final project – product/company detail

After a good bit of deliberation, I think I’ve come up with the concept for the final project.  I knew I wanted to work with a product I was familiar with (so the details of the packaging – size, ingredients, etc.) would be accurate, but I wanted to certainly come up with my own brand and new idea.  Hopefully this concept will work!

The store is called “hot! chocolate.” and it of course specializes in hot chocolate, and other drinks.  What differentiates this store from your typical Starbucks is first, that it will specialize in different flavors of hot chocolate, and it will actually allow customers to customize their type of hot chocolate if they are getting a drink made in the shop.  For example, someone can chose the type of chocolate (e.g. milk, dark, or white), and then you can also chose additional flavors (e.g. raspberry, mint, hazelnut, cinnamon), and then of course type of milk, soy milk, etc.  The store will also sell its “specialty mixes” (like raspberry dark chocolate or white chocolate mint) for customers to take and make at home, and that’s where I will focus my packaging design.  These will basically be like the packages or cannisters of hot chocolate you can get at the grocery store (add water or milk and make yourself), but with more of a specialty twist from the unique flavors.

I think this store should appeal to a mass market, though still have a bit of an upscale or luxury feel.  It’s not somewhere you might necessarily go everyday, but it’s a nice escape, and a calming place to come relax with some good hot chocolate.  It would be marketed to all ages and appeal to any chocolate lovers.  This is a store that takes good chocolate seriously, and also allows the customers to have some flexibility and creativity with their orders, so that their drink can really cater to their tastes.  And again having the “specialty mixes,” this will give customers ideas for things to try, or they can be more creative and create their own drinks.  Overall, I feel like some words and thoughts to capture this shop would be calming, relaxing, creative and unique.

final project, week one

So this part of the project I always struggle with: coming up with a brand or product to use for my product. Usually I end up debating for entirely too long; not coming up with anything until the very last minute! So this time I purposely signed up for a critique slot next week. This way I’ll have to come up with something! I’m hoping to have a company or product profile decided by then, and hopefully a draft logo design or two to show. I’m thinking this will be a good start for branding any packages I’m making, I’ll be able to start thinking about the color scheme, fonts, and making sure the overall design and feel will fit with the culture of the product or company.

Right now I’m thinking I should start with a product I’m fairly familiar with, and I’m leaning towards some sort of hot chocolate/tea/chai beverage brand. I started just by looking on the Target website to get an idea of what some of these existing products look like, and see what catches my eye. This first image from teaposy caught my attention immediately.

I really like that the strong image of the teapot, so that at just a glance, you can tell what the product is. From there, the design is very clean and simple. After the teapot, you see the brand name and the type of tea; nothing cluttering or distracting from the main product. I really like that this feels like a mass market brand, with a little bit of a prestige feel. I guess that would make it more of a middle market type of brand…something you would still find at Target, but it seems a little more special.

This next brand just caught my eye for the interesting shape where the package information is contained. Overall, I think the packaging is harder to read, and I would have to look at the product up close to see what it actually is. But I think it is an interesting use of space, and something to consider when designing the packaging – that it can be used to catch someone’s eye, but can also be a hindrance, if it means that product information is smaller or more cluttered.

I think overall, I would like to work with a product with a feel of the first image – something that would appeal to a mass market, but on a slightly more upscale feel. Now I just have to start thinking of the specifics…

Zoo poster continued

So I had a little time in class today to work on this, and thanks everyone for the great suggestions. I definitely agreed it was a little text heavy, and I hadn’t noticed that the letter forms were more prominent in the body of the prairie dogs than in the head, but I noticed that right away too once it was pointed out! This was definitely one of those times I needed to step back from my work a little bit, so the outside input was really helpful!

I was able to add another letter in the head of the prairie dogs to give them a little dimension and balance. Overall, I liked that you could still see some of the letters in the forms, so I didn’t want to get rid of that completely. I also played around with the text a lot, and figured out how to make text boxes into different shapes (yay!). I ended up cutting a good bit of the text out, which I think is good, since it’s a poster, and I tried to make shorter points for some of the other information.

I’m pretty happy with it overall, but I’m still not entirely sure about the background and text. I like the yellow box at the bottom to break up the space a little, but I’m not entirely convinced the composition is the best it can be. I’ll continue to welcome suggestions, as I’ll probably keep tweaking this a little!

Zoo Poster

Updated version:

Zoo Poster 2

Text exercise

I’m working my way up on the text exercise, starting with “Maine.” Given the title of the exercise, I assume it’s some kind of clipping mask. After clicking around a little, I’m able to select the photo of the trees and copy and paste it into my new document. Next I’ve created a similar text to spell out Maine on a second layer. Those parts were fairly straightforward. Now I’ve come to the part I don’t have a clue where to start…making the clipping mask!

Okay, I have no idea what just happened, but my “Maine” now looks like the one in the exercise. From my very basic photoshop experience, I was guessing that the mask had something to do with the layers. I was rolling the mouse over, and saw that one of the icons said “Make clipping mask.” Great. Now how do I activate it? I selected both the picture and the text and clicked, but it didn’t seem to work. I accidentally clicked somewhere in the layers box, and it worked. So now I’m going to go back and try to figure out what I did!

