OUGD406 - Design Development

OUGD406 - Design Development

Having completed the initial ideas part of the design process for each component of the project, a group critique was incredibly useful in getting feedback on what ideas should be taken forward and how they could be developed. Some of these were obvious if there was one standout design however some ideas and feedback brought up were very informing. From this, independent developments and refinements were made.

Flag

Deciding on which flag to take forward was very straightforward, feedback suggested the ‘Turn Me on Dead Man’ design was the most resolved. While it is a concise design, it is very straightforward and it could be a better idea to pick a more intricate design, however on the other hand flags don’t really need to be complex as they just rely on basic symbology and seeing as both the type and image are backed up by research, this design was decided upon. The only development that was then made was to switch Cooper Black for the modified angular Compacta typeface that was made. 

Object

While it was remarked upon in the group critique that all of the ideas for objects had potential, the general consensus was that the cereal box had the most potential because its the largest and therefore has the most room to experiment with, it was also the most refined design and had interesting research to support it. It was suggested the box be screen printed for the maximum quality of production and that the negative aesthetic which subverts the standard design of a cornflakes box should be carried forward as it is interesting to look at and is in keeping with the rest of the work. 

Taking all this into account, the other panels of the cereal box were developed. The back of the box shows a word search with art rock artists names in it - creating an interactive element that also informs about the micro genre and its artists. Similarly, one of the side panels shows facts about particular art rock songs, these facts were taken from the discarded J-card with facts on it. The other side panel simply shows ingredients, a recycling diagram and a barcode, making the box look more realistic. The negative aesthetic was carried out through the development of the box and the 3 typefaces from the cover - Compacta Black, the angular modified version and Brush Script Medium are the only typefaces to feature throughout the design in order to ensure continuity (the only exception to this being the body text for the ingredients which needed something more suitable for a smaller scale - Franklin Gothic). Though 3 typefaces runs the risk of convoluting the design, Compacta Black and the modified version are similar enough to retain coherency within the design. 

J-Card

The J-card was the element of the project which required the most development; after working on some variants for the long j-card displaying facts about each song, feedback indicated that although certain elements of it work really well such as the cover and the black and orange colours, such a large quantity of body text just made it too complicated and it didn’t need to be. From here it was proposed a combination of some of the J-card designs be created, picking the most successful parts of each one because the orange animal J-card design and the wizard of oz one got some good feedback. So in development of the J-card; the cover of the long fact J-Card will be kept and utilise the animal design on one side and try to incorporate the wizard of oz design on the other. 

As this idea was developed, elements from the animal J-card and the wizard of oz J-card were changed and recoloured to match the orange on black colour scheme of the cover. All of these images were played with within the design, changing up layouts to find the most refined solution. Various ideas were had such as trying to simply just use the tops of the heads of the wizard of oz characters - one on each panel, this would have insured a sophisticated and more original design, with the characters being suggested more subtly. Ultimately this idea did not work because after thresholding or half-toning the images for printing, the tops of their heads were not as recognisable and slightly distorted. The work of contemporary design Ryan Thomas Ormsby was great visual inspiration in this process of the design, especially when integrating type, because throughout a lot of his poster designs, compositions with simply two colours e.g. black images and type on red assume interesting and unusual layouts and combinations in order to keep the design engaging with 2 colours. 

After a front and back design were fully developed and refined, the practical consideration was made to change the back design to a more simple pattern, insuring proper alignment during the process of screen-printing. This back pattern was layered half-tone images of; John Lennon from the cover, A flowers painting by Andy Warhol, a picture of Brain Wilson and his dogs and a promotional image for the Velvet Underground by Andy Warhol showing staggered square images of lips sipping on a straw in a coke bottle. These images all link to Art Rock and ideas/themes that have been considered throughout the project. Finally the last bit of development was to recreate the 2 Andy Warhol images to avoid copyright infringement. The flower picture was created using cut out paper and a photo of grass ands the lips images was recreated using photography.

Packaging

Considering each of the ideas for packaging, firstly the lyrics on the cardboard mailer were ultimately not used because the design would have not lent itself to screen printing. Secondly the vinyl strip idea was not used after testing it out and fining the adhesive either damaged the plastic case or left residue on it. From here, the idea was had to print the back pattern from the J-Card onto the card mailers; this links the mailer’s design more concisely with the cassette design and almost reflects the ‘Peel Slowly and See’ title by revealing a small part of the design on the mailer, enticing you to open it and see the whole thing.