Project 2: Researching and developing ideas

.Project Requirements:

Project Requirements:

In the last project you undertook the first stage of the design process; analysing the brief to
work out what is being asked of you and how the client perceives a successful outcome. The
next stage is to research around the brief and to start developing your ideas. Research
includes many activities – gathering information, finding out what you don’t know and
testing your ideas. Research also involves visual exploration and experimentation, testing the relationship between colours and most of all continually asking questions.

Creativity involves visual and hands-on activity as well as analytical thinking. Its aim is to
come up with new and innovative ways to solve the design problem posed by the brief.
Creativity is often a difficult concept to pin down, meaning lots of different loosely defined
things, but in the context of design, creativity can be seen as a focused form of play, that
requires a real understanding of what is needed. The modernist Bauhaus movement used the American architect Louis Sullivan’s adage ‘form follows function’ to describe their functional process of establishing what is required in its function before deciding on the form it should take. However, creativity also has an element of risk-taking and experimentation, exploring things for the sake of it and only afterwards thinking about the visual possibilities it offers and the functions it might fulfil.

Research
Research can be broken down into primary research, or first hand research gathered by you
through questionnaires or observation; secondary research is existing material already
gathered by somebody else; and tertiary research pulls together secondary material into a
summary of existing knowledge.
The first stage of research is to establish what are the gaps in your knowledge and
understanding, and what you don’t know. For example, the brief might highlight a target
audience you are unfamiliar with, give you examples of existing products you have never
seen or ask you to design in a format you have never tackled before. Research is a process of gathering information and making sure you fully understand the contexts in which you are
working by undertaking your own primary research and exploring existing secondary research sources, such as looking at similar designs or reading about your target audience.

Visual research
Having time to play is an important part of being creative; give yourself the space to try
things out and develop new ways of working. Play should be encouraged at all times,
especially when you think you know how to do something correctly! Play helps to expand your visual language, gives you options and often generates very good ideas. Visual research
is perhaps a more focused form of play. It draws on being creative but does so for a purpose.
With research you need to know what you are looking for – what do you want to try and find out? For example a research question might be focused on what is the best colour to use to try and achieve a particular mood suggested in your brief. To explore this you may do some research into the cultural association of colours and then test out what works best visually by exploring the use of the colour in your designs and testing different colour combinations.
To undertake visual research you need to establish some of the elements you are going to
work with in your designs, for example you may want to use an arrow; visual research
explores what type of arrow you want to use, how big and what colour it should be, where
you place it in your design work and how the other visual elements such as the type and
images work around it. Visual research is about establishing what visual elements might
work and experimenting with different ways of using them.

Good examples
It is invaluable to collect examples of other people’s work that you admire or like. This
collection of other people’s work is sometimes called a ‘swipe file’. It might include a page
from a magazine where you really like the juxtaposition of text and image; or it may be the
particular colour combination used, or the typeface, or the cropping of a photograph or just
the way they have solved a specific problem. You won’t be copying it, but you can be
inspired.

Documenting your research
For each job, project or exercise keep a research file in which you collect together all the
information you think is important. This file can be digital or paper-based, in a file or box or
pinned to your wall in front of your desk. Keeping a research file means you can easily refer
back to your material as well as documenting your progress as you go. You may find that
research done on one project will help you further down the road on another project, so it’s
worth keeping your files.

Research point
What sort of items have you collected so far? What was it that made you want to keep these items? Make notes in your learning log.

Mind mapping
Mind mapping is a research technique, sometimes referred to as a spider-diagram or
brainstorming. It helps expand your thinking around a specific topic, gets your thoughts
down on paper and allows you to step back and look at the connections you have made.
Mind mapping is very useful in expanding your understanding of key words, for example in
the last exercise one of the briefs asked you to explore the idea of ‘connections’.
Put the keyword ‘connection’ or any of your keywords from the previous project in the middle of a page and start branching off related topics, words and ideas. Keep going until you have run out of ideas. Step back and reflect on the whole mind map; has it given you any new ways of thinking about your keyword, has the mapping process given you any new themes to work with?

Lateral thinking
In the horrible jargon of business this process of coming up with unexpected ideas is often
described as ‘thinking outside of the box’. More accurately it is lateral thinking, which literally means thinking alongside or sideways.
Lateral thinking is all about taking conceptual leaps, being able to take ideas to new places
or make unexpected links between different ideas. Lateral thinking is about playing with
ideas, being prepared to try things out, being adventure us and not worrying if you get things wrong. It is often the little playful connections between different ideas that can make all the difference to answering the brief.
Lateral thinking will encourage you to take lots of different directions but don’t forget to
come back to your brief analysis; keep in mind what you are trying to achieve. Working out
the resources you have, the limitations and restrictions of a project can also greatly enhance
the creativity involved.
Being confined within a project can really help focus how you expand your ideas beyond
these restraints, being creative within your limitations.

Developing ideas
A good place to start is to establish what you think is the most obvious solutions to the
design project; what do you think would solve the design problem quickly? The obvious ideas are often very simple, straightforward and direct. Working with them allows you really focus on developing the form of your designs.
Next, try and come up with the most radical solution to the brief. Be controversial,
provocative and challenging. Radical solutions are good because they are all about lateral
thinking and coming up with unexpected solutions. Radical ideas will often overstep the
mark into impracticality but it is often easier to work with a radical idea that can be toned
down than trying to get a mediocre idea off the ground.
Radical ideas are about taking your ideas to their logical conclusions and beyond, while
obvious ideas are about identifying simple answers to your design questions. In some cases,
the radical ideas might simply be ‘wrong’ and the obvious ideas might be ‘right’, but in other
cases the opposite may be true. The only way you can judge your solutions is to go back to
your reading of the brief – what is the client expecting to see, does your idea meet their
needs, how would they react to it?

