tried some of them but due to the obvious, poor time management, I didn’t give myself enough time. In terms of the 16 page booklet, although my research helped to produce a booklet I was pleased with and it came from a variety of sources i.e. books, internet and workshops, I don’t think it was as ‘in depth’ as it could have potentially been, one area that I would like to look at more is commercial costing, because I think this could really benefit my future practice.

The workshops that were undertaken within this module to show us how to prepare documents for print, choosing colours and ways of printing etc. have definately broadened my knowledge within this particular area. I now feel competent using design software and choosing spot colours; these skills will always be useful in my design practice and did actually help with my idea generation and design developent. In my opinion the one area that I feel lets me down here however, is my lack of confidence with using InDesign; the workshops showed me how to use it to prepare documents for print and choosing colours etc. however, I found that when it came to actually making my booklet, I only used InDesign for adding text to my pages, but I was still happy with my end product and i don’t think this effected it hugely.

The documentation of my work has always been a weak point in my design practice, but I definately felt I improved a great deal in this module and it proved to me how much documentation and organisation can benefit your work, it also helped with my idea generation because my research was accessible and easy to understand. Unfortunately, I’m not sure the presentation of my final work was as successful. On the ‘What is Good?’ brief, I was happy with my 5 concept boards but when it came to doing a PDF of the decisive moments within the project, I found it difficult to select what would be appropriate to go on it without putting every single piece of work on. When I completed the PDF, I didn’t think it gave justice to the amount of work that I had done but regardless of how many times I went back and added more too it, I still felt I was somewhat ‘selling myself short’.

In terms of my final products, I was very happy with them and I think they related to the brief quite well and showed my ‘style’ as a designer off as well. On the ‘What is Good?’ brief, as previously mentioned, I wish I had looked more into print processes appropriate to the design but overall I think it ‘packaged and informed’ about braces as a good thing quite successfully. On the ‘What is design for print?’ brief, with the 16 page booklet, I think the one thing that would have improved this would have been to demonstrate various processes, for example, instead of just explaining what a spot colour is, I could have showed how to find a spot colour on illustrator or photoshop as I do have this information I just chose not to put it in the booklet. Overall, I am happy with the work that I ultimately produced but feel that I could have ‘pushed it further’.

5 things that I will do different next time:

1 - Try more practical things.
2 - Prioritise / Organise time better - I should have spent more on the 16 page booklet in relation to the other brief.
3 - Visualise more ideas.
4 - Constantly refer back to the brief.
5 - At the end of the module, present my work better.

16 Pager

I went along with what some others are doing...and used Issuu to put my 16 Page booklet on here.

The cover would be printed on a coloured stock (for hand in, I printed it on pink and thought it worked really well) meaning their would be no white on the front, inside front cover ('intro'), back or inside back cover (credits).
The remainder of the booklet would be printed on a matt coated stock and saddle stitched.

I'm really happy with my end product but it has definately showed me that I am by no means a writer, I found it really difficult to write down what I had in my head...And - I've only just realised, I forgot to write anything on the intro page. Unfortunately, there isn't much I can do about it now except...say that I did it on purpose and the intro is the contents page? :)

Double page spreads...

The above DPS would be the centre pages...I rotated the design and layout to make it more interactive and looks like a flow chart...I like it :)

Images for my booklet...

After planning the layout for my 16 page booklet, I decided I wanted to make my own images for the colour models page...

CMYK

RGB

Resolution...

Final Boards

Sleeve...

I printed one on sugar paper, like the rest of the products....but also one on tracing paper, just to see how it would look. Ultimately, I prefer the one on the sugar paper anyway which works better with the rest of the package.

Final products...

Promotional Poster - Kind of 'Enigmatic' because it doesn't straight forward say what the product is, but it still has the logo to 'attach' it to the package and product.

Instruction sheet - To be presented as a scroll in the box, intentionally to be opened before the 'fortune teller' is used.


Fortune teller - When printed the fold lines won't be there, this was just to assist with layout.


This would be the reverse of the 'fortune teller' so that when you unfold it, this is what it reveals...to emphasize that 'braces aren't that bad'.


Coolio.

Barcode

I wanted to find a more visually engaging way of using a barcode on the final package, so I decided to include it in a smile...



Humourous and more visually engaging...

Stock decision and Poster design...

I finally decided to use sugar paper (bottom left...)

Firstly, I chose to design the promotional poster...and then reflect the layout in the products...


The background is a low saturated 'old paper' effect, to add texture and age to the final piece.


The only real difference with this one, is the logo in the middle as it stands out more.


This was inspired by the old Macleans advert...but I don't think it works too well in this situation.

An example of how the 'fact sheet' could look...in this instance, I don't really like it, and I don't think it would really entise anyone to read it...I think having it as an instruction sheet for the 'origami fortune teller' would work better.

The box...

As I'm just using a plain box, I thought buying one would be more effective than making one, because it would be crafted better...
I found this in paperchase, it wasn't that expensive either.

Final idea...

So, after research and various mock ups, I finally decided on this:
- A plain box, with a sleeve - have a design on the sleeve - makes it look more 'sophisticated'.
- The origami fortune teller.
- A fact sheet / an instruction sheet, presented as a scroll.
- A promotional poster, to be put up in the context (a dentist...beauty salon etc.)

Illustrations...