I’m thinking it has to be a sublayer. For whatever reason, it looks like it doesn’t matter which order the text and picture are included in the sublayer (I guess I’m thinking of photoshop again), because switching them didn’t make a difference. I’m hoping the video later is going to help!

Yes, I’m glad I saw the video, I think the basic concept of the clipping mask makes much more sense now! I ended up starting over with “Maine” and it was much easier. I copied and pasted the picture, and the created the text. I moved the text to the front, selected both objects, and was able to create a clipping mask from the object menu. Then just like the video said, I was still able to manipulate the text to make it look as much like the exercise as possible. Very convenient.

The second one looks like it’s very similar, however this time instead of a picture, it’s text masking a shape with a gradient. I’m able to isolate the layers in the example so I can just see the gradient. I could just copy and paste again, but I’m really not that comfortable using the gradient tool yet, so I think I’m going to try to recreate it. I’ve drawn a rounded rectangle shape first. After looking around on several menus, I found a drop down box up top for the fill. I was able to select a radial gradient, and then use the eyedropper tool to add the colors used in the exercise. Once I found that, things seemed to fall into place! I also learned by accident when I was done that if it’s still selected, you can click to alter the center and size of the “circle” that’s making the gradient. Good to know.

Once I had the gradient created, I made the text, put it on top of the layer like before, selected both objects, and then created the clipping mask. Two down, one to go!

The last one to me looks like it’s a rectangle that’s been divided up, and then the live paint tool was used to create the different colored boxes. And from the layers it looks like two separate of these boxes were created, and then masked. So that’s what I went ahead and did…luckily I did learn some about live paint from the zoo poster project!

I created a rectangle and drew lines to divide up the box. Then I selected everything and went to object, make live paint. Then I selected the colors and filled the boxes with the paint bucket tool. I copied and pasted the lines to create a second box for the other text. Then I created the text, and masked each text box individually as I did before. This one didn’t seem too much harder for me, other than taking the time to create the boxes, so hopefully I didn’t miss something important!

The file is now saved in the drop box! yay!

Project Two drafts…

I finally got past designing the animals, and have started to play with layouts.  Here’s what I have so far:

Animal Poster draft

I like the basic look overall, but I’m afraid it might be too text heavy for a poster.  I tried breaking up the text in a second draft, and playing with some of the text tools we talked about last week, but I haven’t come up with anything I really like yet.  I guess that’s what next week is for.

Project Two – first stages

For our second poster project, I’ve decided on a Black Tailed Prairie Dog. I know prairie dogs are not often thought of as the highlight of the zoo, but I’ve always really enjoyed watching them, especially all their interactions – they seem like very social animals.

So far, I’ve started off just forming the prairie dog out of the letters. I found a picture I liked online, and that has seemed to really help me get started. I decided to try to “freehand” the animal, which I think has had it’s pluses and minuses. I think it’s forced me to be more creative, and thinking more spatially about how all the letters could fit together. It has also made it so my image does not look exactly like the picture I found; I was able to use the letters to create a similar pose, but also allow the shape of the letters to dictate some of what the outcome will be.

On the downside, I’m not as sure that it looks exactly like a prairie dog…yet! I’m having a little more trouble this time manipulating the letters to get them into the shape I want. Some of the problem I think is that I have an older version of Illustrator at home, and I think I’m forgetting there are some differences switching back and forth!

One thing I did have a specific question about – when I was working with a lowercase “i,” I was having trouble manipulating the dot and the line separately. I could select each individual part with the direct select tool, but often when I would go to move one part, the other would automatically select and come with it. I tried using expand to “break apart” the shape, but that didn’t seem to work. I ended up copying and pasting the separate shapes, and then deleting the original “i” so I could work with the two new shapes separately. I’m sure there must be a better way to get around that though!

Project One Final

For the final for our first project, I have decided on the following: Project One Final.

I had mixed reviews from the comments, but thanks for all the helpful suggestions – I’ve definitely looked into a number of the ideas!  Though there was a lot of deliberation, I chose this logo for the final for several reasons.

First, I feel this is a logo that can best grow with the company. While I did also like the draft version with the “family” in the design, I feel like the way the family was portrayed depicted just a parent and children, and the company hopes to serve all types of people and families in the future. Though they are focused on young children at this point, they might someday grow to be a resource for those providing elder care, and I would not want the logo to imply the organization only works with one age-group of children, or have the logo be representatively limiting of the services they provide. I feel that this logo design is very clean and simple, and something that can grow with the company however they decide to expand their services.

