Waterstones // Final Photographs

The posters ended up being printed on the day of the World Book Night event, and we were just about able to cut them down in time to taken down to the shop. We went down to Waterstones to see the installed posters. Two of the banners ended up being displayed in the shopfront, and the third was displayed inside the shop instead. The posters weren't displayed as prominently as we would have hoped, and one wasn't even unrolled properly, however it was good to see the work up on the night and we were really pleased with the quality of the print. Here are photos we took of the final display:

Nescafe Azera // Ambient advertising

Looking at the mechanism that we had suggested for the product, as well as examples of alternative advertising techniques, we had the idea of transforming the revolving door supermarket entrance into a giant azera revolution ambient advertising campaign. By dressing the outside to look like the packaging and using a sticker to give the inside a coffee decal, every customer is forced to engage with the new product before they enter the store, a powerful psychological technique.

Sam did an excellent job of mocking up this concept up in photoshop and were happy that this would communicate this idea well enough in our submission boards. This would classify as in-store display and promotion, deliverable number two on the brief. This, combined with the POS display gives us a strong solution to this section of the brief.

While Sam worked on the mock-up, I altered the Azera instant coffee diagrams to demonstrate instructions for our new packaging innovation:

In support of this, I made some icons to demonstrate refilling the Nescafe Azera box using a refill pack.

This would primarily be used on the back of the pack to introduce consumers to the twist motion instead of the traditional spoonful that they are used to. As these icons did a good job of demonstrating the steps involved simply, we carried this across to the advertising campaign, using type and colour that was on-brand for Nescafe Azera. 

Pledge // Submission Boards

North Bar Leeds Mencap // Production and Sale

Our final design was signed off, with the addition of numbers for each mat to make it easier to identify which is which. 

Here were the final designs being cut on the laser cutter. 2000 were cut in total which took at week of laser cutting!

Delivery of coasters

Display in North Bar

As part of the promotion for the Leeds Mencap Apprentice Scheme, a photoshoot was held at North Bar in the city centre. This was interesting as it was the first PR we have been involved in, and we got to meet the people we had been working with by proxy at Mencap and North Bar. 

Stacks of mats on the counter

Final Photo

Nescafe Azera YCN // Submission Boards

Here are the boards we submitted to YCN outlining our concept and outcomes:

Waterstones: Revisions and final set

Working from the original poster from yesterday, we expanded the scene to have the stream expand onto all 3 panels. The focus of the left poster was a campfire As Andy produced more animals, I fed them into the composition until we had a rough layout. We tried to give the scene more detail by giving each animal a scene eg. the otter is oking out of the log, the squirrel is chasing nuts and the fox is sneaking up on the rabbits. These are the 3 designs we submitted so now we will have to wait for a response before we can proceed. 

Left Poster:

Middle Poster:

Right Poster:

Waterstones // Poster 1

Waterstones:

An email was circulated around college advertising that Waterstones in Leeds City Centre was looking for a temporary window display and were interesting in seeing samples of work. Me and Andy sent our work over we were chosen to be given the brief:

“ Ideally we'd like the window in at least 10 days before the event, so by around the 13th? I'm not sure if you guys want to make the posters for the window or props (or both!) but there's two banner boards, 1 is 60"x40" and the other is 60"x20". There's space on the side of the wall for another 60"x20" banner poster. You pretty much have free design range (obviously shop friendly!) but a design around books in general and the joy of reading would be a good place to start. If you have a look at World Book Night's website that could give you a flavour of the message and provide some inspiration! http://www.worldbooknight.org/ Maybe something around a night / moon theme? I'll pop in a showcard to say that you guys designed our window and the names of the artists.”

A night/moon theme was suggested and we quickly developed the idea of using the owl - a symbol of wisdom, a nocturnal creature and an icon that represents leeds. We had a huge area to cover across 3 posters and so we decided to expand the theme to depict a night forest. This would require a darker colour palette than we normally use, and a combination of animals and environment to make a belivable scene.

The deadline was tight, and as we were in different locations over Easter we split the task right down the middle. Andy set to work producing animals and I created pieces of the environment, producing different tree variations we could alternate:

andy produced animals in the same geometric style:

Here was the first poster design we submitted:

Open Garage // Evaluation

This was the first packaging brief I had taken on this year, and it is definitely outside my usual scope of design. I found that I had to research into drinks packaging design as I wasn’t too familiar with this area. This has been one of my favourite projects of the year, as we were able to apply a level of interaction and playful design to a traditionally static medium. One step that I thought was particularly helpful in this brief was user testing, where we printed a black and white page of sticker designs and observed people interacting with the bottle. This gave us an idea of which designs were favoured and our findings were very different from what we expected. This is a process I have not used in a brief before and we definitely would have produced a less effective response without it. 

