Design Production, Module Evaluation - OUGD504

Throughout this module I feel I have developed new skills which have helped my progression into level 5. I feel getting a new understanding of designing for screen has expanded my outlook of graphic design itself. Before this module I have never considered designing for screen, but now through workshops and Brief 3, it has given me an understanding of what is possible with this area of graphic design. Although I have only had the one workshop in coding, it has given me a small understanding of the necessary skills needed to code. I think applying this understanding to thinking about designing for screen will help me for future modules. I feel I got slightly caught up in designing purely for print, when it came to screen based outcomes it took me a while to think the length could be endless and I wasn’t as constricted. I feel another skill has been learning how to prepare my documents for print properly. It has helped me learn about commercial considerations and how to make sure what I am designing will work when professionally printed. Although I have not been able to print professionally, by baring it in mind I feel it has made me want to produce the finals to a higher finished standard. Also with this module I have used a number of new methods and tired to apply them within my work. I have used methods such as preparing the files for print and experimenting with printing on new medias such as napkins. Although the finished outcomes where not to a professional standard, it has given me an insight into what is possible and shown if I had have had the appropriate resources what I could have created. I feel as though I did not code my website in the end, the knowledge for designing for screen is now there and an understanding of the difference of designing for either web or print is surprisingly different. I feel I have also used and practiced with paper folding for my leaflet in brief 1. I feel doing this module and this brief in particular has made me aware of although something such as my leaflet could be quite experimental with the course, but how effective will it be in a commercial sense? This module has definitely made me think about this hugely and something I will think about in all modules to come. 

I feel I have had a number of ups and downs throughout this module, as I have hugely wanted to improve and show a difference through my level four and level five work. However, I am unsure how successful I have been with doing this. I feel a strength of mine with this module has been able to make a continuation between two briefs. I feel to say I did not enjoy nor think my website was visually appealing, I feel I have applied the same design decision such as type and colour in a continuous and successful way on my print campaign. I think a weakness of mine, which has been surprising to me, was time management. I feel I normally am quite strong with keeping up to date, where as within this module I do not feel this was the case. I think if I could have organised myself more efficiently I would have been able to screen-print the napkins, where as instead I have to struggle printing them on a inkjet printer. I think another weakness was my website. I feel I was so set on designing a single page website, I limited myself in terms of experimentation. I think I focused too much on how it would navigate as apposed to the design. This is something I would go back and change if I could.

I have enjoyed the overall idea of this module and the fact we have needed to focus on the production of the design. It has helped me realise how important designing commercially is and how I need to bare it in mind for future briefs. I think I have shown my printed media in context well, and printed all my outcomes to the best standard I could with the resources available. I think although certain outcomes such as my cups and napkins from brief four have printed mistakes, it shows how they could look if printed professionally. Through this module I have been made aware and now have the knowledge to know the potential as well as the limitations that designing for both screen and print have. I have been made aware that I do not have to be as constricted with screen based design as well as thinking about how I can apply interactive element through print. It has made me think of things I would have never considered such as costs and how different print finishes are more expensive than others. I have also thought about things such as stock and ink costs. I feel this module has developed me into thinking how you should design in the professional world as apposed to a student. With all future modules I am going to think about commercial considerations as I think it is one of the most important things to bare in mind when designing. 

Design Production, Brief 4 - Finals and Evaluation - OUGD504

Again like previous briefs in this module, I am unsure of my feelings towards my print campaign. There are certain elements I quite like and other outcomes that I just do not feel work as well. I think the strongest part of my campaign is my interactive poster. I feel its overall look works in relation to both my website and with other outcomes in my campaign. However, ideas such as the cup I feel are not as strong. I am worried that instead of coming across as the hand-written themes I was attempting, it comes across as slightly childish. However after speaking to peers they did not feel this was the case. I do think however all elements work in conjunction with one another, as well as linking to my website through designs decisions such as type and colour. 

