Business Cards
Posted: April 20, 2016 Filed under: Subject Y3, Year 3 | Tags: business, cardiff, cards, china, CSAD, degree, designer, exhibition, final, graduation, graphic, identity, industry, internship, metropolitan, notice, open, public, show, students, undergraduate, university, ux, visit, visual Leave a comment
Today I made some improvements to my business cards and sent them off to be printed. I have added curved edges and a matte finish on 350gsm card. I made changes to the front which included taking away the program icons and adding my location along with symbols for the email, phone and location. I also adjusted the text sizes between my industry title and contact information. On the reverse side I have created a range of new hand illustrated icons to copy across the same style of pattern I created for my UCC Coffee project, which I will be exhibiting for my degree show. I have ordered 50 business cards which should be enough for my degree show.
Mockups & Design Discussion with Creative Team
Posted: October 26, 2015 Filed under: Real World Project, Subject Y3, Year 3 | Tags: art, boiler, client, concept, consumption, creative, cycle, cymru, cynnal, design, discussion, electricity, energy, gas, graphics, heating, house, illustrations, legacy, life, lights, mock, mockup, presentation, project, real, reducing, saving, share, students, sustain, sustainability, tutorial, up, wales, water, World Leave a commentToday, our team presented our current progress on Sustainabox and its brand identity. We discussed the final presentation which is on Thursday and what to expect. There will be 20+ guest visitors, mentors, clients and even the student union for our project. After the meeting we showed each other our illustrated sections and were pleasantly surprised with each others outcomes and how their brand identity flowed as hoped, each consisting of a flat UX. Wendy guided me on my user journey illustrations and suggested I added a future aspect to see the knock on effect of the students savings. She also suggested the following:
- showing that the students are initially not interested in reducing consumption – their introduction to the product – and then the future legacy of the sustainabox and its effect on Wales > World.
- idea of the older generation handing down the legacy of Sustainabox to their children.
- possible spoof of rubbish outside of a house next-door to sustainable students showing the contrast.
- questioned the idea of how the legacy will remain.
- add humour into the concept.
- make it something that you will want to keep after moving out.
We later discussed the concept of using light-sensitive ink / glow-in-the-dark ink on the easy peel light-switch stickers. It also took us to research into easy peel children stickers which may be useful to use for our project as stickers that leave a residue upon removal are not ideal and hardly sustainable.
After everything had been completed and checked by each member of the team we set about printing off draft mockups of our ideas and concepts.
Next, we setup our creative space for after the presentation to further explain our concepts to our clients. It will also give a change to the other visitors to see our Sustainabox in context and ask us further questions.
The life cycle of Sustainabox
We thought of a creative way to bring humour into the life cycle of Sustainabox by touching on 4 points. The points we chose were Student, Full Time Work, Family & Death. This suggested that the box would be kept until the very end of the user’s life.
As a student the box could be used as a pencil case, or a box to hold qwerky items.
As a full time worker, the box would be able to transform into a more professional object such as a watch holder, tie box, jewellery box & makeup box. It could also be used to contain professional tools of the trade.
For the family touchpoint the box could be used to hold polaroid photos of the family & portraits of the children which would be encapsulated within the box’s inside sections.
Finally, for the light-hearted death touch point, the box could be used as an urn or to hold the will & memoirs of the deceased for which the family can treasure.
This imagery of Sustainabox being with the user until death is a strong connotation of sustainability and usability through its usability.
Real World Project: Climate Change – SUSTAINABOX App Mockup
Posted: October 25, 2015 Filed under: Real World Project, Subject Y3, Year 3 | Tags: app, bills, change, climate, code, concept, consumption, costs, cut, cymru, cynnal, degrees, design, energy, flat, local, mockup, of, project, QR, responsive, save, scan, six, students, sustain, sustainability, sustainable, tips, ux, wales, wastage Leave a comment
Today I started on illustrating my concept for a sustainable app where the user could input their energy usage and compare themselves within the local area. This would infographically show the average energy consumption per household and the total KwH saved by taking part in this project. After finding out that our client is interested with taking our project forward I felt more happier with designing the app and each page instead of drawing a basic concept. The app itself uses the brand identity colours which flow throughout the app. I have illustrated a flat UX interface with interesting statistical data visualisation.