Although I haven't yet completely decided on what my final product will be, I have known from early on in the brief, that I wanted to include illustrations of British celebrities with bad teeth that are well known in America...so I chose:

Elton John, Amy Winehouse, Ricky Gervais, Tony Blair (not exactly a celebrity...but they still know who he is), Lou and Andy off Little Britain (they took the show over there last year...) and then the 2 final ones were examples of how americans make fun of British teeth...Austin Powers (American/Canadian? still counts...) and a British character off Family Guy.


After scanning them in, I altered the contrast etc. to make them stand out more.

After experimenting with various of ways of how I could make the teeth stand out, I decided on this one -
Simply colouring the teeth in, but also colouring in the hair because I think it makes it look better...:)

Logos / Brand Ident.

Primarily, the logos that I came up with for my 'brand' were quite bold and 'cartoony'...and I didn't really like them and the name was too obvious.
Here are 2 examples of them...

After thinking properly about my audience etc. I wanted the brand to appear more sophisticated but still humourous...


I took my two favourite designs into illustrator to make them look more 'professional' and finished...I also added colour to see if that would 'be appropriate'.
This is the final logo that I decided on...

Ideas

Now that I had the idea of what I wanted to package, I needed to think of what I could physically package to help me do this:

The idea behing this was to package a pair of teeth, like 'joke teeth' that people wear on halloween etc. but have them as perfectly straight, nice white teeth and emphasize that braces could help you get these.

I really like this idea, because it reminds me of when I was at school. I didn't know what they were called so when I looked on the internet, it came up with 'origami fortune teller'...so I went with that. They idea is to have it so that when you 'play it' it reveals facts about braces etc. and then if you completely unfold it, and reverse it...it will reveal a poster, similar to size that you sometimes get in a CD.
2 reasons that I like this are;
its nostalgic - for the audience, it will (hopefully) remind them of what they used to do at school.
interactive - you have to physically interact with it to reveal the facts, which will make it memorable.

If I was to carry this idea forward, I would probably have to use the vinyl cutter in the digital print room to apply something to the mirror.
To visualise what it would look like...I 'mocked' it up on photoshop, although I do really like the idea I'm not sure it would be as effective in reality...

Package and Promote

I haven't posted on here in a while as most of my work is on worksheets, but I will take photos and update soon.

So far I have decided:

- To promote braces as a good thing.

- Use the fact that Americans think that all British people have bad teeth as a 'theme'.

- Audience - 'Young adults' 18 - 25 Not particularly students, I was focusing more on young adults who didn't want to have braces when they were younger but have now decided they want to improve their teeth. They will be starting careers and need to give off a good impression, therefore a winning smile can benefit them! In addition to this, they may possibly still live at home and have enough money to pay for braces i.e. Invisalign braces are quite expensive, but you can't tell when people are wearing them so they don't need to be bothered about the appearance. A more specific type of person would be people that will be going into work where they will be working face to face with other people and appearance is important, a 'sophisticated' job.

- Context - As soon as I decided this, I said I didn't want to put them in dentists...but, that is one Obvious possibility. I was also thinking about beauty salons, health spa's and gyms - basically, put them in places where people go to 'take care of themselves' and improve their appearance.

- Tone - Humorous, but in a sophisticated way. Not 'LOL', in your face funny, a more discreet humorous undertone.

What to package...

At first, I was finding it difficult to think of what to package, so I thought I could package and promote Invisalign braces (an invisible brace...) however, after a little more research etc. I decided that was adding to my confusion...and wanted to simply package 'The Fact, that braces are good'.
However...I feel this may have changed my 'package and promote'...to 'package and inform'.

Last Type Workshop...

Although I don't think I will choosing the type module, todays workshop was quite amusing really. Graham even said it was more targeted at the people that probably weren't going to be working wit him again.

The basis of it was working with phonetics...spelling things the way that they sound, and being from yorkshire, 'up norf', I do like it!

Throughout the first few tasks, we all had to use the same point size and typeface.

(Serif, 36 point)

The first task was to

1: Spell your name how a friend would say it

2: Spell your name how an authoritive person would say it.

My friends that i've known since I was young, never really pronounce my name "Charlotte" it sounds like it should be "Char-lot" but...it just sounds strange when anyone says it like that, Charlut looks more phonetically correct! And the authoritive character, doesn't particularly make the word sound any different, they just put emphasis on the end to try and scare me...

Actually looking back at it, it should probably "Sharlut" because Ch could sound different i.e. Church whereas Sh...Shoe

The second task was also useful but I closed the file...oops. That was to write your name a series of times when someone is saying your name in an activity, i.e. trying to catch your attention.

I thought about how my brother says my name differently when he's asked me to do something but I always say "yeah, in a minute..." and when he continuously asks me it kind of goes...

'Sharlut....Sharlurrrt....Sharlurt...SharLut!'

Trying to portray the annoyance towards the end.

Then it got harder...

We had to try and communicate the sound of something that we do on a morning i.e. brushing your teeth, after walking around, nobody got mine:

It was supposed to be when a bus accelerates to the bus stop...then stops...and lowers the bus, so lets air out.

Then we had to just communicate the sound of a vehicle...any vehicle, doing anything...just the sound of a vehicle. Interestingly, more people could guess what each one was supposed to be when we had this limitation.

Mine was just a motorbike speeding up.

The final task was to do the sound of a vehicle again, but we could change the typeface, the weight and the position on the page.

Mine was once again, a bus accelerating and then stopping and lowering at a bus stop. They didn't exactly guess what it was, but they did get that there was air release at some point...

Although I kind of thought "When am I going to use this?", reflecting back, It was technically quite useful because the words create a nice visual and even though I don't want to work souly with Type i.e. for layouts, it could be more interesting when used with visuals/illustrative type.