OUGD503 - Responsive: BEAR Boards

Here are the YCN submission boards for BEAR:

OUGD503 - Responsive: BEAR Boards

Here are my individual boards for the collaborative BEAR project:

Here are the competition boards that we submitted to YCN:

OUGD503 - Responsive: Uber Crit

This week we had an Uber crit on all the responsive brief's we have done so far.
I created boards for the occasion:

I only included a final image for each project, with a small explanation of the brief and my solution so people got the gist of it. I didn't include any developmental work as I just wanted impact boards, but I could have done better mock ups.

Here is my individual feedback:

Presentation

Strengths

• Works as a set
• Final products are impactful on every page
• Overall consistency and aesthetic style
• Really like how the images and type are balanced on the design boards

Suggestions

• Improve quality of photographs - bacon packaging
• The brief could be placed on boards to add clarity
• Companions - what was brief?
• Shorten the headers
• Make the text on the boards smaller
• Could use some more exciting structures on the boards

Project Management

Strengths

• Well managed with a wide variety of print and web based briefs. Ideas and concepts showcased well on all design boards.
• 'Coming Soon' shows project management and time keeping skills
• Final outcomes visible on your boards. Typeface created for some briefs which shows design skill and development

Suggestions

• More than one board for each brief showing products, range and distribution, as well as giving more in depth and information on each briefs board
• Unable to see progression on blog

Has Brief Been Answered?

Strengths

• All briefs feature a different concept, resolution and design styles
• What and Why have been answered continuously
• Companion - simple iconic symbols/images which represent animals
• You've answered your briefs constructively, effectively and professionally
• Danepak - very professional, I would purchase. Colours remind me of bacon. The pigs make a nice touch too

Suggestions

• Companions - show how the logo will look on the shops along with branded merch

Additional Comments

• Good variety of final outcomes, print, digital, web - shows strong and varied skill set
• Really love the concept for the Dialogue brief
• Crafting of packaging is well finished
• Digital execution is really good
• Mock up of pet shop logo could be added for further depth 

Feedback

I was really happy with the feedback - all the suggestions made were valid, and after looking at other peoples boards along with feedback I know I definitely need to start making mock ups when I produce designs. It looks more professional, and gives people context. I think it would be better to show product, range and distribution too. I think this session was really constructive for my individual feedback, and I know what to improve next time. But I also appreciated the positive feedback on consistency of boards, variety of briefs and my concept for Dialogue.

When I was making the boards for this session, the one I didn't change was Companions - this was an existing one that I gave to the client, and this is the only board which people have mentioned doesn't mention the brief. I'm happy that they picked this up, and it is the only one they felt didn't explain everything.

Collaborative Feedback

I was a bit apprehensive about this, because we only had one board, and hadn't included all the design, and the mock ups we had were of poor quality. I didn't really think to go further with these beforehand - and the next day they were all completely finished so would have been nice to get feedback on all of them. 

Anyway, this was the feedback we got which was all positive:

• Illustrations are really appropriate and well executed
• Illustrations are strong
• Concept is great - really interactive for kids + informative too
• A few print issues are clear
• The illustrations are fantastic!
• Really aesthetically appropriate and well executed
• I really like the Treetops Box, very warm, strong colours
• Illustrations suit target audience
• Seems that you've got all the elements you need to cut out
• Very thoughtout
• Lots of facts for children
• Incredibly child appropriate, I hope this goes down a storm with you
• Interactive and wonderfully engaging
• Gimme
• Check typesetting
• The illustrations are fantastic!
• Really strong powerful images, very fun, very playful

The only suggestions made we already realised before the crit - about type.
So overall we were obviously very happy about the feedback - I am just kicking myself in the teeth for not having more physical things to show really. I'm really glad people think it is appropriate for the brief, and we have worked very hard to make sure it answers the brief as much as we can, so it has paid off to get this feedback. 

OUGD503 - Responsive: BEAR - YCN Design Boards

After the photoshoot I started thinking about the design boards that we'll send to YCN. It doesn't actually mention boards on the website, but we're going to do them anyway as we feel that's the most appropriate way to submit the work.

I started thinking about the content, order of boards and want to include.

• Bodycopy for each board - facts, create a character, rabbit burrows etc
• Concept - brief quotes and how we've interpreted that
• Drawings of the boards, with layout, text boxes and illustrations
• Digital designs - full designs before print
• Photographs - showing the set as a whole and boxes made

This all came to 8 boards, which I think is too much, so I started to refine the outline.

• Board 1: Concept - using quotes like 'bring the alphabet to life', 'educational or crafty', 'doesn't feel like learning', 'last longer than two minutes', 'bold, gruff, simple and fun'.
• Board 2-4: Bodycopy - facts, counting activity, rabbit in burrow, create a character, instructions, side of boxes
• Board 5: Digital Designs -  to see colours, what we created
• Board 6: Photographs - to see the set as a whole and how it would be made

I then went into InDesign and started creating rough layouts for it. We want it to be clean and professional, but also reflect the design.

I thought having a thin top bar with a brown background reflects how it has been used on the boxes, and is a colour used on all of the designs. This would have the pagenation, board title and our names on.

I started making 'Camping Facts' as an example, and included the facts used on that box. I also put the fireflies dotted around, but I think this is too much.