The tips section takes a light-humoured approach which ties it back into the student target audience. It pokes fun out of the small causes of water and energy wastage such as filling the kettle up for a single hot drink, wasting energy. I have enjoyed making this app and would like to pursue this in my chosen industry in the future.
The Concept
This app would be downloaded and used by the students who are moving/have moved into their first shared student house, upon opening the app they would be greeted by the SUSTAINABOX loading screen before being taken to the QR scanner. From here they would scan the code on their given SUSTAINABOX. This would give them a unique account number where they can collaborate a group account. The app lets the students enter meter readings for gas and electric to see their monthly progression. This data will compile into visual data infographics to easily see their consumption and KwH savings. The app also has the opportunity to view your local surroundings. This will show other active SUSTAINABOX students and give infographic data such as average house usage and total energy savings per month. This will give the household a solid idea of how much they are consuming to the local average.
As for the creative group, we will be putting each of our designs together on Monday which will have a universal brand identity through the given colour scheme and brand logo. We are also having a tutorial with Wendy on how to present to our clients before our final presentation on Thursday.
Real World Project: Climate Change – Workshop with Matt
Posted: October 22, 2015 Filed under: Real World Project, Subject Y3, Year 3 | Tags: audience, change, client, climate, creative, distribution, finance, iron, potential, professional, progression, project, real, smart, students, success, target, team, triangle, World Leave a commentToday’s session we had a workshop with Matt. We looked at what we thought makes good design and how it can have an effect on the consumers decision for purchase. After yesterdays tutorial it was a real eye opener to the rate – we as designers – should charge for our time. To more professional readers, £600-800 a day may seem reasonable, however I think our year were surprised by this. It really put into perspective how we should see ourselves as creatives. Matt asked a series of questions to help us identify what we wanted.
What do you think success looks like
For an individual, I think success is when you have a happy balance between work and social. It is when you have achieved something from your hard work, the outcome may not be the most successful, however it is your best and its about taking the time to realise this. Success is about exceeding at your goals and ambitions in life.
For a client/ business, success is having the project hit the right target audience and conveying the correct message. It goes more into profit and capitalism however for a company to survive in a globally changing market it is important to make profit from their products.
where do you see yourself 18 months from now
In 18months I would like to see myself in a financially stable position, and as previously mentioned a healthy balance of work and social. I would like my portfolio to have a collection of well-driven projects which I am proud to present to potential clients. I would also hope that my professionalism with clients has improved.
From here we wrote down 5 sentences where we would like to see ourselves in 18 months time. After we did this we had to correlate any possible barriers to these goals and how we can overcome them.
This way of problem solving would help lead to success if I used them to tackle client projects. An acronym called S M A R T can be used to identify and achieve goals
S pecific
M easurable
A ssignable
R ealistic
T ime related
Matt went on to talk about ‘The Iron Triangle’. This triangle refers to project management, from here you can only maximise two of the components at any time, however the last component won’t be strong. For example, if you want something down quick and cheap, the quality won’t be very good. Or if you want something done cheap and with good quality, it may have a long turn around.
Matt told us that for every hour you work, you will waste 20%. And so an hours work in reality will take 1hour 20mins to do.
80% work time is controlled
20% work time is wasted
“If you fill your diary, you will progressively fail.”
This week half the creative team have been absent, however this was no problem as we communicated through social media to keep them updated and where we were. We also shared our current designs and ideas which they were happy with. We allocated different design touch points such as the packaging, manual and stickers/magnets. This will be pulled together at our next meeting on Monday.
It was also a great moral boost finding out that our client is interested in taking our project further and wants to involve the student union for distribution.
Real World Project: Climate Change – Concept Construction
Posted: October 14, 2015 Filed under: Real World Project, Subject Y3, Year 3 | Tags: appliances, change, climate, concept, construction, consumption, ideas, infographic, information, interactive, pack, points, project, proposed, real, students, target, touch, tutor, World Leave a commentToday we shared our proposed idea with our tutor during a group meeting. In a short period our concept began to take shape. We want an action based concept which our target audience can interact with to make them aware of their consumption within the household. We quickly made the connection to the welcome packs first year get when moving into halls. This is a small box with a free internet cable, drink and a sim card along with other small useful items. This connection was a great idea as it helped us to shape our 6 steps into something that can be given away in packs.
