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Week 13

The end has finally arrived; we have completed project two and photographed it in all its beauty. Below you will see my submission panel showcasing all three products and a close up of the cold brew coffee can.

It is very satisfying seeing the final product. I printed the labels as stickers which made for very easy application. The colours turned out perfect! I had a copy printed on paper, just in case, but the colours were a bit off. I’m glad the stickers worked so well.

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Rationale

Challenge: The challenge I had was switching my product halfway through. I had difficulty thinking of a product that I wanted to redesign, which is what inspired me to create my own product. Approach: I took photos of the coffee cans available at whole foods and then looked up others on Pinterest. The ones I found in real life were very bright and tacky. The ones online all had black or white labels and were either illustrative or very minimalistic. I decided that in order to set myself apart from the competition, I would chose a pastel colour palette. I chose 4 shades to use on each can and only used black and white for the barcode and nutritional info. Outcome: I think the final outcome really looks like a product you would see on the shelf. I’d be drawn to it. My target audience is millennial, since they are the ones who love cold coffee, and I think they would find these cans appealing. I’m glad that I didn’t rest with the initial outcome I had at the start of the week. Having the critique on Monday helped me push my design further, and I think the final design is stronger.

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Week 12

Today was very education and eye opening. I learned a lot from the guys at hired guns, not just from what they said about my product, but from things they said about everyone’s products. I loved the round table style discussion we had, so everyone could hear their critique.

One was quite loud, one was more thoughtful and deliberate with what he said. Both were very insightful and had a wealth of information to share.

I presented them with my three products, and they told me a lot. I learned all about the different types of can labels and decided on what I would theoretically would choose if I were to make my product. The loud one wanted more distinct branding. At first, I was a little confused: “what makes a typeface go from just a typeface to a logo?” I thought to myself. But this made me push myself, and I am quite pleased with the outcome. He, of course, was right, and now I think I really have a brand.

The quieter one recommended to have three sides to my can label, to ensure some is always seen on the shelf. On one side is the nutritional facts, one has this side that you see above, and the third is a duplicate of this side, but with French. I’m not sure on how accurate the French is since I used google translate, but I do not have access to a translator. 

Now I am in the process of getting labels printed as stickers and hopefully will have great success in applying these to cans.

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Week 11

Alright, so there was quite a change up from last week. It was strongly suggested that I choose a new product/invent a product. So, I switched from hot coffee to cold coffee. Cold brew coffee cans to be specific.

My brand is called Good Morning; once I created the name, the slogan came shortly after. “Everyday can start with a good morning.” So catchy, and true!

I had to work quickly, because now I was a week behind on the project. I needed to make a series of three products, so I decided on a black, cold brew coffee; a sweet coffee called “candy coffee;” and a “milk tea” like the sweet chai tea they serve in India. 

I started by finding two typefaces to work with, and started looking for colours. I chose 4 shades to use for each product. I then did a lot of boring research on nutritional facts and how to list them on your product. 

After many iterations, I came up with something to show the guys from hired guns. 

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Week 10

That’s right folks, the big 1-0! We made it! I fell a little behind on the blog, and questioned if this day would ever come, but here we are. Alright so we are cankle deep in project 2, and it is time to pick a product. I don’t actually know where in the project brief it says to pick a product, but I don’t see how I can really carry on without one. 

I am choosing (drum roll).......Kicking Horse Coffee! 

Kicking Horse’s Three Sisters blend is my coffee of choice. I forced my boyfriend to convert even though he prefers a dark roast. But that is the passion I feel towards this coffee. It’s superior to any of the old Costco options, which we have exhausted. I digress, back to the project. Love the coffee, don’t love the package design. I can only find my blend of choice because of the symbol, and I actually picked the Three Sisters blend because it has the least obnoxious image. I’ll show you:

I’ve chosen one dark, one medium, and one light roast from their brand to redesign in my series. Here are the other two:

I don’t want to be so bold as to suggest new names for the blends, but it is something to consider. 

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Week 09

Today was meant to be a field trip, but due to some car troubles on my end, and as it turns out, car troubles on the bus’ end, there was no field trip for anyone. But we must carry despite unreliable transit. 

This week, we start project 2. Project 2 is a redesign of a package series. Fortunately for me, I happen to love looking at beautiful products in person and online. I am a sucker for good branding! If I need to decide between two face creams that are virtually the same, but one comes in a pink package  – sold! I don’t care that it’s $30 more! It will look beautiful on my shelf and its design will bring me joy daily. 

Okay, back to the task at hand. I was to find two examples of GOOD design on a series. So here you have it:

The before mentioned lotion was from this brand. How could I resist?

A. How is the branding consistent? Well, the company name/logo remains at the top of the rectangle labels on all products, and the name is big and bold, listed underneath. Then there is a small blurb about what is inside.

B. How does the design change between products? The size of the rectangle changes depending on the size of the container. And some have a symbol or design on the label.

C. What is the brand and/or concept? I think because the labels are clean and simple, they are saying the product is the same. There is no junk in here or on here!

The following is an example of a company that I’ve been following but have yet to purchase a product from. 

A. How is the branding consistent? The package is the same for all three products and they have the same label shape and size. The logo is in the same spot for all three and the product name is listed below. 

B. How does the design change between products? The label colour changes to match the flavours, but they keep the pattern the same. Also the descriptions of the product have a little variation on each product.

C. What is the brand and/or concept? This one is simple and clean, but has more punchy colours than the previous series. They are keeping things young and hip, and that says that their products are innovative and trendy. 

