For one of my additional ideas to a loyalty card and to focus my project aim of highlighting the farmers behind the coffee, I have created a charity bundle concept. The idea is that the customer can buy a signature mug with a inspiring or awareness message on the side to show they are in support of sustainability and fair-trade. The bundle will include a awareness mug and a selection of sample sachets of the unique coffee blends for the customer to use at home. The bundle will be packaged into a small gift sized box with a window for the user to see what they are purchasing.
The bigger image to this concept is that the money raised through the purchases of these bundles will be donated to the UCC global charity which aims to provide careers, healthcare and education to the coffee farmers and local villages that are in the community of UCC Coffee. The communities being the areas in which UCC cooperate with such as Brazil, Peru and Vietnam sites.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
On Monday, I trial ran the net design and printed out a copy on paper to see if my measurements were correct. I had made one error on the inner red panel on its hight size, I did not account for the already elevated platform which the mug sits in and so it was slightly too tall for the package. I quickly adjusted this and the box worked! success! My next step is to create the graphic elements onto the packaging and possibly decal onto the acetate window. I will hopefully create 3-4 different package designs which each highlight a different aspect of the charity program. I would like to highlight the issue of endangered animals in response to deforestation, caused by corporate coffee farms as well as the coffee farmers and the educational programs in place.
Today I submitted my HSBC project which I have been working on for the past 5-6 weeks. I was expecting to pay a small fee for participating but it turns out the YCN briefs were actually free! I feel happy with my outcome however I will continue to improve and will revisit the project before final submission to make sure it answers the brief fully. They will judge the competition submissions at the start of April and the commendations will be published in June. The YCN Student Awards ceremony will take place in September, with the next YCN Student Annual published thereafter. I am happy enough just to have my work marked by the judges but it would be a fantastic award to have if I am lucky enough to be one of the applicants that are commended. Fingers crossed.
I decided to look at other app layouts for inspiration to help me create a simplistic and efficient layout for my concept. I sketches out many layouts by combining different aspects of the researched apps to create a hybrid design. Although at this time, there is no brand or layout consistency as I wanted to experiment with different possibilities and ways to display the pages. From here I will select which layouts I prefer most and begin creating a fixed layout which will carry the brand identity and allow the app to flow efficiently. I am interested in creating a social aspect to my concept which will allow others in a similar position to share their experiences with friends and family, or possibly other first time buyers while still keeping the users information such as finance and location, safe and secure.
The main features I am curious in designing are the in-app savings account for a mortgage in which the customer can deposit from other HSBC accounts to keep their savings separate from their everyday accounts. I am also very intrigued to research and conceptualise a way to easily view the progress of an outstanding mortgage application, modify or add other users to the application in which they can view, edit or deposit to the mortgage, these functions will be managed by the sole account holder of the mortgage. This concept functions to add family members or partners onto the mortgage application to proof-read, edit and contribute to the funding of a mortgage. Bringing the traditional idea of a mortgage and turning it digital is an exciting prospect and I am super excited to see its development over the next few weeks.
I had my first group tutorial today with David to discuss which brief I have decided to work on. I had a lot of notes scribbled down over many pages as I have had a lot of motivation towards this project as it is my final chance to show off my ability. I gave a run down of what my brief was, what I wanted to produce and what user functionality that included. David seemed pleased with my progress and gave me great advice and suggestions. For next Thursday, I should consider how I can make my concept app & physical content different from its competitors and of that already on the market. I had already done small research on this and found many online/ mobile apps are mortgage calculators and none appear to have the same concept as mine giving this project originality which I think will be a great advantage if I can submit it as part of the HSBC competition.
Next I was made aware of the narrative of this project, the brief clearly asks for a warm underlying humanistic feel and UX. This will be created through soft-toned personal messages and I have now considered animation or illustrations between completed checklists/ sections of the mobile application. This will engage and intrigue the user of its friendly, supportive content, making the app a real winner in contrast to the disconnected, low-quality mortgage calculators already on the market. To further research into app narrative I was suggested to look at other apps that specialise in Fashion for instance, another example could be mobile games and how they engage the user through the story. I will also research into typefaces to portray a modern, smart – yet friendly typeface.