I am pleased with the overall concept for my campaign. I think the idea of combining the content and personality of my site creates a coherent link between both brief three and four. I think how I have designed the campaign would create extra intrigue and interest to the viewer as it works as a sort of teaser campaign, not giving the answers to what the campaign is about straight away. I think this gives the viewer a reason to visit the site as they want to find out more. After researching into augmented reality (and knowing I did just not want to use it for the sake of it) I am pleased with how I applied it. I think it works and adds to the campaign rather than relying solely on it. I think how the poster links to the app, taking the viewer automatically to the website works well in a digital sense, as then the viewer does not have to search and find the website themselves. The digital interaction is suited to the target audience and products I have created. What I also think suites the target audience is the deliverables I have printed on. The idea of printing on products that are found in coffee stores will target the correct people who I want to engage with my site. I have tried to show my outcomes in context throughout the brief and so tried to work with printing methods as well as I could. I have created things like my cups and coffee sleeves as appropriately as I could with the resources at my disposable. However, with the napkin, I am hugely disappointed. Throughout the Christmas holidays I did get in touch with a napkin printers, however they did not come back to me. Because of this I have had to try printing with my own personal printer and experimenting with transfer paper. This did not work or show my designs as successfully as I would have hoped. If I had more time I would get the napkins professionally printed or I would have screen-printed them instead. I would also perhaps re-visit the script like type and change it slightly. I could also expand the brief by applying by designs to other medias found in coffee stores, things such as stirrers, sugar, take out bags etc. 

Taking into consideration commercial aspects, I do think my campaign would work in a live sense. I think if I got the correct printing done for items such as my napkins and cups this campaign could work well in promoting my website. I think things such as my napkins I could get printed in bulk, reducing costs. As well as only working with two colours of purple and black which reduces costs further instead of introducing masses of colour. I think the QR codes used could be applied relatively easily and cheaply and so there would just be the augmented reality to think about. I would also need to bare in mind the cost of advertising within magazines and newspaper and how this can be quite costly. I would need to think about the most appropriate magazines to place the AR insert and what would target my audience the most successfully. Overall I feel I produced a well rounded campaign, that despite not been overly enthusiastic on my website, have been able to use the content and design choices to create a interesting promotional campaign. 

Design Production, Brief 4 - Getting Ready For Print - OUGD504

As part of the module, I need to think about how my campaign would be produced professionally. I have documented how I would prepare my outcomes for a professional printing job. 

Colour

When designing my website I chose a deep purple that was a web safe colour. As both brief 3 and brief 4 linked, I knew I need that same colour for my print campaign. I made sure the purple would work for both screen and print to created consistency throughout my work. I have made sure I have changed all documents to CMYK mode so it suitable for print. As learnt in the print workshops earlier in the module, I made a separate colour palette for my printed campaign containing the same colours used on my website (purple, grey, black and white). I would upload this swatch palette for all documents of my campaign.  

Laser Cutting

As part of my designs I have needed to use the laser cutter. This meant making sure my documents where suitable to use on the machine. Using the layers tool I have created one layer for my design, and the other for the area that will be cut out. For the laser cut files, I have changed the line weight to 0.25 and saved the illustrator file as CS3, to make it compatible with the laser cutter.

The documents I will be laser cutting:

 

Costs

I have thought about costs throughout this module, thinking about what is both feasible to produce with my own budget and what my campaign cost in a professional sense. I think for items such as the napkins and cups could be produced in bulk, therefore bringing the cost down for these outcomes. The costs would come into play when implementing the poster and the costs needed to pay for advertising space in magazines and newspapers. The augmented reality and linking to the app would also increase costs. However in terms of being a real campaign  think it could work. There are expensive items within my campaign  but nothing that could not be produced in bulk.  I also have suck to black and white with one colour which also brings costs down rather than using a range of colours. 

Stocks

I am going to print my campaign on a range of matt stock. As I do not have the facilities nor time to print properly onto cups, I am going to print onto a thin matt stock to mock up onto the cups as an example. The stock will be appropriate as I need a simple, clean paper so it is my design that stands out. This would work appropriately, as if I printed on cups properly, the texture of the cups would be smooth so the coffee sleeve can be slid on. As for the posters/magazine advertisement I am again going with a thicker plain matt so the colour stands out rather than on a textured paper. I have also purchased some transfer stock to try and print onto napkins. If I was printing these properly, I would go to a printers that can print on napkins properly, but to show as example I think this is the most appropriate route to go down. Once printed onto the napkins the outcome has not come out as successfully as I would have hoped. Like stated before I would bulk buy and print napkins if this was taken commercially but due to limited resources have not been able to print onto the napkins as well as I initially thought I would have.

