OUGD603: Progress Tutorial

I engaged in a progress tutorial with Simon Jones, earlier today – to see how the term is going, so far. I was looking for some advice and confirmation what I was on track with the briefs I'm undertaking. I was also able to get some feedback on a couple of briefs which are currently being worked on.

Simon seemed happy with my progress and workflow at this stage of the year, having it  “all in hand”.  I feel like I've still got a lot to do, however I've just got to crack on with it, really.

I've not really had much contact time with Simon previously, so I showed him some of the completed briefs, so he was able to get an idea of what I'm about – in terms of design.

I spoke with Simon about the YCN Yorkshire Tea brief, which I'm undertaking as a collaborative brief with Adam Garbutt. A brief which we've made some good progress in, but we're not sure if it's an appropriate direction. We've used photography instead of the traditional watercolour to bring new life to the packaging – in attempted to appeal to a younger audience. Simon commented that perhaps photography might not be the best direction, as the dated water colour has a 'tweedyness' to it. Which reminds you of Yorkshire.

Of course, the photography direction was only one of our ideas so far, we will be taking the 'tweedyness' into account when developing our packaging further.

OUGD603: Brief 13 - D&AD Pantone // Planning & Initial Ideas

The competition I've selected to work on solo is D&AD's Pantone Brief. I originally planned to brand a location as an independent brief originally, however, as Pantone's brief was released I swapped that brief for this brief.

Reimagine your hometown through a new colour scheme. Think about everything that this identity could include, physical and digital: logo, transport, wayfinding, etc.

The Plan

For this brief, I've chosen to apply a [yet to selected colour] to the city of York.  To bring a new exciting look and feel to the city. York was designated a UNESCO City of Media Arts, for 2015. However the cities a whole, as an entity lacks any unity through a consistent design.

Colour is brave. Colour is bold. Colour is real. And it’s, well, colourful. Pantone supports the creative community to deliver, execute, and live that fact. Pantone sets the standard for colour. Nothing else comes close to the diversity or reality of colour of Pantone.

Applying a consistent colour scheme throughout the city would really liven the city up, in aim to complement it's historic, almost gothic, architecture – whilst also adding a modern vibe to the city.

The people, organisations, businesses, and communities that make up your hometown. Your solution should be something that everyone who lives, works, or is part of your hometown can own, adopt and experience, whoever they are.

The aim is to appeal to the masses, creating an experience which enhances and complements the city centre. Adding something integral and benefitting to the community, rather than adding colour for the sake of adding colour.

Audience

Essentially, the audience is everyone in the city – as the colour change will be seen and interacted with everyone in York. I tried to establish the main demographics in the city, and how this will affect the direction of the design.

The main people who will interact with the design would be people who live and work in the city and tourists – so everyone. Because of which, to cater for tourists, a large amount of imagery or iconography will have to be used to illustrate and communicate with non-native english speakers. 

Initial Ideas

I've mapped out some initial ideas of what could be done for this brief. Exploring the various areas of the public sector which could be transformed into new elements, with the addition of colour or a new/modified visual identity.

I fleshed out some possible ideas and directions for this project, as listed above:

• City Way Finding
• Signage
• Printed
• Visit York Tourism Branding
• Council Branding
• York Station
• Trains
• Connection between London and Edinburgh
• City Colour Scheme
• Construction cover ups
• Tourism
• Buses
• Transport
• Boats
• Heritage

An idea which I think might be particularly interesting would be the construction cover ups – York is a very old city, and there are always various construction sites and scaffolding ruining the attractions of York. Perhaps covering them up, as illustrated below. 

OUGD603: Brief 15 - YCN Yorkshire Tea // Brewing Time Development

Following research into stopwatch iconography, I've decided how the stopwatch for this icon should look. I established the mandatories on the icon should be the start-stop button and the lap button around the face of the watch. Doing this creates the familiar shape of the watch, and adding function to the device, almost like you can pick it up and use it. 

The markers on the face have been added for every eighth of an hour, I experimented by adding a marker at every quarter hour mark, however due to the simplicity of the watch, I felt that this could be pushed further. Adding an additional marker between each quarter mark seems to have worked well – even though an eighth of an hour on a stop watch is 7.5 seconds, which you wouldn't typically find. 

I positioned the hand of the watch slightly to the right of the starting position, doing so would suggest that the watch is in motion, bringing life to the illustration. 

In the original brewing time illustration, a teapot has been used to show the brewing in action – almost. However, Yorkshire Tea has their own signature tea pot, which hasn't been used in the illustration. 

I traced the Yorkshire Tea mug, making adjustments to certain areas of it so the perspective appears face on, rather than a high angle shot. 

Transforming the shape into the outline version, to match the appearance of the stop watch. Which has been set to a slight angle, to appear as though it's resting against the tea pot – almost bringing the illustration to life. 