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Brief 1 Research- Quaker Oat’s Packaging

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As a starting point, it seemed the most sensible idea to learn more about Quaker Oat’s and their history to get a feel for who there are and what their place is in the market of Oat’s. I searched their website and gained a wealth of knowledge on their brand and it’s history from that alone.

Unsurprisingly, I found that they are easily the most established Oat brand on the market. If you type ‘Oats’ in your Google search bar, you will find that a Quaker Oat’s product is the first listed in the results.

They have a long-standing history in the industry, establishing themselves in 1901. They are proud to shout about the quality of their product. While they are an American Company, their products sold in the UK contain grains produced by a company called GrainCo in Britain, which is reassuring for the consumer and should be listed on the packaging.

I gathered most of my research from their website – https://www.quakeroats.com/. The website is highly informative and reflects well on the brand. Again, information that would naturally be included on the packaging.

Moving forward, I was interested to know what colours are typically used in food packaging. During my research I came across this blog which I found highly useful and informative. The blog explores product packaging best practice. See link: https://bizongo.com/blog/packaging-color-psychology/. Below are some key points I found in the blog around food packaging.

.Food packaging colours

Food packaging colours

• Red
• Green
• Yellow
• Orange
• Blue

In food packaging, red has always been universally accepted. Green is used for healthy and natural foods whereas yellow is used for high energy serotonin-inducing products. Orange is associated with healthy and filling foods such as oats whereas blue is used for fun foods, such as cakes or crackers.

Useful fact: 85% of consumers purchase products based on colour.

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Consumer Buying Behaviour

Things to keep in mind when selecting a suitable colour for product packaging:

• Think of the buyer: Consumers should be able to connect with selected colours. Keep the target market in focus. Understand their needs, their motivation. What is their age, gender, economic status, education? For example, McDonald’s classic red and yellow colour represents energy and youthfulness that their target audience can relate to.
• Represent the product: The packaging should tell the consumer about the contents of the products. For example, the colour of the shampoo bottle might give the buyer a hint about its composition.
• Stand apart from your competition: Products should not blend in on the shelf but rather stand out. Choosing a colour that’s unique or different from competitors has a better chance of being noticed. For example, Coca-Cola and Pepsi have contrasting primary colours red vs blue.
• Communicate the product’s purpose: Colour should subconsciously communicate a message you want to send buyers. Do you want them to think about the product as comforting or fun? Is the product related to wellness or security? Does it evoke a sense of luxury or sophistication? For example, Apple’s classic white colour makes it appear premium.
• Keep branding in mind: The brand story should flow through packaging colours and design. Do you want to reveal a quality about your organisation? Is your brand professional, fun, or rebellious? For instance, T-mobile adopted a hot pink logo when most other mobile service providers opted for black, blue, and red hues— making it different and bold.
• Consider cultural preferences: Colours have cultural meanings attached to them. Understand consumers’ culture and heritage to come up with colour combinations. For example, the colour red represents good luck in China.
• Maintain consistency with design and font: Colours should gel well with packaging design and the chosen font. It doesn’t take much to get too creative and go overboard. Font also sends a message to buyers and the colours should resonate with this message.
• Stick to your core brand colours: While experimenting is great when it comes to packaging a new product, colour consistency is key. This means consumers should be able to recognise a brand no matter what the packaging or colours.

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Consumer psychology

Different hues influence human behaviour and emotion in multiple ways. A person’s response to a particular colour is triggered involuntarily and is driven by psychology. For example, brighter colours tend to reduce the seriousness of packaging, black adds sophistication to any packaging, grey or brown make the packaging conservative or masculine, pink adds a feminine touch, while red draws attention.

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White

• Attributes – Simplicity, elegance, purity
• Example Brands – Apple, Dove, The Ordinary

Black

• Attributes – Sophistication, strength, authority
• Example Brands – Zara, Chanel

Blue

• Attributes – Strength, honesty, dependability, harmony, serenity 
• Example Brands – Gillette, Pepsi, Nokia

Red

• Attributes – Excitement, passion, strength
• Brands – Coca-Cola, KFC, Nescafe

Green

• Attributes – Security, growth, harmony
• Brands – Subway, Starbucks, BP, Lacoste

Orange

• Attributes – Fun, adventurous, friendliness
• Brands – Fanta, Harley Davidson, Timberland, Lufthansa, Amazon

Yellow

• Attributes – Fun, optimism, energy
• Brands – McDonald’s, Ikea, Snapchat

Turquoise

• Attributes – Calmness, clarity, purity
• Brands – Tiffany & Co

Purple

• Attributes – Indulgence, luxury, spirituality
• Brands – Cadbury, Hallmark

Pink

• Attributes – Calming, beauty, femininity
• Brands – Barbie, Victoria’s Secret

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Packaging colour by industry

The industry plays an important role when it comes to packaging colour. That’s because of the perception the industry has on the buyer. Buyers are likely to take food and pharmaceutical packaging colour more seriously than FMCG product packaging.