Design Production, Brief 4 - Further Development - OUGD504

To create certain elements of my final I have needed to use the laser cutter. I am using the machine to get precise cut outs for things like the coffee sleeves and coasters. This is to show as well as I possibly can how these would look in context if these were created professionally. 

  

  

Using the laser cutter I have cut out my logo on what would be the chocolate/coffee sprinkler, which would be situated in stores:

  

I have also tried to print onto napkins as part of my hand-in. As this is another outcome that would be professionally printed if this was taken live. However as printing on my home printer has not worked as successfully as hoped, I have tired using transfer paper. Due to the nature of the napkin and as it is such thin cloth, the transfers have not worked well at all. The designs have gone rather untidy and not the finish I was hoping for. If I had more time I would screen print napkins but due to time frame have not been able to do so. I feel it gives an idea of how my design could look in context but do wish I would have had time to screen print, as an example however, it gets the message across. 

  

I have again tried printing the napkin through my home printer, however have tried it on a slower setting. I am happier with the results as it shows the idea and design far better than the transfer paper experiment:

 

How The Napkin Could Look:

Design Production, Brief 4 - Development - OUGD504

After discussing ideas and concepts with peers I have finally decided what my campaign is going to be.  Through all of my ideas I have wanted to focus on the idea of personality within my campaign. This is the main element within my site and so think it is only fitting that I incorporate it with my print based media also. From this I have merged this idea with my previous idea of questions. The idea being the slogan of the campaign 'What's Your Coffee Saying About You'. I think this plays on the idea of something being said about you personally and so feel it creates intrigue to the viewer, without coming across as negative. I want to apply this slogan across all media so there is consistency across the campaign. I want to make the campaign more like a teaser. I want to explore the idea of using the content with my site without too much explanatory information into what this is. I think this adds to the idea that something is being said about you and so you want to find out what it is (hopefully making them go on the website). I am thinking of using the quotes as well as the key personality traits that are discussed on my website and using these as the content on my campaign. People will not know what they are describing until they go on the site, creation further intrigue. 

I have decided to make my campaign on media that it found in coffee stores. I am going to use coffee sleeves, coffee cups, coasters and napkins for my campaign. I am going to also think about some sort of poster to include in coffee stores that may give a slightly more information to the viewer. After research into it, I am going to bare augmented design in mind for all of my designs, thinking about where it is the most suitable to apply something more. 

I have begun by designing the coffee sleeve for my campaign, as I knew I wanted something simple and to the point for such a small media. I am thinking of only having the logo for my website with also the slogan on the sleeve. This is due to having something that will create enticement. Viewers will not know what 'Origin' is, hopefully seeing this will make them want to find out what it is about. Combined together with the coffee cup I am going to produce, will hopefully create enough intrigue to get the public using the site. 

I have started by measuring out a coffee sleeve mock-up to work out the measurements needed for digital design. 

I have then used the measurements from my mock-up to work out how to make the correct size to fit on coffee cups. As I knew I only wanted a simple design I decided instead to play about with colour. I am sticking to the same typefaces and colour scheme used on my website. I think this will create a clear link to site and promotional material:

 

 Using the same colour scheme I began applying different variations that I could possibly use. I am unsure how I am designing my coffee cup yet, but know I need something that will contrast against whatever design I do. I am thinking about using the purple but will wait until designs have finished for the cup before I make my final decision. 

I have now decided to apply a QR code to the back of my coffee sleeve. This is to add a small element of interactive, although this is not my main form of it. 