As I have already jumped the gun and started sketching out and designing layout mockups on illustrator, I will now continue a more thorough research into how the app will be interacted and its functionality. By understanding and creating a strong connection between each of my concept ideas I will be able to create a more simple, responsive and beautiful user interface. I will also research into text hierarchy which is one of my favourite parts about typography. I am also considering about implementing sound into the app to reinforce completed decisions made by the user, these could be coins clinking, a locking mechanism or a simple swoosh to bring abstractionism and imagery of the users end result from using this application and process.
In regards to the time period I have to complete this project as best to my ability, I feel I can sufficiently create smart, efficient mockups ready for a presumed final presentation. I will keep a research and development file along side my progress to reflect on my decisions and final journey.
The last few weeks have been busy with the completion of my dissertation, which in turn has had an impact on my TBI project. After completing my thesis I now have a few days to really focus on my project. I want to look at the editorial environment within social media to implement awareness content on our perception of social media and how we behave. I am really interested in how we act online and feel it would be a great thing to research and work on, as the internet is dramatically becoming a part of our everyday activity. From my research already I have learnt the issues social media brings such as smiling depression to our perceived ideology of the perfect lifestyle which is influenced by famous figures or simply our social media friends.
My direction and purpose of this project is to raise awareness to those who use social media activity about the way they do so. This could be done through interactive content/ advertisement. It could possibly reflect their own behaviour through a light-humoured cartoon style, with a deeper awareness which will make the target audience reflect. A possible direction could be that the user clicks through the daily activities a said character does which is a standard behaviour of an active social generation such as myself. The user would interactive with these still images or gif animations to extend the story. Between each transition there could be an informative note which raises the awareness of the dangers or issues caused by doing a said activity (such as checking a smart device at night, this can disrupt sleeping patterns which has a wider affect on a persons body such as insomnia, memory fatigue or anxiety) I really don’t want this project to become a metal health awareness campaign because that is not the case, instead I want to make the user aware of their ‘looping’ styled behaviour and try and influence a fresh approach to the way people use social media in an attempt to bring a healthy balance between their social life and actual lifestyle. I could possibly link this to the creative industry and how this can affect their creativity by limiting their imagination and idea generation.
I had a short tutorial with my tutor today to discuss possible direction. I discussed my concept and how I could target my desired audience and what I wanted to achieve from this. We talked about augmented reality and how companies such as Pepsi have implemented their advertisement into everyday situations.
All of us know bus stops have generalised advertisement posters on the sides for us to see while we wait for a bus, however more recently we are ignoring many ways of traditional advertisement which I discussed in my dissertation. Pepsi have taken a fresh approach to this by implementing augmented reality which uses a live feed of a pavement behind the bus-stop to turn the side into a ‘window’ where the audience can see others passing by and the same goes for the traffic. However, at different moments the screen introduces bizarre scenarios such as a UFO attack, meteor crash and even escaped animals running towards the bus stop. At a first glance the audience are drawn to the sudden movement from the sky or path which is moving towards them. After the audience is aware that the animation is projected onto the screen it transitions to a pepsi advertisement. This approach to grasping the target audience proved very affective with many of those who witnessed the projections, smiling and enjoying themselves.
While doing some research on our perception of social media, I came across these hard-hitting short films which perfectly capsulate what I would like to make others aware of. It is so easy to create a different lifestyle online to ‘fit’ into societies perception of an ideal lifestyle. Where in fact, many are spending so much time on social media their actual lifestyle is affected. I’ve seen many profiles where people strike for attention, followers and likes mean everything which is bizarre as social media is relatively new, given the public interest of Facebook in 2005 and Youtube later that year.