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Food

In food packaging, red has always been universally accepted. Green is used for healthy and natural foods whereas yellow is used for high energy serotonin-inducing products. Orange is associated with healthy and filling foods such as oats whereas blue is used for fun foods, such as cakes or crackers.

Cosmetics

Cosmetic packaging traditionally makes use of pink and blue hues. As expected, packaging with pink is targeted towards female consumers whereas blue has been used for both the male and female segments. Cosmetic packaging also makes use of black and white colours. Products with charcoal often use grey or black packaging. Whereas products for children or products with milk extracts make use of white packaging.

Retail

In retail packaging, the colour often depends on the product as well as the brand. In most cases, the colour is determined by the product. At other times, the colour associated with branding is used. For instance, the packaging of the detergent product, Daz, has been predominantly orange, and the colour is a part of the brand identity.

Similarly, Canon uses red and white in their camera and printer retail packaging. The retail packaging of Casio watches uses vastly different colours. They use blue for their low-cost line-up, black for the more expensive series, white for women’s watches, and grey for their vintage collection. On the Run energy bars have different colours of packaging that indicate different flavours.

Electronics

The colour used in electronics packaging often depends on the brand’s image or message – there is no fixed colour.  For instance, Microsoft uses white, grey, or black packaging for its Surface devices to signify simplicity and power. Apple also makes use of white packaging. Motorola has made use of more vibrant colours for their phone boxes. While Logitech uses its proprietary green shade.

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Conclusion on colours

After discovering how colour is used to establish a specific mood in a design, in-order to gain the right response from the targeted consumer, it provided me a colour guideline that would aid my response to the brief.

This knowledge can influence all designs moving forward, especially when dealing with different forms of packaging design.

With the brand and the gender and lifestyle of the target audience in mind, as well as the tried and tested colours typically used in food packaging design, I took to the colour wheel to establish which colours would work well together, to maintain harmony throughout the design.

Its important to understand that just because we’re targeting females here doesn’t necessarily mean everything needs to be the ‘stereotypical’ colour pink. Finding a good balance between the colours in the design that create a certain mood, and are relevant to the product and branding, is easier said than done.

Here were my findings:

In-line with the project, I decided it was time to move on to the target audience. What do I know about young women looking for a truly healthy snack, who are juggling many jobs and priorities, craving a tasty but healthy snack? Well, it sounded a bit like my daily life, but I wanted to delve deeper and fill in any potential gaps I might be missing.

It was pretty obvious what the female consumer would expect to get from the product -Something convenient, healthy, tasty, and easily transportable, but how would I get their attention? What could possibly distract them from their busy, time-bound lives? How would they relate to this product?

I found this blog – 17 marketing campaigns with a positive message for women. See link: https://econsultancy.com/17-marketing-campaigns-with-a-positive-message-for-women/

What better way to appeal to these young women than by empowering them. Fuel them through design as well as through food.

While the packaging design in this brief would be minimal in illustration or photography and restricted mostly to type, shape and colour, this blog inspired how I might create a promotional design such as a poster / advertisement etc that would go hand-in-hand with the product itself. I can see how this approach would appeal to young, modern women in society today, and equally would reflect positively upon the brand and its identity.

The below advertisement from Cardstore is a perfect example of how female empowerment can be used to market products.

Of course this is an extreme example, and I wouldn’t expect to achieve that level of impact from the packaging design of a pot of porridge, but the concept got me thinking of how I could reach out to this specific audience and get them engaged in the product.

I began wondering what was considered a young woman? It sounds silly but peoples interpretation of young and old are a lot different to what they would have been 50 years ago. I ran back to Google and came across this on Wikipedia which gave me a rough guideline of around the ages of 18 – 39: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_adult_(psychology)

Next, I moved on to to the competition. What are Quaker Oat’s competitors up to? How could I take inspiration from them? What are their weaknesses? I already knew that the product itself had a good chance of standing out from the crowd, as the ready-to-eat, chilled oats concept is new to market and this would be a tempting aspect for the consumer.

In my research I confirmed that ready made chilled oats in pot are certainly a niche. This is something that would need to be promoted highly in the design.

I did notice that brands newer to the market have less traditional designs (as seen below), and through the use of certain fonts and colours etc, there designs appear more modern which would ultimately appeal more to the younger adult. That said, to revamp an entire brand’s style would be a bold move and could actually cause the product to lose its value and become lost in a sea of less-known brands. With that in mind, I think it is important in this instance to stick with Quaker Oat’s traditional style, rather than cause detriment to the familiarity of the product.

In addition to this, I found brands that were established more recently tend to have an environmentally sustainable approach to their packaging. While Quaker Oat’s packaging isn’t necessarily the most damaging to the environment, it’s previously used plastic lid seen on the instant porridge pots doesn’t scream ‘Eco-Friendliness’. Is this something Quaker Oat’s would consider changing? The positive impacts on the earth are inarguable. In this day and age, the age of climate change, consumers are changing their buying habits and are growing more and more conscious of these aspects when purchasing packaged products. As well as the environmental benefits, a move like this could instil a greater level of trust in the brand which in-turn would reflect positively on the brands reputation. You’ll find a good example of this below:

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With the above information gathered, I decided to create a spider-diagram which would help me consolidate all this information in to one place. Something I could use for reflection when trying out different approaches to the design.