I removed them and kept the fireflies in the corner.

I then moved these to the edge of the grid column to make the grid stronger and more visible.

I also added a line and made the text column narrower. I think it can be narrow because we won't have that much text on any of them to fill the bottom, and there is more space for images.

I prefer it without the line and the fireflies on the left, but I like the narrower columns.

Then I tried the text at the bottom rather than the side, which I think could get more images on this way.

I added a more stylised line, as I felt there wasn't enough of a separation.

I made it thinner which I am happier with.

I showed a couple to Sarah and she likes the style - stylised to our designs, but still aimed at the judges in a professional way.

Once I took the photographs and Sarah had edited them, I came up with different layouts which suited them more. I wanted the photograph to fill the whole page so there was no white edges, so Sarah edited these and I carried on with the layout.

For the last page we wanted to show all of the components up close, so I made a grid and started arranging the images into the spaces.

OUGD503 - Responsive: BEAR - Side of Box Content

I emailed YCN asking if you can design other parts of the box rather than just the back and they said yes.
I didn't want to change it much - just add the content to the sides in the style we were working in.

Here is one of the packs they gave us:

They included information like contact details, facts, whats in it, nutritional information, allergen information etc.

I decided to take the most important things:

Contact Details

No Nonsense Breakfast

Logo

Nutritional Info

Allergen Info

and include these on the sides of the box - I couldn't include them all because of space. 

Here is what I did on the packaging.

This was the only one that didn't have the space filled up on the left - this is because on the other two, there are things to cover it. As we didn't have to design the sides, we decided just not to photograph this bit! I just wanted to design the sides for when we photograph, it isn't just a 2D piece of paper.

OUGD503 - Responsive: BEAR - Photoshoot

Once I had printed the cereal pack nets and cut out objects, Sarah cut most of them out and then we photographed them.

We got set up in the studio together and took a few photos, then Sarah had to leave so I continued doing the rest. We did want a coloured background to make it more fun, such as the yellow, red and green on the boxes, but we only had white.
We also wasn't able to get hold of any BEAR cereal boxes, so we only had half a net to use. Although they looked good, we had to be careful about what angle we photographed from so you didn't notice it was just a back.

We wanted photographs of each scene on its own, with the box, all the scene together, with all the boxes, and then all of the boxes.

I was quite nervous at first, but once we got going it was fine. And when I started taking the photos on my own, I took the camera of the tripod to get close ups and was more comfortable doing this - I actually really enjoyed it! I was really glad that the lighting was good as I was worried about having to adjust it a lot and not get the turn out that we wanted.

Here are all the photos from the shoot.

I then went through iPhoto and selected the best ones that we could use on the boards.

They are here.

These are the photos we took together, of the individual scenes and boxes.

We tried the owl in the tree as well as on the floor.

Here is the sets all together, to show what it would look like if the kid had all three.

Sarah took these four close ups of the Camping box.

You can colour in the Rabbit on the Camping box so the kid have its own version. Here it is on the side of the box. We decided to do this, because when I added the information on the other two boxes, this one didn't have enough content to fill it. It also gives more interaction with the kid.

Here is a close up of the cut out rabbit.

You can have the owl stood up, or in the tree, so I photographed both options. Here is the owl stood up.

Here is when the owl is in the tree.

I then took photos of all the individual components to the boxes.

Here is the tree stump.

Here is the squirrel.

Here is the tree from the Treetops box. Because of the splitting of the paper when it was folded, this will be Photoshopped.

Here is the Rabbit and Tree from the Treetops scene, so you can see the connection between the two boxes.

For the individual components, I made sure the slot was facing the camera with the design on.

The Campfire. I like how you can still see the marshmellows, so I made sure to take it from this angle.

The Campfire and Tent.

Here is the full Camping scene.

Here is the Tent.

Here is the Canoe with the paddle.

Here are the Salmon.

Here is the Bear from Rivers at two angles and with the Salmon.

There wasn't enough space on the table I was using for big scenes, so I moved spaces for the next photos.

Here is the full set without the boxes. It would be nice to have backgrounds or a different coloured background to make it more fun, but we didn't think about doing a background for it really as they are three different sets. 

These are my favourite images - where everything is included. It took me a while to get the arrangement right but I think you can see everything fully and it all fits in together. You can see how everything is in proportion too which took a while to get right, but I think it works well together. I think by having the boxes and the cut out objects you can clearly see the concept.

I took a few close up versions of the previous image set. I would have liked a narrow depth of field on these, but I wasn't sure how to do it - I don't even know if that is possible when having flash lights.

I took a couple of shots of the boxes together. I wished I put the boxes closer together side on because of the shadows, but it's hard to see on the little screen what they actually look like.

I took these to make sure we had pictures of the individual boxes with the sides included so that you can see we extended the design further. I think the treetops pictures came out the best as the sides look straight. I'm happy with the camping one too, but I only photographed one side, as we hadn't filled up the other one - crafty on our side.

Overall, very happy with the turn out of the photos. Of course they are not perfect, but then we knew that wasn't going to be likely as we're not photographers. But the images are in focus, you can see of the content, the lighting is bright and everything got photographed. Now we can edit them on Photoshop to get the effects we want.