Second, I this logo provides imagery that I feel well represents the organization. First, the entire logo is a circle, which is something I wanted to incorporate from the beginning of the design process. As previously mentioned, I feel the circle is a nice image of community and completeness, and representative of the full range of services the company hopes to provide. Also, I like the image of the small plant as well. I think it is a good symbol to represent “nurturing” and growth. This company wants to provide services for families as they grow, and be a resource that can grow with them, so I really wanted to emphasize that aspect in the logo. Finally, as a secondary component, the initials of the company makeup the design, which makes the logo is unique to the organization. At first I had concerns that the plant as the “f” might not be recognizable at first glance, but I think these initials are truly a secondary component of the design; they are not the first thing that I need the viewer to recognize. I would much rather focus on the imagery of the circle and the plant, and the meaning they gives to the logo; then if the initials are recognizable, I think that is an extra element to add interest to the design.

Finally, I had a tough time deciding on the final touches in the design. I was very torn with where the text should be placed, and if I should include the other colors in the circle (meant to represent sunlight). I decided on a version with the text centered directly underneath the design. I hope this design, being more symmetrical, will be easier to work with for all different types of media. Though the text is a little smaller, I think the design overall will be more usable, as the organization creates their letterhead, business cards, website, etc. Also, in terms of the extra colors in the circle, though I really liked the imagery of the sun – which I think also promotes growth – I think it might have made the design a little too busy or overly complex. I like that currently it feels clean and simple, again, something that can really grow with the organization. Also, as a non-profit, I do want to minimize any extra costs down the road by using a design that has fewer colors to print.

Overall, I am fairly happy with how this design has turned out. Though I certainly encountered minor frustrations working with Illustrator along the way, I think the logo has imagery that represents the company well, and it can be something the organization can use for many years to come!

project one – final drafts

This project is showing me how truly indecisive I can be! I think I’ve at least narrowed down to the design I want to go with. Now for the final edits…and actually making a concrete decision…

Project one final drafts

Project one final final drafts

project one – drafts continued…

I really liked the comment on the third design about making the branch/leaf into the F. Here’s what I’ve come up up with just briefly in class tonight – but I would love feedback about these designs as well, if this is a direction I should continue exploring!

project one draft four

project one – logo drafts

Here are the three logo designs I have developed so far for my company, Nurturing Families.

project one draft one

project one draft two

project one draft three

First, you’ll notice there are some similarities in the designs, namely: font, colors, and use of the leaf/branch imagery. I chose the font because I thought it was nice and simple, and would bridge the gap between appealing to children and appealing to adults. Since the company provides services geared towards children, I wanted the overall logo to have a clean, slightly whimsical feel, but since the parents will be the ones actually interacting with the company, I wanted to make sure anything I designed wasn’t too childlike, and would look simple and professional enough to appeal to an older clientele as well. Also, as a start-up non-profit, I wanted to make sure the logo was clean and simple enough to provide credibility as well; hence again, nothing too childish. The font I chose was Myriad Pro, which I think is a nice clean and simple sans-serif font.

For the color scheme, I knew I wanted to focus on greens and blues. As this non-profit wants to provide services to parents and children throughout their development, I really wanted to focus on the growth aspect and immediately thought of using green. I also was looking to incorporate blues, as they always seem calming to me, and I think that ties in nicely with the ideas of promoting healthy children and families. I chose a blue on the teal side (again leaning towards using green), and a more yellowish green because that to me symbolizes new growth – like a plant that has just begun to grow – which I think ties in with focusing on children. Also, I didn’t want to use a really “green” green, to make sure the logo didn’t look too childlike.

Finally, along the same lines of the greens I chose, all of the logos incorporate a small leafy branch, which to me looked like new growth and I think represents children, and the focus of the organization – helping to nurture families and children!

 

For the first logo design, I incorporated a “rainbow” of sorts. I thought of this as a good image to represent something childlike, but also representing growth too, as you only see a rainbow after a storm (plants need the water to grow – maybe it’s a stretch!). I think the rainbow has a stronger effect in the design where it is incorporated into the “n,” but I also worry that it will be illegible when sized down for something like a business card. I think the design with the bigger rainbow is more readable, but I’m not sure if it is recognizable as a rainbow at first glance. Also, the other downside to these designs, at least for a non-profit, would be the use of color. I think the rainbow works best with at least three colors, which could be more expensive for printing. And the rainbow doesn’t transfer well to black and white (unless you would be using a greyscale).

For the second logo design, I tried to focus more on families, and I think this logo most directly represents the organization and the population they are trying to serve. This logo is the only one that doesn’t use the branch imagery, but instead I wanted to represent a family of sorts, or a parent and two children. I feel like this logo may have similar problems as the first when sized down, especially with the design where the people are in the text as the “ili”. I do like though that the designs could perhaps be used in conjunction, that the design with the family in the word could be used for larger media, and then it could be pulled out (as in the lower two designs) if the logo was to be a lot smaller. I also think this design is stronger in black and white, which is a big plus for a non-profit.

For the third logo design, I worked with the first letters of the organization’s name to form a similar branch image. I also knew that in at least one of the designs, I wanted to incorporate a circle (as a previous comment noted), to promote the idea of growth, community and continuity. These designs didn’t end up with a perfect circle (I played around with the circle, and thought these looked a little better), but I hope the rounded edges still give that effect. I think proportion-wise these designs could be fairly strong, no matter what the size, but again, I think they might lose some of their effectiveness when converted to black and white.