I have had great difficulty in developing this as when applying the QR code straight, once cut and made into the angle needed, the code does not sit straight but at a angle instead. I could not work out why or how it was doing this but played around with the angles to work out how I needed to position this digitally: 

I attempted a number of different angles but could not get the code to sit straight:

Finally after a number of attempts I managed to realise my mistake. I needed to align the code up with the angles along the top and bottom of the sleeve. I had previously been aligning it to to end of the sleeve and this is why I had such a problem. I am now going to move on to designing my coffee cup and if need be refine the sleeve accordingly: 

As the brief asks for the finals to be printed out I needed to figure out a way how I was going to get my design onto a coffee cup. I knew I would not be able to get a professional printers to do it due to time frame and cost, nor would I be able to screen print due to Christmas holidays. Because of this I peeled of the design off a Costa cup and realised there designs are stuck on to create a heat barrier instead of coffee sleeves. Although I am not going to use this method I could however use the same template and use this to stick on already existing coffee cups to show as an example for the module hand-in. I am going to look into how they would be printed properly professionally, but think gluing the designs will showcase my work well as an example:

Through my research into coffee cups I knew the type of design I was trying to achieve. I wanted something that would showcase my content in a personalised/human form. I knew I wanted to this with typography as I thought this will be the most appropriate way to show this. I thought about showing this through hand-written type, to show a more humanised/personal feel. I tried to write my own digitally, however this did not work: 

Seen as though I could not write the type digitally, I decided to look into using already existing typefaces that would showcase the idea of a more personalised\handwritten feel to it. I decided to use from a selection shown below although I did not use some of the more structured ones, as they did not covey my concept well. 

I then begun development on my cup design. The idea behind the design is to show the different quotes through different sets of typography, showing the diversity in personalities through the humanised type. Although it looks chaotic here, once placed into a cup form, think the spacing will come through. I wanted something slightly more overwhelming though to show the vast amounts of different opinions on the website. The idea behind showing the different quotes, is to get viewers reading the cup unsure of what they are about, hopefully intriguing them to go online and find out. I am also going to include a promotion within this element, if viewers go online and upload their thoughts, they can be in with a chance for their quotes to be featured on the cups. Again this will hopefully create an incentive to use and interact with my website.

I have included small detailing on certain words to play on this idea of personality. For example, the stem of the 't' comes out to expand into the detailing swirl to show the fun of creativity. I think this adds slightly more interest to the words and gives more 'personality' to the cup:

I have then tried the cup in the different colours but feel in doing so makes the type look illegible. I am going to keep with the white background as it makes everything more clear and concise.

I have mocked up my design onto a coffee cup. This was get an idea whether the design was working or not. I think small changes need to be made such as removing quote marks and creating more space between each of the different fonts. I have tried on the coffee sleeve and think the purple is well suited to the white cup. I am going to wait until I have purchased the coffee cups and scale the design on the cup accordingly. I then start to include larger margins between the type so it does not as overcrowded:

I also need to think about bleed. I need to remove any bleed on the cup so my final outcome has breathing space and does not look overlapped like this example:

I have now began development on my napkin design. I was unsure whether to continue to theme of having quite a lot of content on the napkin (the same as my cup) or have single words. The single words would be in keeping with the same idea of the teaser campaign. There would be a personality word or quote, and again viewers will not know what it is about.

 I have tried applying the different texts but felt it did not work as well as it did when on the cup. From then on I tried single words to see if that worked better:

I much preferred the idea of having a single quote from the website. I thought this would add to the idea of this being a 'teaser' campaign much more effectively. I think this will get people asking questions about the site, making them want to explore further. As I have now decided on my content I am now going to play about with different layouts for the napkin:

I have added the website link to the napkin so it makes the website more accessible to viewers and they know exactly what to look on. I have played around with central alignment (in keeping with my original website layout) however feel it does not have an effective hierarchy:

 

 

I have reduced the size of the logo, while also removing the drop shadow (below, right). I think this makes the logo much clearer and because of this have now decided to remove the drop shadows from all logos, as on smaller medias it is not as clear as it is without. I have increased the point size of the quote, making this the focal point of the napkin. I think this creates a much stronger hierarchy for the content:

I have then started practicing printing methods with my napkin. I have decided to experiment with my own printer at home to get an idea of what this could look like. However it took me a while to understand where to place the document in order for it to print solely on the napkin. I have secured the napkin to a sheet of printer paper so the printer could take it through. However due to the alignment of the document it printed half on the napkin, half on the paper. I now know how to rectify this and will practice again. 

