FMP - Brief 5 - Surface Pattern Swatches

Laura Ashley:

William Morris:

Cath Kidston

DC - Brief 1 - Anna Walker - Illustrator

I came across Anna Walker whilst looking at children's books and found a real interest within the illustration style of the book 'I love my dad'. The simple watercolour character illustrations against a white backgrounds - the images were simple enough for a child the age of 3 - 5 to understand, and playful enough to be child friendly. 

'I love to dance'

\

I don't believe in dragons 

A slightly more adventurous method of illustration, there is a lot of colour and background content behind characters. I'm a bit concerned this may be too much for a young child to understand in this style of illustration - with watercolour there is no harsh outline to separate objects. 

Storying boarding is something I must consider

My favourite of Anna's books, I really like the colour palette and illustration style, I would like to emulate this within my own designs.

FMP - Brief 1 - Children's Book Research

I decided to do some market and design research within childrens books to try and gain a better understanding about my target audience. Looking within Waterstones, at the 'Little Ones' section aimed at children aged 3 - 5, I wanted to evaluate a range of books to look at design and content aspects - Looking at illustration style, how much the book relied on image to explain the story, what words and how many words this age range are expected to be able to read within retail. So I analysed a few case studies:

Case Study 1 :

6 Pages in total - 4 lines per page, 5 words per line

Colours: Bright, bold, colourful, interactive, range of textures

Case Study 2 :

2 lines, 6 words per line, per page

Pull out sections - revealing underlying images

Content - rhyming phrases

text 1 /8 in size to image

Sans serif typeface

Case study 3:

Small, pocket sized

Serif typeface

20 Words per page, over 2 / 3 lines

Case Study 4:

'I love my dad'

Content pushed over double page spreads

Short sentances, 4 words per page

Watercolour illustrations on white

Case Study 5:

Pupper Book - 'Jolly Snowman'

Words on curved path

2 Lines per page, 10 words per line

Author - Lambert and Goldhark

Part Book part puppet

Look up illustrator artist - Anna Walker

In Summary:

The size of the children's book was the most impacting thing, as a child has to be able to hold the book, a child of this age has limited fine motor skills (the ability to hold, or grasp) with the size it means an image to a small child looks huge, and is visually engaging. Ideally text needs to be limited to short words and sentences, with a word limit of 15 words per page. The colour palette needs to be vibrant and engaging but this will go hand in hand with the illustration style I intend on using. The stock of the books were all produced on very thick, dense card, which gave the thickness and realistic quality of a book, with just a few pages - no more than ten. Other elements within the books involved textures, stock - shiny, velvet, gloss etc, and in some cases puppets. All of these elements I need to consider, not just within books but all of the products I intend on creating.

Interactive puppet book

Children Book window display

FMP - Brief 5 - Laura Ashley

After me and Sophie had a chat, and identified that we want to focus our collection on the kitchen area, and the products we design for. Laura Ashley's approach to fabric design reminded me slightly of the store, Cath Kidston so I decided to go and have a look at the extent of their kitchen range and products. Their vibrant oil cloth surface patterns designs aren't quite what me and Sophie are aiming for, were hoping for something more contemporary and reflects Laura Ashley's style. But the extent of the products they have pushed a range of designs across is something we are aiming for; across fabrics such as aprons, tea towels, curtains and crockery such as tea cups, plates, and cutlery.

FMP - Brief 5 - Meeting and Re-write

So I met up with my collaborative partner, Sophie, to re-write and discuss the development of the brief. I has suggested meeting up to re-write the brief, to combine our two originally written briefs to create some consistence between what we both wanted the brief to be. Naturally by re-writting the deliverables we were able to get a better understanding of each other roles within the brief - Mine lying within surface pattern and illustration and Sophie, in Branding and development.

We discussed a few ideas regarding design direction and roles, with the understanding that the research and concept development process would be done together, and from this with a clear idea of the concept, we will be able to take further work into our own directions.

Together:

Concept development and research

Identifying key words / theme

Researching arts and crafts movement

Researching Laura Ashley Company and Heritage 

Individually (me) :

Surface pattern within retail research

Surface Pattern artists

Kitchen products to apply pattern to - extent of range

Research around theme - Content

Notes made:

Look into Arts and Crafts movement

William Morris - Contemporary influence

Ornamental design

Spring & Summer - Theme, Key words...

DC - Coffee Lovers

Source: http://www.gardens-co.com/index.php?/ongoing/i-coffee-lovers-newsi/

“Coffee Lovers” provides single origin coffee beans with its signature roast. We worked closely with the owner to redevelop the brand image from strategy, branding, packaging to website. After many hours of cupping, we brewed a unique packaging system to indicate the characters of different beans. At the same time, each type of coffee bean has its own symbol to visualize the favor. The selection of the design direction, colors and materials were based on the company philosophy– The Beauty of Simplicity. We tried to keep our marks as minimal as possibe'

The packaging design is based on the companies and products philosophy - the beauty of simplicity. It used a consistent brown paper bag, of which a range of stickers, each representing a different product, it placed on it.

DC - Nerbo Coffee range

Source: http://www.behance.net/gallery/NERBO/4787657

I came across this project looking for ways to package coffee. The idea was to produce the design material, for a Coffeehouse aimed at Italian University Students. I really like the simplicity of the designs, and how through this simplicity and use of icons they have aimed their products at a young target audience.I am unsure whether there is a concept behind the application of icons, they seem to be there for image purpose which is something I want to avoid. Also, although I like the idea of an extensive range of 'extra' products I feel this range is too large, and pushes its branding into products (Such as an Ipad case) which I don't feel would be bought / liked by their target audience - Why have a ipad case with a coffee shop identity as the aesthetics?

I want to be sure if I produce anything past the packaging of my coffee product, that it be useful and related to.
Another element I like within this range is their use of materials - It looks and feels organic, its material and stock choice retains a similar tone, feel and colour palette.