Brief 3 Research- Department for Children, Schools, and Families

About Department for Children, Schools and Families

As with the Quaker Oat’s brief, I began researching DCSF as a starting point. The first thing that became apparent was that they are no longer named Department for Children, Schools and Families, and have been named Department for Education since 2010. I found this information here: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-children-schools-and-families However, for the purpose of the project I will continue to refer to them as DCSF.

DCSF was founded in 2007, responsible for issues affecting people in England up to the age of 19, including child protection and education.

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Their mission

To raise awareness of the risks of underage drinking and contribute towards a cultural
change in society’s attitude towards alcohol. The purpose of the Department for Children,
Schools and Families is to make this the best place in the world for children and young
people to grow up… to make children and young people happy and healthy and help
them stay on track.
With a core proposition of ‘Alcohol leaves you (or your children) vulnerable’, the
campaign urges parents to talk to their children before they consider drinking, to help
avoid vulnerable situations. The messages to young people will get them to think about
the effects of drinking.

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The facts and figures

Here’s some facts about the effects of drinking alcohol regardless of age:

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In addition to this, I did some research on the risks associated with underage drinking:

• Alcohol poisoning – Anyone who drinks a lot in a short space of time can suffer alcohol poisoning. The level of alcohol gets so high that it can seriously affect the parts of the brain that control balance and speech, as well as affect the nerves that control your breathing and heartbeat and lower your body temperature, which can lead to hypothermia. It can also cancel your gag reflex, putting you at serious risk of choking to death, especially if you vomit. In 2014, there were nearly 4,000 admissions of under-18’s related to alcohol poisoning.

• Accidents and injuries – Just as with adults, drinking alcohol can reduce a child’s mental and physical abilities at the time, affecting judgement and co-ordination – which can lead to mishaps and sometimes accidents and injuries. Due to a young person’s lower body weight and limited ability to metabolise alcohol, acute intoxication can occur rapidly in children and young people. Research shows adolescents who tested positive for alcohol were more likely to get injured or have accidents than non-drinkers.

• Appearance and side effects – Research shows that underage drinkers are more likely to suffer from a range of health issues including weight loss, disturbed sleep, headaches.

• Brain development and education – During childhood and teenage years, the brain is still developing. Alcohol can affect memory function, reactions, learning ability and attention span– all especially important during their school years. Evidence also reveals that children who start to drink by age 13 are more likely to go on to have worse grades, to skip school and, in the worst case scenario, to be excluded from school.

• Mental Health – 43% of young people, who drink alcohol, have reported that they are drinking to cope in some way, such as to cheer themselves up or to forget about problems. Evidence also points to alcohol misuse and mental problems being closely related.

• Other substances – While excessive drinking by adolescents is a problem in its own right, it is at times linked to other harmful behaviours – like taking illicit drugs. Compared to non-drinkers, underage drinkers are more likely to smoke tobacco, use cannabis or use other hard drugs.

• Vulnerability – Puberty is often a very tricky time for kids – both emotionally and physically. Their natural tendency can be to experiment and take risks is increased. Drinking alcohol can put them in vulnerable or dangerous situations.  For example, among 10 – 17 year old’s who have had an alcoholic drink, 12% have experienced a serious harm as a result of their drinking (trouble with the police, being a victim of crime, been taken to hospital or gotten into a fight).

• Liver damage – Drinking alcohol can increase the risk of developing liver disease and young people who drink regularly are also at risk and start to damage their livers without realising. The warning signs only show after a few years. In Britain, significant numbers of people are now dying with alcoholic liver disease in their twenties.

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Here’s some data on underage drinking provided by Drinkaware: https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/research/data/uk-underage-consumption/

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Dr Sarah Jarvis explains the risks associated with underage drinking:

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To finish off, here are Britain’s underage drinking stats provided by the Alcohol Education Trust: https://alcoholeducationtrust.org/teacher-area/facts-figures/

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The Target audience

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While the main target for this campaign is young people aged between 13 and 16, parents/guardians play a huge role in the attitude young people have towards underage drinking, so it’s important to appeal to them too.

I thought it was important to understand why children drink alcohol. Unfortunately, I have first hand knowledge of this but to broaden my knowledge further I went back to Google to and found this: https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/advice/underage-drinking/understand-why-children-drink-alcohol/

In a nutshell, Children drink alcohol because:

• They copy our drinking habits – As young children many of the toys they played with were things that mimicked what they saw mum and dad doing – shopping, cooking or cleaning, feeding dolls or fixing cars. As they grow older, if you come home and say “Oh, I could do with a drink!” and when you reach for a bottle, you may be setting the example that alcohol is somehow an essential part of life. It’s important to recognise that kids don’t do what you say, they do what you do. The example you set can be the key to protecting them against early and unwise drinking

• Teenagers drink alcohol to be like their friends – From a very early age children want to fit in. This is to demonstrate that they are part of a group. As children, you are still their main influence – they look to you and up to you. Once they become teenagers however their allegiance shifts: their friends become their focus and it’s their acceptance, not yours, that is most important. Teenagers may talk about being ‘individuals’ and ‘being different’ but most of them have a fear of standing out from the crowd. If drinking is seen to be the norm, your teenager may want to join in to feel part of the cool crowd.