Adding the modified Yorkshire Tea logo, which we created for the front of the box, promoting the new clean modern packaging. The ‘Taylors of Harrogate’ may yet be removed, as it's very small. 

OUGD603: Brief 15 - YCN Yorkshire Tea // Stop Watch Research

I need to create an icon which to demonstrate the passage of time – which will go with the brewing information on the rear of the packaging. I've experimented with an hour glass, however this was difficult to illustrator in a minimalist icon, which would work on a small scale. As seen in a previous post.

The icons above are in a similar style as to what I'd like to use for the icons. Using lines and colours to illustrate the time on the stop watch. Red for start, yellow for 'in progress' and green for complete. Using the start/stop and lap buttons around the face of the watch reinforce the shape and familiarity that the icon is indeed a stop watch. 

Above is an animation, which contains a stop watch. The stop watch used in the animation is much more realistic than the much more minimal watches, pictured above the animation. This wouldn't really work for my icon, as it will be very small. As it's so small the detail and texture would be lost to the size – keeping it minimal is the way to go. 

The animation above, which contains another stop watch is a much more minimal, flat design. Not as simple as a line icon, pictured in the top image – however the lack of detail and texture makes the illustration much more effective and easier to use on a smaller scale. 

The illustration also has points on the watch face, to mark the seconds or minutes on the watch. Adding these also helps exemplify that the illustration is a watch. However using too many markers could be come difficult to see at a small scale, perhaps reducing the markers to every quarter hour mark would be more beneficial. 

The illustration/icon above is a play on the dribble logo, incorporating the design of a stop watch by adding two key features which really transform the basketball into a stop watch – the addition of the start-stop button and the lap button. It's essential I include these in my illustration to really display that the icon is a stop watch. 

The stopwatch icon above used markers on the watch face at every quarter-hour mark, which would work much better at a small scale rather than with the full twelve markers on the watch face. 

The stop watch pictured above is more in the line art style which I would be using, it used the lap button and the stop-start button, and the really – in as few shapes as possible, looks like a stop watch. 

OUGD603: Brief 15 - Yorkshire Tea // Brewing Instructions Development

On the back of the Yorkshire Tea box, there are instructions for brewing time. Adam and I want to tidy this section of the box up, and simplify the design, so the box's design feels more consistent. 

I want to visually represent a timer. When I've visited tea shops in the past I've been given a hourglass which times 3-5 minutes – so you're able to decide your tea strength. For example pictured below Eteaket in Edinburgh, which I've visited a few times. (image not my own)

You can see the hourglass pictured next to the tea pot. It's a nice touch to allow control of the brewing accurately – which is always appreciated by tea connoisseurs. 

I sampled an image of some timers to illustrate to see if they work visually, if they're appropriate for the style of the box. 

Upon experimentation, I decided that they don't really work. The icons will be fairly small, and it's difficult to illustrator sand and glass on a small scale. A change of direction was needed. 

Click here to see the new direction

OUGD603: Brief 15 - YCN Yorkshire Tea // Box Net Development

As part of the development from Yorkshire Tea. We've created a mock up for the box, so we can get an idea of how our plan and design concept will pan out, as it's difficult to tell on screen. It would also be beneficial in critiques, as it's easier to convey our concept with physical mock ups. 

Thankfully, I had a Yorkshire box handy. I deconstructed the packaging to reveal it's net. Which i was able to measure up and recreate in Illustrator, as seen below. All the dimensions have been measured and the net is completely accurate to the original. 

Since the net is 100% accurate to the box, we will be reusing it at a later stage in the design to apply the final design to. However, in this case we're going to reduce the size of the box by around 10%, so the packaging fits onto A3 – to reduce costs for development. 

How the mock up net looks with the added design concept Adam and I have created. We've left the back part of the net red, as it will only be filled with copy, which will be taken directly from the Yorkshire tea box.

OUGD603: Brief 10 - Japan RWC 2019 // RCW Logo

As part of the branding of the RWC, the IRB RCW logo has been used consistently throughout all of the RWC's over the past thirty years. It's an essential part of the brand, so it needs to be updated to fit the 2019 brand. It's a simple as changing the type t fit the new venue. 

I managed to find an EPS of the 2015 Rugby World Cup logo, England. The EPS format made the logo editable.

I had to source the typeface for the logo, but it wasn't available. I managed to find out that it's a private typeface, not available for purchase made for RWC. It's called rwc_regularregular or something like that. 

In order to source what the letter form would look it, I had to find a way to sample the font. Unfortunately, I didn't screenshot this. I visited the RWC website, which used the font for the copy. I used the inspect element tool on chrome to view the HTML and CSS of the website. I altered the HTML to read 'JAPAN 2019', which displayed what the letterforms look like. Zooming in to get the highest resolution of type, and then took a screenshot of it. 

I then imported the screenshot into illustrator, and traced the type, applying it to the original logo, to create new logo.