As negotiated study is a pathway where we can explore the different opportunities, we were tasked to choose three or more briefs: an industry/live brief, a competition and a brief relating to our dissertations. To begin to even decide where to start, I had to first consider how my dissertation could relate to my brief. I was unsure how to approach it but after a lot of research and talking to my tutors, I started to dissect my dissertation title: “how is hidden and subliminal messaging used as a form of branding?” I started to consider the different aspects within advertising and how I could implement them into my brief.
After a lot of thought and consideration, I started to consider different skin care products and their campaigns such as Lush and Liz Earle. At first I was going to do something to do with perfume (as their advertisements doesn’t necessarily advertise the scent of the perfume but more so sex and attraction) but James helped me deicide which one would be best to create a new campaign for and how it could be applied to my title. Liz Earle’s products are completely organic and have nothing to do with animal testing or using any harmful ingredients in their products. I decided to create a campaign which informs and reminds old and new customers that they are those things by creating new packaging, informative leaflets and a stall that will change locations either every day or every few hours to capture a new audience. Just like cinnabun and Subway, I added the feature onto the cart which will emit a scent (a familiar one from their skin care line) in a close radius around the stall which will attract a passerby. This part links specifically with my dissertation.
Designing the products wasn’t much of a challenge but deciding how to approach it was. I made sure to stick with the Liz Earle colour scheme and targeted a new younger audience other than just their usual middle aged audience. I researched into the company heavily and thought about the designs for the packaging before developing them. Developing ideas and what to produce for Liz Earle, I had more than a few tutorials and discussed how to go about presenting this Liz Earle limited edition campaign. Producing the work wasn’t much of a struggle however creating a 3D prototype of the stall was. I would have liked to have used an advance program but I feel I would have needed a lot more tutorials on them. For the next project, I will. Overall, I think this brief went well. If I were to change anything in the future, I would have photographed the leaflets instead of using a mockup.
For my live project, I collaborated with Anna Smith. Finding a live brief wasn’t too difficult as I have a close friend that had been starting out with a plant hanging business. I approached her and she accepted the opportunity for us to rebrand her brand and design a look book, promo video, logo and brand guideline for her. If we had more time we would have gone ahead with packaging and more. Designing and planning the work wasn’t difficult as Anna and I remained in contact over the long period to get everything done. We evenly split the tasks and helped one another throughout all of it. When it came to researching, we looked at Sara’s competition, the websites she used to sell her hangers, the different sellers that sold things similar and more. Developing our ideas, Anna and I had group calls with Sara and suggested a multitude of things we knew she would like. Sara was very helpful and very optimistic about what we came up with. For the photographs, Anna and I paid for Sara to travel to Birmingham so we could use her plant hangers and get her appropriate input on how to photograph them. She was the perfect client, being honest when needed and being very cooperative. The only problems I came across were trying to grade the video but that was more so a program change. We had some trouble with getting the photographs off the photographer as well which pushed us back a few days. But we managed to stay on schedule and keep everything uniform. Overall I think the brief was very successful however if I were to change anything, it would be the photographer as we couldn’t rely on them in the end.
With the competition brief, I also collaborated with Anna Smith. As this was the last brief we attacked, we decided to go with the YCN, “The Grown Up Chocolate Company” brief. This brief asked us to create a new package design for their new personalized chocolates and a landing page to present it. Firstly, we began looking at the different forms of personalized chocolates and independent chocolate brands other than the usual Cadbury’s or Galaxy. Developing our ideas from this, we looked at different patterns and objects/food that could maybe be featured on the front. Through experimentation, we struggled with coming up with something “inventive” and “new” and not something childish. A lot of brands such as Clippers Tea and PG Tips use vectored drawings of fruits or objects. It doesn’t give it that childlike quality. As we started to produce work for this brief we started to develop a similar pattern using 10 of the hundred ingredients they use for the front of the box. Anna and I created separate boxes however made sure they matched in some way, using the vectored drawings as our main attraction. We researched a few landing page examples however we were slightly confused on what it was and how to approach it. We decided to keep the vectored fruit as the background of the landing page including the information of what the customization was and how to use it. Anna came up with a brilliant name for it, “Bittersweet Customisation.” The production of the page afterward (the customisation page) was created using After Effects instead of Inivision by Anna due to the sizing. I then created the ending Gif using After Effects for the video which further advertised it. Overall, I would say I was fifty/fifty with this brief. A lot of the competition briefs didn’t appeal to me and this one was okay. If were to change anything I would have made sure to leave enough time to create more ideas and development. Using the final week for this brief wasn’t the best idea but it heled Anna and I to realise how the real world would be if were in the industry.
discoholicmusic
ellievsbear
annaxmalina
stormborns
pixelskylines
snowghoul
theartofmadeline