Book cover inspired by Philippe Apeloig

Phillippe Apeloig

We have been looking at the work of French designer, Phillippe Apeloig.
His strength lies with typography and manipulating typography to create interesting pieces of graphic design. Here are some of his works. His work also features a strong use of grid systems and he is heavily influenced by modernism.

I was asked to create a book cover for 'The Girl in the spider's web' in the style of Phillippe Apeloig, which would also communicate the idea of data and the internet, which is what the book is about.

Here is my design. I like the technique of overlapping and warping typography in Photoshop, however I am not very keen on my colour scheme as I feel that it is a bit bland.

Branding Swat Analysis

SWOT Analysis for my brand of healthy drink

STRENGTHS

• Appealing packaging makes us strand out from our competitors 
• Marketing plan to target children
• There is a gap in the market for a product like this, that is healthy and appealing to children
• The nutritional benefits of my product are easy to market to parents
• Lower price point than high end competitors (e.g. Innocent)

WEAKNESSES

• Shorter shelf life of fresh fruit drinks, storage in fridge may be necessary
• Not able to compete in price with those offering lower quality drinks that don't contain real fruit
• Having to market the idea that vegetable drinks would taste good
• Market research was on a small scale so results may not be accurate.
• My target market is limited to parents

Opportunities

• Opportunities to partner with other businesses who may stock my product, for example coffee shops and super markets.
• Government initiates to promote healthy eating among children will help my campaign.
• My competitors weaknesses, for example the uninspiring packaging design

Threats

• Threat from Innocent smoothies who have recently launched a vegetable drink.
• Negative publicity
• Competitors developing more better packaging for their drinks
• Competitors, like Fruit Shoot and Capri Sun more affordable to working class parents. them my product

Tone of Voice- Waterstone's Christmas adverts

Waterstone's Christmas Adverts

Tone of voice

In one of our lessons we looked at the concept of 'tone of voice', how images have a tone, which needs to be matched for their use.  For example there are many different images depicting 'Christmas' but their tone many vary. One may have a religious tone, another may have a friendly tone, another may have a childish tone. When designing we need to create the right tone of voice through our use of imagery. 

In our lesson, we were put into groups are asked to select a number of images, some colours and some typefaces that we would use to create a series of Christmas posters for Waterstones.

Our group decided to choose a number of wintery images and backgrounds. Our chosen colours were gold and light blue. We chose three fonts 'hello', 'champagne and limousines' and 'Znikomit'.

I then set about creating some posters and a formal invitation for the Waterstone Christmas party, using only the images that our group selected. These were the designs I created.

I wanted to  create a house style for all the posters. I went for a simplistic approach using the most striking images to pass across a message. The idea behind this campaign is the that of the idea that Waterstone's has a book for everyone at Christmas. This is portrayed by the baubal with the person's name on it and the tree branches, which could represent a family tree. The heart also expresses the idea of giving a gift they will love. I chose to use the words 'Get Christmas Sorted' portraying the idea that getting Christmas presents at Waterstone's is quick and stress-free.
I added a black decorated border to give the posters another dimension and to create a sense of continuity between the posters. The black decorative border also ties in with the colour of the black logo below. 

The next task was to create a formal invitation using the images that we had previously selected as a group.  These were my initial attempts which I was not entirely happy with. I felt that they were too dull and the colours not striking enough.

I then went back to the drawing board and came up with this design which I much preferred. 

I felt that the background image was much more striking and also I felt that the style fitted better with the house style of the posters. I like this final design because it is very simple but the background image is striking and bold. The heavy use of gold is also the right tone for a formal and expensive Christmas party.

Gender Diversity Pie Chart Inforgraphic

Gender Diversity Pie Charts

We were given these pie charts showing the gender and racial diversity of those directing various TV channels and asked to create an alternative infographic depicting the same information in a more interesting format. This was the design I came up with, featuring faces which show the gender and race very vividly. The statistics are accurate and the size of the faces are estimated based on these percentages.

Branding Inspiration

Branding Inspiration

For my children's drinks product, I had a look at existing children's packaging for inspiration.

These were some of the designs that grabbed my attention.

I like the idea of creating character themed packaging.

Creating a healthy children's drink brand

Creating a healthy children's drink

Target market

I decided that for my project I wanted to create a healthy drink for children. Being a parent myself it concerned me about the amount of sugar contained within many drinks aimed at children.  I felt that this was a definite market to be targeted. My drink brand would need to appeal to children and parents.  My primary audience would be the parents of young children (as they are the ones who are usually buying the drinks), followed by children themselves as my secondary market, who may buy the drinks with their pocket money.