• They want to be like their older siblings – Parents with more than one child will recognise the struggle you can have when one of your children reaches the age to be granted a privilege and their younger sibling wants it too. Whether it’s staying up later, being allowed to go out alone or wear certain clothes, the younger child doesn’t want to wait – they demand it now. Partly it’s rivalry, ‘if she has it, why can’t I?’ Partly it’s a desire to copy, ‘I want to be like him!’ The influence of brothers and sisters is powerful, so use it.

• Young people see alcohol and drinking all around them – Young people are bombarded with examples of drink and drinking everywhere – on TV, in magazines, in social media. Social media is a reality of our lives, the lives of our teenagers and even of younger children. It can spread images and ideas rapidly which can be risky incitements to act irresponsibly. The trick is to nudge teenagers into using the good and being resistant to the harmful.

• They may have problems – with themselves, family, school or friends – Other than socialising or to unwind, one of the main reasons why some people drink alcohol is to try and cope with problems or stress. Arguments with partners, disagreements with friends, worry at work or anxiety can encourage people to reach for a drink. We’d like to think our children don’t have problems but even young children stress over friends, school and family. Young people have as many things as we do that could worry, scare or pressure them. We need to recognise that they might feel alcohol could be the solution to exam stress, not fitting in with peers or conflict at home. Then we can help them find other ways of dealing with these issues. 

• Adolescents want to test you, your rules, your boundaries and their limits – Parents will experience their young children wanting to strike out on their own: they want to drop your hand and walk alone, to play in the park with friends without you. As they become teenagers they really want to smash through the barriers you see as protection but they see as confinement. Gradually loosening your rules as they get older can help. If you relax on some issues you can stand firm on the important ones. Children will push – sometimes, not because they want you to give way but because they need you to say no, so they can see the edge and feel safe inside it. Other times, their pushing is a sign that it’s time to renegotiate the rules. Too few rules feels scary and it can feel as if you don’t love or pay attention to them enough to care what they do. Too many rules can hamper a child who never learns to assess risk or make decisions.

• Teenagers want to prove they’re grown up – Younger children will ask questions but ultimately are likely to listen to you and accept you saying “you’re too young”. Teenagers aren’t children, they’re adolescents and adolescents are apprentice adults – learning, but not quite there. They need to prove to themselves, to their friends and to you that they are no longer kids. Saying “You’re too young for that” is felt as a red rag to a bull. If drinking is for adults only, they’ll show you and everyone else they are adults… by drinking. The more you acknowledge the changes and their growing maturity, the more you give them respect and responsibility, the more they will accept it when you add “You’re growing up but your body still has some way to develop before you can drink alcohol safely.”

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I wondered what teenagers like these days and how my designs could get their attention? I found this blog by teenage blogger Sarvasv Kulpati. He talks about his experience of being marketed to as a teenager: https://hackernoon.com/how-not-to-market-to-young-people-written-by-a-teenager-f7a606e9af7d

He quotes “To make me use your product, you need someone I trust to tell me about it. This can be friends, but it can also be people I follow on social media. For example, Casey Neistat, an influential vlogger and filmmaker, receives products to review all the time. If he likes it, I develop a newfound respect for the product, mainly because I respect Casey Neistat”. This indicates the huge impact these ‘social media celebs’ really have on our youth today. Having an aspired-to celeb in on the campaign could be a way to reach out to these teens, sending the message that it is cool not to underage drink. With that said, he also indicates that us adults trying to be ‘too cool’ can come across a little cringey, so understand what’s ‘in’ and ‘what’s’ #not

Here’s a perfect, un-cool example:

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During my research I came across this blog – The Logo Company’s approach to targeting teens: https://thelogocompany.net/blog/branding-guides/5-easy-ways-target-teens-marketing/

These 2 steps stood out the most:

•  Pick the Right Branding Poster Teens – When you are ready to start sending out your marketing campaigns, you should consider utilizing teens in your actual advertisements. This means that you would want to use a teenager as the face behind your marketing campaign. These are the individuals that teenagers can relate to and identify with. Many big businesses will use celebrity teenagers to endorse their products or services. This gives them the edge of having someone that other teenagers look up to and get them to make a purchase. So, enlist in using the right poster teen to be the face of your marketing campaigns. This will help relay the right message to your audience.

• Keep Up with Trends and Popular Culture – You will not be able to engage with a particular audience if you do not keep up with the trends that interest them the most. You need to always keep yourself up to date with the latest trends and popular things to keep teenagers interested. For instance, there was a huge boom in fidget spinners recent years. To capitalise, businesses began creating their own fidget spinners and customising them to fit the interests of teenagers. They could now get them in multiple colours or with images of their favourite bands. Teenagers relate well with things they are familiar with so you should give them reasons to be engaged with your product or service. You should also be employing specific marketing strategies online via social media platforms. Facebook campaigns are going to look much more different than those on SnapChat. More and more teens are using SnapChat over any other social media platform. This means that you can strategically create marketing campaigns through this app that will make it easy for them to access. This will also help them be more exposed to your business. New stations have begun creating news “Stories” on the app to make the news more innovative and interesting to teens.

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Choosing the most effective Media source

When considering the best media source to reach out to young people aged between 13 and 16, the answer is found in their behaviours and the activities these teens are likely to engage in, on a daily basis. A lot of children of that age will travel to and from school on a bus, will watch television in the evening, and unfortunately most children that age will now own a mobile phone and/or tablet/laptop device, which they will use frequently throughout the day (and sometimes) at night. Most parents are likely to follow a similar daily routine.

