Friday 27 May 2011

OUGD203

I started this project on a high from my success with the previous design for screen module which made me a lot more confident with my place on this course although I was quite worried with the collaboration element of the module as I don't always enjoy group work and previous colloborations havn't always worked well. Alice approached me to work with her for the YCN collaboration and I was delighted with this as I knew we both were interested in design for retail and work in similar ways. I knew that working with Alice would make me a stronger designer as we could learn from each others skills and it would definately be a passionately driven project. We were both very keen to gain experience from a retail brief and create a professional piece of work for our portfolio.


The YCN brief showed me how much work was possible to do in such a short space of time, by focussing our ideas and making strict choices right from the beginning it allowed us to design a full range and make the products with time left to document and present them professionally for the competition. Time management has always been a downfall of mine, working with Alice really helped to get me into a routine of blogging everyday. Writing lists and filling in timetables and action plans proved to be really beneficial and pushed my design work onwards.

I feel that not only have I produced professional work but I have enjoyed it and have felt very passionate about this area of design. Compared with the print project earlier on in the year I have definately improved so much as a designer and I feel that my enjoyment in selection briefs I am interested in has influenced me as a designer.

The web aspect of the module was really interesting, I have no background in this at all but was amazed to see how quickly I could put together a professional looking website. I have a lot more understanding of the importance of a good, easy to use website and also an appreciation of the coding side to web design. 


In the Product Range Distribution project I took the skills I had learnt from YCN and applied them to a new retail project, it was funny to see that me and Alice selected similar briefs for the second part of this module but have both created seperate projects from this. I decided to look at a new area of retail design, food retail which meant I have learnt a lot more about retail as a whole. Learning from my mistakes in previous projects I focused the brief from the beginning basing the project on an existing company improved the way that I work. 


This module has influenced my dissertation as I propose to look into the experience of shopping and how graphics influence the consumer. I feel that the practical side of the course will support this and after researching for my essays will hopefully strengthen the practical side too as I will have a greater understanding of this subject.

Attendance-5
Punctuality-5
Motivation-4
Commitment-4
Quality of work-4
Quantity of work-4

The Organic Pantry Final Boards

Final YCN boards

Thursday 26 May 2011

Website Organic Pantry

 
 I took information for the website from their existing website, looking at pages they have included.
What I found when using the website was that there were too many pages, a few of them which were waiting for information. The pages which I plan to take forward are:

About Us
The Team
Tatsy Pots
Drop by
Be Sustainable

I don't need to include all the information they do as this website is for the cafe only not the whole company although it will include information about the farm to show where all the food is sourced from.
I wanted to keep the website clean and fresh looking, using the patterned background and the beautiful photographs used on the current website, it really gets across what the company is about.
I want it to be clearer, easier to use and minimal amounts of information.
 



The be sustainable page will continue on the engagement between the consumer and being green, it will provide recipes, tips and information to support them.

Mock ups for boards

I tried where possible to take photographs of the products in context, adding in fruit, veg and herbs to the pots to make it look real. I wanted to show a range of 10 pots on a windowsill yet I had only made 4 pots so i decided to mock up the windowsill image with the tags.



 


Using the photograph of the range of pots I pasted these into an image of a windowsill and photoshop'd in the herb plants and the fork and tag to show how customers would interact with the product.

Documentation of Products





















Wednesday 25 May 2011

Tuesday 24 May 2011

Forks and tag


155mm wooden fork


The wooden fork doubles up as a tool to 'growing your own', it can be used just like a garden fork then stuck into the soil to measure the growth and label the plant.
One side is a measure, mm rule to watch your plant grow and develop.
The opposite side includes 1 of the 10 herbs available to collect.












I didn't want a really intricate shape for the leaf as it would be very fragile yet I wanted to be able to distinguish between the different herbs, at first I looked at using photo's of herbs and changing them into a monotone image but they weren't clear enough. Using the pen tool with a brush stroke I drew the leaves instead making them a lot clearer and identifiable.