Competitors

My main brand competitors are: 

-Ribena

-Fruit shoot
-Capri Sun

-Innocent Smoothies

One of the areas that is of particular interest to me is packaging that will appeal to children. I feel that many of the drinks aimed at children have quite uninspiring packaging. I believe that if I were to create packaging that would really grab a child's imagination, I would go a long way in producing a successful brand and it would give me an edge against my competitors.

I had a few ideas that came to my mind concerning this brief.

1) My first idea was a healthy jelly based drink. I know that most kids love jelly and the pre-packed jelly market is one that has really taken off lately. I felt that it would be a fun unique product that kids would love. I found that there is a jelly drink already on the market, however I know that it is not a widely known brand, so I felt there is still a gap in the market.

2) My second idea was a healthy hot drink. The idea behind this is children love being 'grown up' and having what the adults are drinking, for example tea. Parents are not keen on their children drinking tea because of the caffine, but it is a lot healthier than many of the sugary drinks on the market. My idea was to create a drink like tea for children, that would be appealing to children's tastes, it would be caffine free and be something that parents would feel happy buying.

3) My third idea was a vegetable based drink. Most parents struggle to get their children to eat vegetables and my idea was to create a product that would contain hidden vegetables mixed with fruit juice. The product would be 100% fruit and vegetable. Examples of flavours could include 'beetroot and blueberry' 'yellow pepper and orange', 'Kiwi and spinach'.  When vegetables are juiced with fruits they take on the sweetness of the fruit so they would be pleasant to drink. This concept would appeal to parents but if packaged in a really inspiring way, would appeal to children too. After researching further I discovered that Innocent Smoothies have also recently launched some drinks containing vegetables. However Innocent Smoothies seem to be appealing to adults more than children in their packaging design. 

4) My fourth idea was to re-brand water. Everyone knows that water is the healthiest drink of all however kids don't always want to drink it. I had the idea of re-branding water in an interesting way that would grab children's attention.  I could possibly add some natural flavours or colouring to water to make it more appealing to children.

Market Research

I decided that the best way forward for this project would be to carry out some market research to find out what my target market think about my ideas.  I created a survey to find out more about my target market and also to get feedback from them about my ideas.

This was the survey I created for parents of children under age 14.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/J78G73V

I shared my survey with friends via email, on social media and also in twitter.

Results of Market Research

To date I have had 22 parents complete my survey. Most of these parents had children between the age of 3 and 8.

These were the findings.

1. Water was the drink that these children drank most regularly, followed by Squash.

2. Fruit Shoot was the most popular bottled drink

3. Innocent Smoothies were considered to be the healthiest drink

4. 80% of parents felt that there was a need for a healthy children's drink on the market.

5. The three most important factors for parents when choosing a drink for their children are firstly, nutritional benefits, followed by price, followed by their children asking them to buy it.

6. Nearly 70% of parents said their children ate 5 portions of fruit or vegetables every day.

7. 67% of parents liked my idea of re-branding water, and 48% liked my idea of creating a vegetable based drink.

Here are some other comments from parents...

Whole fruit smoothies with additional healthy ingredients such as flaxseed, sprulina, spinach, etc. For hot drink options, things like peppermint and green tea with natural vanilla or honey to eliminate need for refined sugar or artificial sweeteners. Also naturally caffeine free teas would be a good option for kids. Chai teas aimed at kids would be good (loose leaf assam tea, cardamom pods, cinnamon, fennel, etc) with whole organic milk and honey - would be the healthier option to things like hot chocolate, horlicks or even nesquick... Soft drinks made from fruit juice (not from concentrate) and sparkling water. This would taste good and eliminate the need for artificial sweeteners or added sugar.

Having a child with type 1 diabetes means drinks must be sugar free, but I also don't like them having fizzy or too many artificial sweeteners so drink options are very limited...is water our only healthy option??

Hot drinks for children is not a safe concept and hence difficult to market

Natural sugars rather than sweeteners

Most parents seem to be against artificial sweeteners and also the comment about the safety issue of marking hot drinks to children is a big consideration for me.

Based on my research I will either go down the route of designing a vegetable based drink or a water drink for children.

One idea for a name for a vegetable drink was 'VEG HEADS'. The bottle lids could be made up of different character heads which children could collect.  The other idea was to create some kind of  product that could be added to water (like squash), to improve the taste of water. It could be healthier than squash and could be packaged in individual pouches, which could be handy when out and about.
One idea for the name I had was 'POWER-UP' pouch.

I will investigate these brand ideas further.

My brand values

My brand need to be..
Healthy
Fun
Happy
Exuberant
Honest
Friendly
Environmentally friendly
Sensitive/ understanding of parents
 Good value
Trustworthy
Contemporary
Natural
Organic
Pure
Unique
Youthful
Nutritious
Playful
Original
Practical
Knowledeable
Powerful
Adventurous
Dynamic
Memorable

My three most important values are

Natural, Fun, Value

My most important value is FUN.