As we know, most teens and adults are now ruled by social media platforms. Its also the easiest and quickest way for people, businesses, and organisations to get noticed and share their message with the wider world.

Targeted digital campaigns delivered through various websites can target a specific audience based on age, gender, location and behaviours. These campaigns can also be tracked, meaning the productivity of each campaign is easily established and can be adjusted where needed based on the reports. This makes it an effective and cost effective method.

With this in mind the most effective methods of media would be targeted digital advertising campaigns through social media platforms, a dedicated website and social media pages, TV advertisements, and billboard/bus stop/shelter ads.

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Other campaigns

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Drinkaware’s underage drinking campaign found here: https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/about-us/our-campaigns/underage-drinking/ is testament to the impact a website can have on a campaign. Any GIFS or digital billboards will link directly to the website where individuals can find further information about the cause and its purpose.

Aware.org’s Underage Drinking Campaign Commercial (Subtitles Required):

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Saatchi & Saatchi’s Underage drinking campaign: https://lbbonline.com/news/anti-underage-drinking-campaign-walks-the-long-road-from-words-to-action/. This particular campaign showed the real need for EVERYONE to take responsibility for this issue, not just teenagers.

The Guardian’s 2009 article about another campaign that focuses on drinking and young people: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2009/jul/16/responsible-drinking-campaign-young-people

Youtube Source – Fifty Years Of Anti-Drink Driving Ads:

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More inspiration

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.2009 Article by2009 Article by

Exercise: Book cover design

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The Brief

The brief is to design a stunning and contemporary cover for one of the 20th century’s
most acclaimed authors, HG Wells.

Known mostly for his science fiction writing, HG Wells also wrote social novels that are still relevant today, covering topics such as the mid-life crisis, class, feminism, materialism, consumerism and love. Your challenge is to create cover designs for three of his books that work as a set and establish the books as timeless fiction.

The books will be published in a paperback format and need to include the title, author’s name, publishers name and trademark. You only need to design the front cover and spine.

Making notes in your learning log:

• Identify the research you might need to undertake and the gaps in your knowledge. Can you identify any primary research that will help you? What resources could you use to undertake secondary research?

• Use the mind mapping technique to explore your keywords. Explore both extremes of
obvious and radical solutions to the brief; what’s the most obvious way of responding
to it and what radical creative solutions can you come up with?

When you have a range of ideas, as well as the notes in your learning log, make some
rough drawings or sketches to show your ideas. You can do these on paper or on a
computer. If you are using a computer don’t forget to keep some of the tryouts and early
ideas. Call them something like idea #1, #2, #3 and keep them in a separate folder. You
may well want to come back to them later and use some of the ideas that you didn’t use
this time for another exercise.

Response to the exercise:

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Using the same design process I had previously followed, I decided it would be useful to read some H. G. Wells novels as part of my reviewing of the brief and research to get me started. I questioned what the were gaps in my knowledge of his stories and felt this would be a vital way to help fill the (huge) gaps.

Admittedly, i’m not a massive reader so I knew committing to the books would be a time consuming exercise, but invaluable to the inspiration of, and end results of the design. Granted, the knowledge of the general story lines could be easily ascertained by reading a synopsis of the story, but I feel reading the books had a subtle influence on the less obvious aspects of the design which certainly added value to my approach towards the designs, or at least in my opinion it did.

I picked the three books that stood out to me the most, that seemed popular with H. G. Wells advocates. Those three books were The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and The Invisible Man.

It was surprising to find how much I gained from this exercise. Not just knowledge, but confidence and the realisation that Me and reading get along better than I thought.

Armed with the story lines, I moved on to the research of other book designs of the same stories. It was overwhelming to see the vast amount of designs that have already been created for these classic stories. Here are some of my favourites.

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The War of the Worlds

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The Time Machine

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The Invisible Man

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After researching existing H. G Wells designs, I began looking for series collections to gather what different approaches designers take to combine various designs as one piece. I found some fantastic examples that really opened up my mind and began to inspire me. The most important information I gained from this research is that consistency really is key. The typeface in most designs is consistent, not all, but most. Also, while each book might have a different image or shape, the concepts are very similar. In addition to this, getting the correct colour combinations is absolutely paramount. For example, designing one book in a bright blue colour with another book in a pale brown is likely to look an absolute monstrosity. Or designing one book with illustrations and another with photographs would naturally disturb the harmony throughout the collection.

Here are some of my favourites:

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The below concept for Oliver Sacks’ series of books designed by Cardon Webb impressed me the most. And as much as it inspired me, it reminded me how far from becoming a Graphic Designer I actually am. I love how these books come together as a collection. From the jigsaw of images and photomontage style on the front cover, to the connecting colours on the spine… Just everything! It is truly amazing work.

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Following that harsh reality check, I began laying down the foundations for my own designs. As the brief explains that the cover and spine should be designed in paperback format, I considered what sized book I might design? I did some research on typical book sizes and through that found some very useful information. See link: https://blog.reedsy.com/standard-book-sizes/

This blog points out the importance of book sizes and how a choice of size impacts cost effectiveness, ease of printing, convenience for the reader and how a reader digests a book. It also indicates the standard book sizes for each different genre. I didn’t realise this was a ‘thing’, so finding this blog has been very beneficial to my research.

