Below are some workbook pages on the general label studio before this project began. We all designed a soap box cover, and a wine label before beginning on the "Astro's" brief. These are all sideways because they're kind of irrelevant but just provide some background on the project.
The below images show a pathway to my final product. The brief was to design a package for a brand called "Astro's", and we could choose exactly what the package was, but it had to be common and affordable at the supermarket.
At this stage in the process, I got the below email from Dan - the lecturer, and decided to head down the nail polish route. You can see the catch getting smaller and smaller util I landed on the final design.
Reflection:
Overall I am quite proud of my work on this project. I can’t believe how far the designs have come along since the start of the project, and I never really visualized this outcome at all. I think my two successes are that the package actually looks like coffee that I would buy (I took it downstairs and left it in my dad’s office and someone asked him where he bought it haha), and I am happy with the type on the front of both designs as I spent hours on hours starting at them pulling my hair out over it! I really like typography and so I am so happy I could incorporate this into a project. Some areas of improvement for me that I learnt from this project would be to make more DIFFERENT concepts - rather than the same one with a few different faces. I do this usually because I have an idea of what I want to see so I disregard everything else and jump on it when really I should persevere a little more. I also definitely want to learn more about typography, because I am sure that I will look back at this design and cringe in a few months/years haha. I want to explore type more than just the surface, maybe by building typefaces again, but I am really inspired by modern type posters, and type illustrations and manipulations. Learning about type literally feels like learning a secret hidden language.
1. Who is your target audience and how do your final design solutions appeal to them?
My target audience is students and young adults (who are enticed by bright colourful design styles). My final designs appeal to this audience as they are just that. Bright, energetic, colourful. - rather than classic and vintage. The type design on the front and back of both designs are also tailored to this style as they are very dynamic and eye-catching due to the directions given from the visual hierarchy of these elements.
2. Aside from aesthetic choices, how do your final design solutions create a positive experience for your audience?
These designs create a positive user experience through the previously mentioned visual hierarchy. I think that they are entertaining to read which therefore attracts customers.
3. Discuss what design techniques you used to create your design solutions.
I spent a lot of time on two main techniques. This was the background pattern, which is attractive and energetic like caffeine, and the optical and mathematical balance of the typography which creates a strong visual direction for the reader.
I worked on macrotype issues quite a bit, like kerning and leading, margins and using grid systems. I used these grids to align the text up, mainly optically, by lining up the weighty strokes of the text rather than the ascenders and descenders and other parts like that - rather than using the frames given from expanding the text to line things up. You can notice these things if you look super closely, but from a far I think it looks all very balanced.
4. How did you create cohesion between your two design solutions?
I basically just did my designs together, with the other in mind the whole time. I did the coffee first, then took a progress screenshot and put it to the side of the artboard when designing the tea, this was so that I could visually reference it through the tea process. I also used the same font sizes, families and kernings in all of the related text boxes. I did however specifically chose to make subtle differences, for example the background of the tea - this was to create a point of difference so that the tea didn’t come out looking like another style of coffee, and because tea design is generally much more relaxed.
5. What is the concept behind your 3 images and how does it connect to your audience and your packaging design solutions?
The concept was to just hype the shit out of the designs, put them on a pedestal and make them look like the gnarliest, coolest new coffee available. I think I succeeded with this, however I think in real life it would probably be a bit much. I basically used the same colour scheme from the respective labels and added the bubbles for a point of difference but along the same lines as the patterns.