For this brief, me and Andy were good at working to our strengths and dividing design roles to create a better combined outcome. We put a strong emphasis on physical production and effective photography to really demonstrate the strengths of our idea. For an area of design that I have little experience in, I was very happy with the packaging that we were able to produce. We were also able to use animation in the brief to demonstrate the brand and product concept. This was created in collaboration with Leeds College of Music student Rebecca Saif, who did an excellent job of creating the sound for our animation. From this experience, I would definitely collaborate with a music producer for future animation work. 

Jaypee // Finished Photos

Here are some photos of the completed space. We found it quite difficult to photograph vinyl especially as the weather has been a bit grey since we finished. Jonny recommended waiting until it is dark and using artificial lighting to show the designs best. This is something we will definitely arrange before the hand-in.

Wall mural

Our vinyl display

Characters

From outside 

Jaypee // Installing + painting Day 2

On the second day Andy had returned and we made a plan of exactly where we wanted the remaining characters to go. We were careful to distribute them as best as possible to avoid repetition. Only some of them had been fitted with application tape, so we started with those. The pencil went on really smoothly with two of us working on it. This photo from outside shows that we were able to really eliminate bubbles by applying pressure at the right angle and in one continuous sweep.

The window above the door was perfect for our long ruler character. We found the points of the ruler to be really tricky to apply as there were so many of them. We had to really slow down to avoid mistakes. 

After the application tape had run out we had to find an alternative and bought some tacky back plastic from Wilkinsons which turned out to be too slippery and thin to get even coverage with. We went back to using masking tape and had to be careful to not let creates trap between the tape. 

Applying to the second window. 

I was heading to London in the afternoon , by which point we had completed the two main windows, the door and the small window over it. This left the last window to the left and the smaller ones at the front of the building. I had to leave Andy to finish these by himself in the afternoon. 

Jaypee // Installation and painting

As James was away, we hadn't been able to cut any of the vinyl in preparation for redecorating the room. For the morning, I helped the others paint inside the outlines that Jonny had drawn. We found out just before lunch time that James was in for 1 day only. Andy wasn't able to make the first day of installing vinyl and so I prepared the artwork by scaling it to the right proportions and making sure the arrangement of pieces was as tight as possible to fit onto the roll of white vinyl James had left.


The initial section got torn by the cutter and so the process had to be restarted and watched carefully to make sure no rips appeared.  This meant that about 20% of the design was lost due to wasted material. this still gave us plenty to work with.

I cut away all of the excess vinyl to prepare it for application tape. As James was due to shut, I had to do this really quickly and was only able to cover some of it in time. After cutting all of the characters into individual pieces, I made a start on installing the first piece. I started with the Jaypee signature piece which I wanted to place on the door. Josh helped me line it up as it was applied and this made the process easier. I was pleased with how this first on went on and moved onto the second.

The computer sticker proved to be harder by myself. Whilst it went on with relative ease, apart from a few bubbles which had to be teased out with a scalpal prick, some parts had been misaligned in application leading to creases. These had to resolve by cutting fine lines and repiecing it. Thankfully I was able to rescue this but decided that it would be best to wait for Andy and complete it with two people. For the rest of the day I helped the others paint inside and on the balcony. This was really fun as it gave me a break from my usual workflow and scale.

painting outside on the balcony

Inside - end of day 1

Dialogue // Exhibition

Both of my entries were printed for the exhibition (3rd row, middle and 2nd row, right)

My collaborative entry with Andy Foster was paired with Italian illustrator and printmaker Irene Rinaldi.

My personal entry was paired with French Designer Marion Denoual, who based her piece on the game children play to communicate through cups and string.

I was really pleased with how the exhibition turned out and was glad to have taken part. By connecting with designers in other countries, some unusual and unexpected designs have been created. 

North Bar // Poster

To help sell the beer mats which had been sent out in the last week, we were asked to design a poster that could be laser cut out of the same kraftboard and given to the bars. We wanted to use this space to show off all of the characters in full.

Again, we had to make the poster really simple for the laser cutter and so used the single line font and outlines from the characters. A description was provided and the price and hash tag also had to be shown on the poster.  

Development

I worked on creating a suitable layout for the poster, organising the characters and type and putting together the copy to include only the necessary information. Andy created a diagram for  the bottom section of the poster to show a linear arrangement of the mats as this was one idea as to how to display them along the bar. The client was happy with the result and this was the final poster that was sent off to be cut:

Pledge Music // Prototype