In the end I decided that a standard 6 x 9 inch book, based on the above factors, would be the most appropriate book size to chose for this exercise. While it felt smaller than what I had envisaged, it isn’t about me, its about what works for the reader.

With the reader in mind I considered the demographics. Who would read this book and what design would appeal to them? According to Google results, the standard reader of Science Fiction books is mostly Men between the ages of 18 and 49. I guess I’ve just proved that not to be the case, after I’ve spent the last 2 weeks reading three of these books. A customer at my work who was a Teacher before he retired explained how much he enjoys all three of the books I have chosen to design, and he’s touching 80. Another girl I work with also loves The War of the Worlds and she is younger than me, in her early 20’s.

I don’t suppose that there are any specific geographical aspects that ought to be considered, nor any behaviours, bar the obvious, such as reading, relaxing, or travelling. At this point I hit a brick wall and decided that the two concepts I would design should have a more traditional feel in one, and a more contemporary feel to the other. Something for everyone!

It mentioned in the exercise that I should explore the main keywords using mind-mapping techniques, which I did. Please see below:

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After mind-mapping I began looking in to colours. Afterall, colour is probably one of the most important aspects that contribute to the co-ordination and harmony of a collection or group of designs.

Like product packaging and most other elements of design, there are certain colours that establish specific moods within design. I began researching the colours that would best fit my designs and here’s what I found. Please see below:

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I reflected upon designs I had collected for inspiration earlier and began to notice how other designers had used certain colours in their work relevant to the title/story and/or the mood the books were intended to create.

I also noticed that while colour is used to create moods, it can also be used to establish familiarity with the end user. Please see Amy Fleisher’s amazing designs for Penguin Classics below:

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Here’s another collection by Penguins Books.

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I had already decided that my chosen publisher for the designs would be Penguin Classics, simply because I’m more familiar with them than any other publishing brand, and also because I love their logo. So when I saw these designs I was really tempted to try something similar. The Penguin-feel through the designs felt traditional yet contemporary, but complimentary of one-and-other – The potential for a celebration of two of the biggest book pioneers in history, all in one collection of books. Big move? Perhaps….

It felt like it was time to get started. See how things progressed below.

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The War of the Worlds V1:

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I began designing the base layout which would be the same across all designs in V1. I used Sans Serif Gill Sans to replicate the well-known Penguin Classics Logo. Keeping the colours of the brand in-line with the colours of the overall design, I used shape to create structure and to separate images from the text as I had previously learned, as is documented in my Learning Log: Understanding Graphic Design.

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I considered the key words in the book and opted for Tripods in the design, simply because it was relevant to the storyline and it would help the reader get a feel for what the story is all about. I found inspiration from other Tripod designs on Google images and created a silhouette shape to replicate.

With the orange of the base being quite intense, I knew that too much colour in the design would be overkill so kept all designs to Orange, Black and White, in-line with the Penguin logo.

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I looked for fonts that worked well for the title and came across Charm, which fit-in well with other traditional books previously designed for Penguin Classics.

After the Title typeface, I began work on the Author Typeface. I looked back through the images I had collected, and downloaded new fonts that I felt had a H. G. Wells-feel. Perpetua in Bold seemed to work well, so I ran with it.

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Charm didn’t work for the title on the spine. It seemed too fancy and hard to read so I made the choice to stick with Perpetua for the spine, knowing that it would support the H. G. Wells typeface well.

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The spine title seemed a bit wishy-washy and hard to read so I played around with the size and spacing between letters and words and found that the above felt like a good fit.

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…Something wasn’t right. After fiddling around some more I changed the text to White and it immediately looked better.

Now that the typefaces were sorted, I reflected on the overall design and decided the image didn’t speak enough. Taking in to consideration the knowledge I have now that ‘Less is More’ I didn’t want to throw something on there for the sake of it and end up with a cluttered mess.

I looked back on my keywords again for inspiration. I had an epiphany – They came from Mars… Maybe a beam of light shining down from the top corner of the book would create the impression of coming from Space?

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Well, that didn’t last very long. It looked a bit pointless and so it was back to the drawing board.

Throughout the book H. G. Wells makes reference to the heat rays that the Tripods used to set fire to the earth and it’s earthlings. It made much more sense.

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At this point I was pleased with how the design was developing, but it still lacked something. I was trying my hardest to keep things as bare as possible but after some consideration I dared to add one last element to the design – The London skyline. Which I believe was a positive move.

I love the way the Skyline compliments the Penguin Classics strip. However, it is too much of a strong element in the design for it to only be used for this book alone, meaning it would need to be incorporated in to all three book designs for the concept to work. I thought about the potential for the other book designs and went along with the challenge.

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I couldn’t decide if white looked better than black, so I asked for some feedback from friends and family. The verdict was mixed and so I decided to keep both.

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The Time Machine V1:

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With the base already created it was easier to get started with this design. I already knew that I needed another object relevant to the story that would blend well with the Penguin Classics strip.

I’d considered an old clock of some sort for the main design. Cogs came to mind!

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I spent a little too much time stressing over the positioning of each cog and eventually realised it was time to crack on with the clock concept I’d been toying with earlier on.

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In my mind, the clock alone just wasn’t enough. Again, for fear of not wanting to overcrowd the design, I considered the key words once more.

I liked the idea of incorporating a Marble Sphinx in the design, as found throughout the story. After creating the Sphinx-like shape, I began playing around with it’s form.