Our shifting concept now targets upcoming & current students who are moving into student and private housing. This is usually from 2nd year. We feel that targeting this audience is a helpful way to reassure tenants that is is easy to cut their energy bills and help reduce emissions and consumption from within their own household. Our touch points will highlight the major appliances and raise awareness of turning lights off and minimising the use of central heating.
Possible touch points:
Time spent in shower, use of central heating, kettle and oven. We also feel that car sharing is an important factor to raise awareness and promote to reduce emissions.
This package could take the approach of a recycled-material box which could fold down into something useful in a student household. Or the package could replicate IKEA’s minimalistic flatpack to reduce packaging waste and have an appealing identity which may attract a bigger target audience.
Included in the pack would be a set of factual cards with helpful information on the reverse side &/or a leaflet with instructions on how to reduce their carbon footprint. Possibly in the style of a game or infographic. By making connections to objects we are able to have light-hearted humour with an overall sense of the wider issue concerning climate change.
We have started to map out our version of the brief and how we can translate that into our concept. Today we also started playing on food-related puns which have a light hearted approach on locally-sourced food and food wastage.
Real World Project: Climate Change – Breakdown of Idea Meeting
Posted: October 8, 2015 Filed under: Real World Project, Subject Y3, Year 3 | Tags: arctic, audience, awareness, breakdown, broken, campaigns, change, climate, companies, conference, consumption, cop21, creative, deforestation, energy, free, ice, india, industrialisation, instagram, project, real, relatable, students, sustain, target, team, wales, water, World Leave a commentWe had a meeting with Wendy today to discuss where we were at, from this we felt that the creative group should focus more specifically towards students. This meant that we could engage with the target audience more efficiently and relate to the issues at hand. Using simple methods we mapped out our direction and looked at the major student-relatable climate change issues. Our creative team looked at energy usage, energy production and greenhouse gasses. We further researched into Wales Word Leaders in recycling whom are trying to cut emissions by 50%.
After our group meeting I went on to research good campaigns, what made them successful and how effective they were. I found a huge collection of relatable awareness campaigns which are listed below:
2012: Green Peace spoof Shell website which fooled millions. This subversive advert used the tagline “You can’t run your SUV on cute, Let’s go”. The background was a collection of polar bears. This anti-awareness campaign makes the viewer think about the situation of fuel consumption and how it affects them. This type of advertisement causes negative discussion towards the subversive message. However this is the correct response Green Peace wanted.
2009: A billbord on a newly refurbished building. “The are that cools your home heats up the world” the billboard itself had imagery of refugees fleeing from a flood in Asia. Ironically the billboard was disrupted with many air-con fans. This imagery suggests that there is an overwhelming demand for air-con, which is excessive energy consumption.
2010: Video of an iceberg by Green Peace, Germany. “In 30 years, the Arctic will be ice free in the summer” The video shows a single iceberg in the ocean until the camera pans under the surface revealing it as a dead polar bear floating. This suggests the knock on effect of melting polar caps as a result of climate change.
There are many more I researched such as the Fracking awareness campaign ‘Wrong Move – Not for Shale’, WWF – Shadow of a past tree & WWF – Brain Corals. These are all very eye-catching campaigns which successful highlight the importance of eco-regeneration within society.
I also looked at social campaigns and found a very intriguing photo series called ‘Broken India’. This series by Limitless captures the aesthetic of India through the popular app Instagram. However the artist captures the wider picture, outside of the cropped images to reveal the poverty and war-stricken towns. This imagery of playing on the wider picture would a great way to illustrate the knock-on effect for the demand of power consumption such as deforestation and industrialisation caused by power companies.
Each campaign engages the viewer by using words such as ‘our’ and ‘we’ as it puts the viewer within the picture and make them aware of their own actions. A few campaigns I looked at used subversive imagery to fool the audience. Others used hard hitting facts and play on metaphorical imagery for a light-hearted awareness with a strong sting at the correlating side-effects.
Most campaigns never blame the viewer but instead society or humans as one.
Ben Walton 
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