Tutorial with David

Earlier today I had another tutorial with my tutor to update them on my progress over the week. I discussed my exhibition space layout, business cards, charity bundle, packaging designs and overall content for my degree show.

To begin, my exhibition space. Firstly, I have put a lot of time into working on what I could include and how I could present it over the last week. I have bought the majority of the materials I need for my show excluding any prints. I have also thought outside of my work and looked into the wider content of the space. I went home to get help on creating a unique table from reclaimed pallet wood which I hope to use to present my outcomes. This will be accompanied by a create and coffee hessian bags. It was suggested that I step back from trying to make my space look too much like a coffee shop and focus on what I am trying to convey through my outcomes. This was fair advice and has made me rethink on ways I could incorporate everything that I would like to include as well as the important messages I want the viewer to perceive. One idea could be to have illustrated portraits of coffee farmers & large stories on the wall to document how an educational program has helped them and their community. Another idea would be to present awareness/ encouraging messages to engage the audience into an emotional response.

Another suggestion was not to have repetitive layout designs, I need to think about originality and unique text hierarchy. I could think about focusing onto different aspects of the packaging instead of the whole packaging on posters. I should also think about playing with abstract imagery like I have created for my honey packaging – example: ‘It’s the bees knees’. Incorporating a classic phrase into a bee-related product helps to tie in a light-humoured response to the brief. My coffee packaging could also do with minor improvements such as a more playful text hierarchy and equal distribution of the blend illustrations across the packaging. My bee nest above the text was seen as a lovely icon system which I could mimic across each blend.

Secondly, my business cards. My business cards were playful however it portrayed me as an illustrator, which was fine if that is what I would like to be perceived as by others. Which I happily am. The use of the program icons were confusing and useless as a graphic designer. People would assume that I already know these programs to become a graphic designer in the first place and so, presenting them on the card has no relevance. So I will see how I can add relevance or adapt my card to something new. The back of the card which simply reads ‘Nice to meet you’ is ok, however it will become more appealing if it said something like ‘come and say hi’ making it more personal and suggest a friendly gesture. I should think about the use of type and repetition. I could possible play with the hierarchy of weights to make it more visually appealing. I could also incorporate hand vectorised illustrations such as that from my UCC Coffee project. This will help others to connect my card to my exhibition where my cards will be placed. This suggestion has purpose, people from the industry will be viewing many different exhibitions during their time at the degree show and will collect a selection of cards, this way my business card will have a reoccurring illustration system in place to help them remember which exhibition was mine. I should think about making more illustrations to reflect my interests and area of practise. Things such as a computer, mouse, pen, notebook etc will be useful in providing a link between a graphic designer and the type of person I am.

Thirdly, my charity bundle. The packaging was on the right path to conveying my intentions for this project. It focuses on the famers and what the UCC brand can do in terms of education and healthcare. The brand is not set out to profit off these countries but instead work with them and help them in return. Its all about giving back to the communities. This is presented through my newspaper too. After todays tutorial I want to focus down my exhibition show to show my proposition of the UCC Coffee brand identity and brand values and portray this through my outcomes. This can be done as discussed above with wall messages, farmer stories and overall focus.

As we are into our next week already, My to-do list schedule means I will now focus primarily on ‘The Big Idea’ project which looks at our perception of social media. This was largely affected by my dissertation submission and priority focus and so I will need to reevaluate my idea, choice of medium, and aim of project & what message I want to convey. I have already started to brainstorm a few ideas and will continue to work to my tightly packed to-do list to make sure I touch upon the criteria of the brief. I am equally excited about this project as I have been for my Student set project and Competitions.

With my current progress I feel what I want to do is completely achievable for the last 2 weeks until my degree submission. The only worry I have is my portfolio. I have the information and content available but putting it into a universal format for my behance site will be time consuming which will eat into the time I could be using to polish up my outcomes to meet the criteria of my degree. Challenge accepted.