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…And along came the next brick wall. Nothing seemed to fit, so eventually I scrapped that idea and moved on to the next.

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Maybe I was missing the obvious? What about the lead character – The time traveller?

As with the heat rays in first book I designed – The War of the Worlds, it felt more consistent to use something of that same colour in the design, so I trailed a repetition of the time travellers shape in larger form set behind him and the clock. I wasn’t sure…

I felt that the cogs were a little distracting too, so I tried filling the centre to make them appear more connected with the Penguin Classics strip. An improvement I’d say.

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I attempted to use the same Roman Numerals from the clock and didn’t think it added any kind of value to the overall design. It looked messy.

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I tried using a time machine which wasn’t even worth showing here. After much debate I decided the figure of the time traveller had worked the most successfully and so I returned.

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In the end I opted for this as the final design, and as with The War of the Worlds design, I created another version in black, as seen below.

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The Invisible Man V1:

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I was quite excited to start this design. I’d been thinking of ways I could visually describe an invisible man.

I jumped the gun and went straight in to the ‘supportive image’. The Invisible Man smokes a pipe through the book so I thought that would be a strong addition to the design.

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Once again, to ensure all the books were alike, I opted for glass bottles, the potion kind, as the detailing in this Penguin Classics strip.

The Invisible Man is described as a Chemical Researcher in the book and so this seemed perfectly relevant. I liked it straight away!

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Inspired by other designs i’d seen previously, I decided to design a man as was described in the book. Coat / Suit, Hat, and a bandaged face, dressed upon a male figure that appears invisible.

The concept seemed direct and to the point, easy to understand and a little bit quirky. That said, the pipe had to go.

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I began creating the bandaged face. Initially I opted for a half face but decided it looked a bit strange (Not in a good way).

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…..And so a full bandaged face was born! Now I just needed that trusty background addition.

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After a few debates with myself I opted for a Conical Flask due to it’s association with the invisible man’s interest in Chemical research.

The design felt finished, so once again I did a black and white version for later consideration.

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The War of the Worlds V2:

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Earlier on in the exercise I had considered creating two different design concepts – One with a traditional feel, and another with a more contemporary feel.

After researching other designers series collections and how they approached consistency and created flow through their various designs, colour played an important role.

In my first design I had opted for the Penguin theme, and therefore colour wasn’t as much experimented with as it could have been. I saw this version as an opportunity to showcase my understanding of colour combinations.

I required three colours that combined harmoniously and therefore selected three equally spaced-apart colours from the below colour wheel.

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I opted for the above three colours. Then I began to determine which colour belonged to which design.

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Red – Most relevant to The War of the Worlds due to it’s relation to the planet Mars, in-line with the story itself, and it’s association with anxiety and tense feelings used to establish the mood in the design.

Green – In the book the time traveller travels to the year 802,701 where the whole earth had become a garden filled with flowers, and where the Overworld people (Eloi) were strict vegetarians. Aside from that, the colour Green represents nature and harmony and indicates calm and positive vibes.

Blue – Take a wild guess. That’s right – The Invisible Man! Honestly, there were no real reasons for The Invisible Man book being this colour, other than that the colour went well with the other designs, and it happened to be the last colour assigned to a particular book.

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As before I began with The War of the Worlds design. For ease and accuracy I created all the designs on the same page, which seemed much easier than I had designed version 1. Yet another learning curve.

Here’s the progress in steps:

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I considered all things associated with war – Soldiers, guns, tanks, explosions an explosives. A grenade is easily related to war and could be used in a modern manner and therefore I added one to the design.

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Still on a mission to achieve simplicity, I referred from adding any more detail to the image at this stage and moved on the the title and author typeface. After scrolling for an hour through various fonts which either seemed weak against the grenade or too overpowering, I came across Voyager which I felt added texture to the overall design. As Voyager is a more decorative font, it somehow comes together as one with the grenade image, therefore making the idea of ‘less is more’ seem more achievable.

With Voyager looking a likely contender, it was equally important to find an accompanying font that worked well as a typeface for the Authors name. Voyager is font that needs using lightly. Too much would be a bad thing.

After scrolling again for another lifetime, through various fonts in my newly downloaded collection, most of which had the slightest of difference from one-and-other, I found Alegreya SC, which was strong and easy to read, not overruled by the title, nor distracting from it either. It felt like a font you’d expect to see the name ‘H. G. Wells’. And so it was decided.

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It was now a case of incorporating these typefaces on to the spine of the book. The title and authors name seemed as acceptable on the spine as they are on the cover, with some alterations to their positing. I was keen to try different positioning of the authors name on this design so I placed it underneath the title, as seen above.

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Using the same Sans Serif Gill Sans font and spacing between letter, I replicated another traditional logo from Penguin Classics, this time without using Orange, mindful that it would disrupt the colours of each other book.

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After a few minor adjustments I felt the design had achieved what it needed to achieve. Above is my final design.

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For the other two designs I really only needed to replace the main images. As in version 2 I chose to use a clock, as there really is no better way to depict time.

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So far the books had a slight modern-vintage feel to them, and so it only felt natural to have our invisible man in the style of a moustached gentleman, without bandages this time, just a hat and his glasses. I think this is probably my favourite of the three.

After completing all the designs I thought about how the finished designs would look once printed. I think version one’s cover’s would benefit from a glossy UV coating, while versions 2 would look great in some form of matte soft cover.