Week 3 brief

Some mock-ups of presentation boards for this weeks 'weekly brief'. I have the challenge of researching Beach Volleyball as an Olympic sport and its relationship with 35-40 year old women. The general consensus around this age bracket is that they are very unaware that it is such a popular competitive sport: they associate it more with recreation play on holidays.

Craig Ward

Concentrating further on the idea of the written word as a series of illustrations, I have been looking at the work of Craig Ward, as he is a strong believer of this statement.

The name of his online portfolio expresses this perfectly titled 'words are pictures' as he tries to go against all traditional type design and wants to celebrate each letter as a piece of art.

I found this interview extract for 'Bak magazine' very interesting...

"Each letter should have a flirtation with the one next to it" says Mac Baumwell. In your opinion, what qualities make a typographic composition good enough?

Unlike most other creative pursuits there are a lot of rules that you can choose to follow when working with type. In doing so you’ll create something that is considered ‘right’ by the wider typographic community: there will be a grid; things will line up; if you’re working with body copy you shouldn’t have more than 15 words per line and so on and so forth. Of course, you’ll run the risk of creating something that’s been done countless times before. The best typography acknowledges the rules and work that has been done before and decides how to interpret it and to what extent to follow it’s lead.

On a personal level, one thing that unites all good typography is scale and contrast. Some people are afraid of using type above 12pt and hide it away in the bottom left corner of a page – what I try to do is the opposite; to celebrate the type. As soon as you enlarge type it becomes something else – more than just a series of letters. It becomes a shape or a set of curves – something abstract; it takes on a gender and a character and the craftsmanship of the type designer really comes to the fore.

(link to the article)

Clipper Tea

As an obsessed tea drinker myself I thought it was about time I do a post of the 2009 Clipper tea redesign. This indecisive company has been through several packaging designs to get to the point it is at now, and thanks to the artistic talents of 'Big fish' design agency, Clipper have received positive feedback about their rebrand. As fresh, organic and inviting as the packaging looks, I as the customer have had problems in identifying each different tea flavour. I'm pretty sure I am not the only one who has rushed into sainsbury's on an emergency tea dash and immediately assumed that as all of the boxes (from the front) appear the same due to the dominant grey background and so picked up the first one. Then get home and realise I have purchased fowl tasting green tea rather than peppermint. Devastating.

Design needs to be both practical and aesthetically pleasing and although Clipper have a huge big tick in one box I think the design could be made to distinguish each type much more obviously. That said, I love the imagery and style they have used and the 'cut-out' hand crafted feel the box has. They presented the organic nature of the product very well and made it a younger and more fashionable brand.

Past Clipper packaging designs and branding

Late February resolution

As i have pretty much rejected this blog recently I am going to make an effort to post as regularly as possible.
Right so, we are having weekly briefs in uni at the moment which at first I was horrified about but now i am definitely coming round to the idea and am finding it really useful for working on presentation skills.
This weeks was a much simpler task, having randomly selected a target audience from a hat (I got 35-40 year old women) we had to research as much about them as possible within the 7 days.
The copy that i wrote explains the audience well I feel and I had a great time creating the illustrations! After todays crit I can see that i need to improve several aspects but thought i'd upload what Ive done so far anyway...

COPY:

"This new and modern generation has reformed what the traditional middle-aged woman once was. No longer is it their sole duty to dedicate their days on all fours playing with plastic toys, cooking and listening to children’s nursery rhymes in the family Volkswagen. These women are staying younger for longer and closing the fundamental age gap between the generations slowing obliterating the idea of ‘us against them’.

Due to the recent rebirth of 80’s fashion, music and culture on the market, it is now ‘cool’ to be vintage and 35-40 year old women are the originals giving them an element of admiration. This age bridge does work both ways as they are becoming more actively involved with digital technology making them a new and prime target market wanting to absorb all that the 21st century has to offer, and unlike other generations, they can afford it.

The women (whether post family, career involved or a glowing new ‘yummy mummy’), are keen to rebel against the stereotype of how older women should look and behave. It is acceptable for them to wear Ugg boots, have the latest iphone and listen to current music as they want to do and have it all. These ambitious ladies are organized, passionate and not yet ready for compromise. They will stay up late, get up early and make time to look after themselves cherishing the fact that they can live a grown up lifestyle without fully growing up.

More and more 35-40 year old women are living online and judge their success not on finance or security but on freedom, and how much power they have to do what they want when they want. This does add a certain pressure however to this idealist balanced lifestyle: 23% of them are constant worriers as perhaps underneath this confident female market, there are insecurities and jealousy associated with which elements of their lifestyle they have paid least attention to."

The next stage of the brief is a pretty challenging task, again at random, we had to select an Olympic sport and are having to research it and its relationship to our target audience. I picked out 'beach volley ball'....should be interesting!
Ill upload what I find out next week so stay tuned!