The personality of my brand
If my brand had a character he would be superman.
If my brand went on holiday, it would go to the moon.
If my brand were a colour it would be purple and green.
If my brand were age he would be a young boy.
If my brand were a job it would be a scientist.
If my brand lived in a house it would live in a city skyscraper.
If my brand drove a car it would be beetle.
If my brand were an animal it would be a lizard or Geko.
If my brand were a country it would be America.
If my brand were a book it would be a comic.
If my brand was a piece of clothing, it would be a t-shirt.
If my brand were an art movement it would be pop art.
If my brand were a style of music it would be pop music.
If my brand were a film it would be an action film.
If my brand were a sport it would be mountain climbing.

Pop art

Pop Art

Pop art originated in Great Britain in the 1950s and later came out of America in the 1960s.
It was a response to the post war optimism and social tensions which were being aired on TV for the first time, e.g. race relations, women's rights and colonial exploitation.
It coincided with the emergence of pop music and the rise of film stars, who often featured in the work.
The word 'Pop' originates from 'Popular' culture, which sums up what the movement was about.
Some artists such as Andy Warhol used elements from popular culture, like advertising and packaging in his work, for example this campbell's soup tin.



The pop art movement was revolutionary in many ways and has influenced so much of modern design since then. Artists often used bright bold colours, like red, yellow and blue. Pop art combined different styles of painting, sculpture, collage and street art.
In the US, artists used to duplicate, reproduce, overlay and combine visual elements.

Album cover design from this period also reflected popular culture of the time.

Peter Bakes work

Pop art was influenced by surrealism, abstract expressionism and Dadaism.

Leading artists of the era include Keith Haring (see below)

Claes Odenburg and Coosje an Bruggen were known for bringing pop art to the masses by enlarging every day objects in public places.

Robert Rauschenberg was known for his 1950s collages made from non-traditional materials and objects.  He combined painting and sculpture.

Richard Hamilton was famous for this collage combining references to newspapers, comics, advertising, appliances, food, packaging, television and movies.

David Hockney is a British artist whose early work had a humorous mood, vivid colour and magazine style images.

Massimo Vignelli

Vignelli was an Italian designer, who worked on packaging design, furniture design and public signage.   He studied architecture in Venice.

His work was part of the modernist movement, focusing on simplicy and geometric forms.

He used very few typefaces in his work that he considered to be perfect, e.g. Bodoni, Helvetica and Garamond No 3.

He is most famous for designing the New York City Subway map.

Vignelli admired architects Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. He moved to New York in the mid 60s to introduce America to his design style which was inspired by their ideal for functional beauty.

He was responsible for taking modernist European graphic design to America.

His clients included American Airlines, Ford, IBM, Xerox and even St Peter's Lutheran church in Manhattan.

He described himself as an 'information architect', structuring information to make it more understandable.

His map of the New York subway received criticism for missing out streets and for its use of non conventional colours, like grey to represent water. Vignelli preferred to call it a diagram rather than a map, an ingenious work of streamlined beauty.

Vignelli opened a design company called 'Unimark International' with 6 other designers in the mid 1960s, which became one of the world's largest design firms.

Chidren's Books

 Trainspotting Poster Inspiration

In our lesson we looked at the work of the design house, Stylorouge, and in particular their iconic trainspotting poster. At the time the film poster was ground-breaking because it was totally different from how designers usually created film posters. The poster did not focus on any particular character and it did not give much idea away as to the subject of the film. Since then, the design style has been used over and over again. 

Our task was to create a series of 4 posters for 4 books not showing the main character in the conventional way. I decided I would focus on 4 iconic children book characters but not use the whole character as you would usually. The characters in my posters are so well known that even if it is only half of their head being shown, you would instantly recognise them. I drew the illustrations in illustrator (based on pictures of the characters) to give them a common look and feel. I went for bright bold colours suitable to a children's book poster. I also added a character profile on each as a finishing touch. This is also in the style of the trainspotting poster.

I am really happy with my finished posters and may adapt this idea to use for my final Waterstone's Christmas campaign, perhaps giving them a Christmas-themed patterned background.

The Great British Bake Off Infographic

The Great British Bake Off Infographic

I designed this infographic about The Great British Bake off.

Infographic Styles

Infographic Styles

We were given different infographic titles and asked to come up with style concepts as to how we might present them, thinking about colour schemes, fonts and imagery. Here are my mood boards or concepts for the different styles of infographics.

I decided that I would create the full infographic for the top design.

Here is my final design.