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Week 08

The final product!

It was very exciting to get my design printed and see the final package put together. Cutting it out was very stressful, and I even ordered back-up prints just in case. 

But, nothing is perfect, and no matter how many mock-ups you do, and no matter how many times you measure – things sometimes don’t add up. The space where the tablet was meant to come out was too short, and there was no way to actually get the table out gracefully. Which has led me to the slight re-design of my package and the designing of Norman’s friends, Nora, and Ned.

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Week 07

This week I worked on the actual design on the box. I took the colours from the original package as my starting point. I played around a bit trying to create a face on the box.

It took a lot of visualization on my part to figure out how the box will work and fold. Changing the inside colours to a darker green helped with this. Drawing the mouth is tricky; I want to create the illusion of an underbite on my face. I initially had the teeth coming up over the edge of the flap, but then I realized that will be difficult to create. I now think I can create the same look with having the look of the teeth on the flap.

In in image, you can see the different flaps I was trying out to create the underbite look. 

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Week 06

This week we started prototyping our package. I started by using a piece of tracing paper and wrapping it around my product. I then got a rough shape of what I needed to make, and cut away all the excess. 

After this I refined the shape by straightening the lines, and making sure the sides were even. I took that shape and traced it to refine it even further.

Eventually, I was left with the starting shape of my package design.

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Week 05

This week is the start of our first project, aka Project One. The challenge is to take  a packaged product, and redesign it to be more environmentally friendly. The theme is less; less packaging, less shelf space, less type, and less plastic. Sounds simple, right?

Well, it was actually pretty difficult to land on a product to redesign. I’ve been trying a new practice of reading for inspiration before I look for images. This way my mind can wonder to it’s own original ideas, instead of simply copying something I found on Pinterest. This technique is helpful, but it is still hard to avoid the influence of images. It seems everything has already been designed and improved on a hundred times over. But we were not asked to re-invent the wheel, just re-package it.

A trip to the grocery store with my partner helped me find the perfect product to re-package. Electrolytes! The brand we tend to buy is called nuun and it comes in a plastic tube. Obviously, the reasoning for the tube is to protect the product inside, but there must be a more sustainable way to do this. 

I brought my tube to class, where we were instructed to sketch new ways to package our chosen product. My initial idea was to change it into a paper gum style package. The tablets would pop out the bottom half. This would eliminate all plastic from the package, and would make recycling easier since everything would be made from paper. 

After sketching out this idea, and a few others, I was sure this was the way to go. But once I tried to explain it to Kaylie, it became clear that it was going to be very difficult. Kaylie gave me some advice and we played off the idea of a pez dispenser. 

The idea I have landed on is to create a slender box with an opening at the bottom. There will be a flap that folds up to reveal the tablets, but can close back up to protect them. There will also be a tab and a paper at the bottom to pull out the bottom tablet. This gave me the idea to make that a tongue, and the box look like a face. This works well because this brand has several flavours. I have now created more work for myself, but oh well. I think, in the end, having a series of three faces will be more impactful that one standing alone. These faces can use the colours that nuun is already using to distinguish between colours. 

Some challenges I am facing: I have to include a lot of medical information and ingredients, and I need to make the box sturdy enough to maintain a flap and to protect the tablets inside.

My goals: To switch from plastic to paper packaging, and to create a fun, memorable package design.

My dream outcome: to create a cute series of packages that I can include in my portfolio and to submit to nuun. Maybe there are looking for a change.

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Week 04

Today we got to put together our final package. It was very neat to see the package as more than a flat piece of paper. This made it more real. 

I made a couple close calls in the cutting department, but overall, it turned out great! Everything lined up, and folded together perfectly. I used 50% opacity on the black key line, so it was easy to cut off. There were a couple cuts that went into the package in order to get it to fold, but the grey made the lines less noticeable. I do think I used my scoring tool a little too vigorously. There were a couple miss-steps here, and some very fragile folds. 

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Week 03

I’m just working away on my package recreation. I think I figured out the gradient, now I just need to add the rest of the text. This package doesn’t have too much text, so that shouldn’t be too difficult to finish. My goal is to finish by tomorrow so I can send this to print at ARC. 

I’m nervous to cut out the final product. But Nancy said she has some tools to help with the curves. My mockup turned out well, but I scored a couple spots wrong. I need to add my fold lines so this won’t happen in the final product.

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Week 02

This week was a bit of a challenge because we traded mock-ups with a partner. Thankfully, Madison’s diagram was very well labelled and very clean. 

I initially made the key line by using her measurements, and I added my guides. Once I scanned the actually package, I inserted it in behind my diagram. It turned out not to be very accurate, so I measured again and moved my guides. I am now left with an accurate figure of the package and can begin adding the typography.

I am excited to add the colour into this package. There is a radial gradient on the box, so that will be fun to re-create. 

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Week 01

This week we started the class by getting into groups, and making a creative package for an egg.

My group got very carried away with design, and went for an air balloon look; similar to the movie Up. We had a lot of fun making this!

In the end, it was also very secure; our egg did not break, even after Nancy savagely pushed all the eggs off the table. I was quite shocked by her abrupt actions.

Working as a team was a challenge. We were getting very carried away and having fun, so it was hard for us all to stay on the same page. Margeaux and I would be working on something together, and then look over and see our partner doing something completely different.

You can see ours in the middle in the above photo. It also featured a small chicken sitting on top of the egg.