These videos capture the emotional distress on both parties through social media and how they comfort themselves through the interest of others ‘liking’ their activity. ‘What’s on your mind?’ has a slightly dark humour to it as he goes out of his way to make his life seem great, but in the process his emotional level is shown to affect his health as he turns to alcohol. At the end, he finally opens up with his life – soon to be blocked by others because of his negative approach. I have been guilty of doing this as there are a few people I have know to only post negative things on social media all day, every day. But seeing the bigger picture and their life behind the screen does have an impact on the way I think about those affected. I would really like to create a more light-humoured approach to the subject of social perception and nudge others to realise that they are falling into the same trap of trying to be similar to other people, which in turn may make them feel more alone or ‘unsociable’.
This morning we had our final presentation on our field project, The Big Idea. The past few weeks have been slow-moving in terms of exploration within my project. However, at this stage I am happy with the quality of my work and I am motivated and exited to finish my project. I will implement Parallax scrolling within my content pages which will engage the viewer within its visually animated graphics. I feel it will also be great to experiment with new forms of communication within my final projects to make it stand out in comparison to previous years. Below you will find my presentation along with a short clip of the header pages.
At the very start of this project, We had to chose our desired word which we would research and create our own direction and outcome based on what we discovered. I chose Perception and wanted to step away from distorted reality as this was seen everywhere. I looked at a range of different perceptions and found our perception of vision and strength compared to other living creatures very interesting. It was different and took a fresh approach to perception. It reminded me a lot of the David Attenborough documentaries. I thought it would be a fantastic opportunity to look at info graphs, visual animations and let me explore different ways of presenting information. My presentation is attached above and looks at the sensation, cognition and perception process of our thinking process and how we perceive information. This research was closely linked to Plato and Aristotle’s wok on vision and reason. My initial researched looked at the literal associated reasons behind perception of the human body and the senses we have.
‘Of all the senses, trust only the sense of sight’
Plato and Aristotle closely associated vision and reason.
I was inspired by this quote I came across during my research and it has a lot of sense behind it. Many of us may experience similar situations such as rain, watching the same program or a car ride but each persons individual account is very unique. This is because our genes and our jeans. To explain, we are all born with very similar yet very different genes which affect our perception of our individual senses from sight to smell to touch. One may see the colour green as blue and another could see that same colour as red but from birth we associate a seen colour as what we are brought up to know by its given name. And by jeans, I mean metaphorically for our experiences and choices we have previously made to get to that given point in time. Our emotions and experience of a situation can change the way we perceive an event, this can be from an emotional connection to a song, the memories of a specific smell as we make connection to past events.
A personal account of this is the drink, Fanta fruit twist. I have a strong memories of accidentally getting it into my eyes when I was very little and the smell has stayed with me, during the event I dropped the bottle in the process which rolled off a bridge onto a garden below. Many years later and that garden was taken over by the council and renovated into a modern cafe known as ‘The Mill’. Which I went on to work for many years later. Small encounters like this can have strong connections to events and locations.
I think it is really interesting to explore the psychology of perception and how we perceive things in connections to past experiences.
For my finalised packaging I would like to use recycled white card with spot gloss to coat my illustrated pattern throughout. I feel this will draw special attention to the detail the illustrations have and bring character to the product, giving it a high-quality finish. I am also hoping to use a perforator for tearable tags for the barrister to open. This will help keep the coffee fresh and lock in the aroma of the coffee beans. I will explain this further in my next blog post.
I am also curious to line the inside of the packaging with a foil sheeting. This will again keep the coffee fresh and protect the contents from having contact with moisture.
I decided to look at other app layouts for inspiration to help me create a simplistic and efficient layout for my concept. I sketches out many layouts by combining different aspects of the researched apps to create a hybrid design. Although at this time, there is no brand or layout consistency as I wanted to experiment with different possibilities and ways to display the pages. From here I will select which layouts I prefer most and begin creating a fixed layout which will carry the brand identity and allow the app to flow efficiently. I am interested in creating a social aspect to my concept which will allow others in a similar position to share their experiences with friends and family, or possibly other first time buyers while still keeping the users information such as finance and location, safe and secure.
I am also curious to line the inside of the packaging with a foil sheeting. This will again keep the coffee fresh and protect the contents from having contact with moisture.
Ben Walton 
Recent Comments