I noticed how the ink was bleeding on the napkin and also creating other ink marks that are not supposed to be there. I asked a family friend who works in printing how I could avoid this problem, he explained because I did not have the setting on the printer for this type of material, the printer was not slowing down enough for the ink to be fixed properly. He suggested to maybe get the napkins professional printed as I was as risk of damaging my printer. I am going to look into this as I would like to have the napkin correctly printed for the module hand-in. 

  

I also thought about how I could expand this design further. I feel the design is diverse enough to be transfer onto poster or flyer designs also. I feel they could work as 'teasers' just as the napkins do, except I would include a QR code for viewers to scan:

I have also thought about the idea of a coaster as a from of printed media. I have used the key personality traits as the content for these, as I thought this could be a interesting way to link all content of the website together but across a number of different medias. I have explored the idea used on my cup, of taking a word and using the type to expand into a sort of image (i.e. the use of the swirl on the stem of the T for creative) and tried to apply this to all coasters. I have sectioned the coasters into the six coffees I focused on within my site, each one describing a certain coffee. I think this adds variety in the coaster, perhaps making them a sort of collection that viewers will want to gather all six? I have also tried different types and colours that are within my chosen collections on fonts and colour palettes. However found the most appropriate to be white type on a purple background as I feel it shows more depth and intensity, perfect for showing personality. I have kept with the script typeface to show the idea of humanity further:

This is an example of what I mean by expanding the type into some sort of imagery. The word is here is 'reflective' and so the stem of the 'r' has been transformed into a question mark, illustrating the word further. I have done this with the one word on all coaster to show the continuity between all. 

  

  

   

The main element in my augmented design campaign, was the idea of an interactive poster. The idea behind this was a flow chart asking viewers questions that would take them to what coffee they are, but instead of giving them the answer, they would have to go to the website to find out. They could either do this flow chart in person through the printed side, or scan the poster to be taken to a app that also does the question. Once the app had finished, this then too would take them to the website. 

I started development, including info graphics to illustrate certain points in the chart and to make the whole aesthetic slightly more pleasing:

I had to work out the questions so they flowed in accordance to what the study said, once I did this I started girding everything up so there was structure to the poster:

Instead of giving the viewer the answer to the chart straight away, this below would be there instead, directing them to the website to find out. I think this adds to the idea of the campaign being a sort of teaser. As this will intrigue them into wanting to go and find out further. I also think being able to do the chart through the app as well as through print gives the viewer choices so whether they have an android phone or not, they can still interact with something. 

After I had worked out how the poster would work from question to question, I needed to think about colour. I tried inverting the colours but found as there was so much content is was not as clear on the purple background as it was so dark. Certain elements ended up illegible, because of this I am going to keep with the white background as it is much clearer:

I thought about how I would like my poster to look, due to the nature of a flow chart, I thought it could be quite interesting to have the poster a 2:1 ratio. However after looking back at my research I realised it would be more appropriate to make this into a magazine or newspaper advertisement. Through my research I found out more people who drink coffee are siting reading a magazine or newspaper, I feel in creating this into a advertisement rather than a poster will target my target audience more. I do however think it would work in either format but will ask peers opinions on which route to go down when we return after Christmas. I think the overall aesthetic though will engage viewers as it is interesting to look as without being overwhelming:

Here is the app that the viewer would download to scan the poster. I have kept the logo without the drop shadow as on such a small scale is it clearer to see without. I have used to purple applied to all on my products and used a gradient to keep it looking like an actual app. I have put this in context, shown on the menu screen on a iPhone below:

Here is an example of what the app could look, overtime I would develop this properly but this is showing a possible mockup of how it would work. The idea being the questions are the same as what is on the printed media, however on the app it takes the viewer straight to the site, showing them which coffee they are. This gives the viewer options, either they can use their smart phone or not. It is not constricting to any audiences:

How the poster would work as a magazine or newspaper insert: