Lauren Hyndman: Final Year of Design Degree

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And I added myself. Still need one more student.

Been messing around with photoshop colourising in order to create this effect.

I had a mess around on Photoshop after watching an online tutorial on colourising an image. It is not an amazing result but I have learned a new way of manipulating an image. I quite like it.

I am trying to lay out my leaflet better this time so that it is easier to slice out each leaflet. I have also had to sign up new volunteers. I want three leaflets per A4 page as I think it creates quite a nice long shaped leaflet. Got work still to do.

I already have an okay attempt at a first time website. But now I am trying to build a new one. By starting as simple as possible, I can slowly add to it throughout the year, making changes to the style and design as I go along.

OLD SITE

NEW SITE

My proposal to a panel of tutors about what I wish to do for my studio work is on the 7th November... that's thirteen days to get all my ideas down on paper, onto something fairly presentable. I dug out my proposal from last year to remind me what a proposal like this involves. So below is last years studio proposal.

I had a mega busy weekend and then caught a cold that has been going round so I never managed to complete my mini project of packaging the seven deadly sins in time. I have allowed myself a couple more days in order to do so.

Juha has asked me to update a leaflet that I designed last year that would help market the course to potential students for following years.

This is last years leaflet that I designed.

Today I sat in the design studio at uni ON A SATURDAY!! It was the School of Landscape, Architecture and Design's Open Day. I was asked to represent the BA (hons) Design course. So I sat in the studio waiting for any potential students who wanted to tour the studio from 11am til 4pm. I was asked questions about the course and what I thought of the projects. And I got paid for it.

For the past few days I have been reading my research on the seven deadly sins and allowing it to process in my mind what they are all about and the visual representations of them that have been used. I compiled a file of research and a book of images and words associated with each sin.

SLOTH
WRATH
ENVY
LUST
GLUTTONY
GREED
PRIDE

Now that I feel I have sufficient research on the sins, tomorrow I shall begin designing the packaging for each one. I shall give myself till Monday to complete these designs and therefore complete this mini-project, that's just under one day per sin. Then it'll be time to show my work to Andy, my tutor, and see what he thinks of how I tackled this challenge; packaging a non-object.

I had my first tutorial, a group tutorial regarding the competition I am entering involving aerosols today. The tutorial was with Peter Reed, and one other student also doing the same design brief for the British Aerosol Manufacturers' Association (BAMA). We discussed what the brief meant to us and what our options were. I talked about how I had interpreted the brief; to find a product that has the potential to be dispensed via an aerosol which currently is not in the market, design an aerosol dispenser which it could be packaged in, which will be heavily inspired by the target audience and following the brand of a company which could sell the product within its range. Peter would like us to come up with a number of proposals, design for each of them, then at the interim crit for the project, decide which aerosol is the strongest contender for the brief. Then it can be mocked up in the workshop and create some impressive rendered images of the item. The first step is to decide on a few products that could be dispensed with the aid of an aerosol.

My second tutorial of the day was also a group tutorial. This one was regarding my dissertation. I discovered today that I am the only student in this year group choosing to complete my critical studies as 50% of the final year, as opposed to the rest of the year group completing it as 25%. The tutorial was with Wendy. Each person spoke briefly about what they planned to do for their dissertation and how they planned to do so. Wendy put us into three smaller groups whose plans linked or overlapped in some way. I am with two other students whose plans include child play in one way or another, as does mine. Wendy suggested that each smaller group meets regularly to discuss how we are getting on.

There is nothing better than a bit of peer criticism, advice and encouragement.

When I think of the seven deadly sins I automatically think of the Brad Pitt film 'Seven/Se7en', so in order to help me with my mini project of packaging lust, wrath, greed, gluttony, envy, pride and sloth, I need to do research. I wanted visual representations of the sins to get me started and inspired. I saw these on www.deviantart.com by 'blackeri' (http://blackeri.deviantart.com/).

And these images on www.deviantart.com were by 'emeraldfission' (http://emeraldfission.deviantart.com/).

These images are NOT my own.
Although they do have the name of the sin that they represent written over the photograph, they would work just as well without the word. They visually speak for themselves and I need to incorporate this into my mini project.

My tutorial with Andy yesterday started with him looking at my 'packaging design' mind map. We quickly discovered that although I wanted to include environmentally friendly materials, processes and non-waste packaging methods, I did not want to base a project on that idea. Whichever path I decided to go down, I would like it to be designed in an eco-friendly way, I would just like a different starting point. I will need to book a tutorial with Michael regarding ecodesign soon. I need to colour-code my mindmap too as at the moment it is visually quite complicated.

So whilst looking at my mindmap, the most exciting feature to me was 'lifestyle and behavioral patterns' and 'beyond the functional' - I would like to research into why people choose products over others and how much the packaging influences their choices. I also like the idea that whilst the packaging may protect and sell the product, it has another purpose when it has been brought home. It is not thrown away. I recently saw a designer use the box that a television came in and made it into the television's table. It had a slot for the remote control, for a DVD player, a freeview or digital box, and for the television itself, and it was aesthetically quite appealing. It was a student exhibiting at New Designers 2007 in London that had thought up this idea.

Andy said that I needed to learn how packaging designers work in industrial practise. Does a company approach a packaging designer/ company with a product and ask them to package it, or does an in-house team develop the packaging along with the product because of it's importance to the sale of the product?! I need to get in contact with a packaging designer or two.

One of my fellow design classmates designed a range of toys for children. I am considering contacting her to see whether she would allow me to design the packaging for them. Andy suggested maybe designing for someone in my class that is in the process of designing a product, that way I can follow the process of the design. I need to think about this. Perhaps the competition designs which are due in before Christmas would be the best choice, as I wouldn't be able to fully design the packaging for a product until it was completed. And which of my classmates would I work with?!

My first task, Andy and I decided, was to do a mini-project - something difficult to package to challenge me. So Andy suggested that I try packaging a non- object. A concept. An emotion, feeling. A non- physical thing. How awkward is that?! For example, how could I package love? I am going to set myself no more than two weeks to complete this mini- project to a concept stage to see what I can come up with. I am thinking of packaging The Seven Deadly Sins. Greed. Gluttony. Lust. Wrath. Envy. Sloth. Pride.

Here is a sample of the aerosols I found in my house. It just goes to show that aerosols are widely used in the product market. Especially within beauty retail.

I thought I should have a quick look at what aerosols are currently out there on the market. I made a mood board to reflect this, as a starting point of my competition brief of "express any well known consumer brand through the design of a new aerosol- based product".

I also started compiling a research file for this competition about aerosols.

And had a look round my house to see how many aerosol products I could find. I found 26 different examples. Here are a few.......



Oh and I had an interesting tutorial with Andy today, but I shall write about that tomorrow once I have processed exactly what was discussed. I did get a fun project to start me off on packaging design from the tutorial though.

So I never actually got round to working on the different routes I could take in packaging design today, that'll be tomorrow's task. But I did manage to get my head around how to kick start my dissertation again. I created another massive mindmap in order to do this.
I worked out that there are a number of points I touched on when looking at the diversity of dens that could be looked at in much greater depth. For example, the psychology behind why we make dens, how much dens are inflenced by consumerism, nature or nurture, luxury or necessity, dens followed from childhood to adulthood, 'virtual' dens, human development involving dens, and then I will be able to draw conclusions from this and interviews with a number of people about their personal space. I will then see if I can find similarities and/ or themes in these people's 'dens' and whether I can catagorize these themes and whether they can perhaps be linked to the designing of dens. Bit loosely constructed, I am afraid, needs a bit more work. I am getting there. I spoke to Wendy and we agreed that over the next couple of weeks I should spend some time in the library doing some research and finding some books relevant to this topic.

I also booked a tutorial with Peter today as I discovered that he is the tutor for the competition brief that I am doing. It is for next Tuesday and will be with the other two students in my class that are going to be completing the same brief as me. The competition brief is to express any well known consumer brand through the design of a new aerosol- based product. Peter has asked the small group of us who have chosen to design for this competition to bring in a few different types of aerosols currently in the market. Also to start thinking of new products that could be sold in an aerosol format. And also to do some general research on aerosols.

I spent today making a HUGE mindmap of all the different things I needed to consider when doing a project on packaging design. There are so many more aspects to look at than I first imagined so I am glad I put all of these considerations onto paper. Tomorrow I would like to create a similar mindmap, but this time showing the possible routes I could follow to have a design brief based around packaging design. The first mindmap shown above will help me to work out what these routes are.

I have a tutorial with Wendy tomorrow morning so I will spend an hour or so tonight just reminding myself of my proposal for my dissertation. I need some advice from Wendy regarding where I should go to first to kick start my primary research.

I had a go at using the photo merge feature on photoshop CS3. There are quite a few errors when merging the photos but much better than I would have been able to do manually.

I explained to Andy that I had been 'umm-ing' and 'ahh-ing' over the Summer and constantly changing my mind about project ideas, and that since I had last seen him, I had decided to switch from marketing and awareness campaigns to packaging and visual communication.

I have been doing some reading on packaging since this decision to check that it would make a good studio project and I believe it would. This is the book I was reading today....

I have started labelling all the interesting pages as you can see.

Now I need to work out all the possible routes that a packaging project or two (or three) may take me down. I will be making a huge mindmap over the next few days with everything relating to possibilities of said projects so that I can work out what I want from the projects and how I can achieve it.

The following factors should be considered;

- Designing packaging for an ex-student's final year project.
- Already packaged products and the possibility of re-designing their packaging.
- Food's packaging, secondary purpose, "food miles", wasteful packaging existing today, biodegradable, reusable.
- Meaningful packaging. Looking at the psychology behind it.
- Why do we package products that needn't be packaged?
- Hidden value, hugging packaging to see shape of product defined.
- Awareness campaign for packaging. Could be purpose of project.
- Keep packaging and why?
- Integrated packaging... tent bag, sleeping bag bag, festival stool bag.
- Designing for others.
- Materials and how it behaves.
- Sustainability.

And I am still reading No Logo. Still.

And this caught my eye today....

http://www.kolbrenerusa.com/elements.htm

Ten days or so ago, I went to London to see the 100% Design exhibition in Earl's Court. It gave me inspiration for the work I will be doing this year. Most of the designs I recognised from last year, and some from the year before, but it was an enjoyable experience, and refreshed my memory of the latest innovations.

I missed the first two days of uni due to attending my grandad's funeral this week. But I started again on Wednesday and, boy, I am glad to be back after such a long, tiring Summer. Summer? Pah, where was the sun??

Our Design course is based in a new building this year. It is an open plan room where all three years are in one massive room and sections are divided up for teaching areas and studio spaces. I will take a photo of my studio space tomorrow to put on here. I am personalising it early this year to encourage me to be in every day for as long as possible. If I like my environment, I am more likely to spend time there. I am going to take in a few images I have collected over the Summer of pieces of graphics and product designs that have inspired me, and stick them up in my area in uni. I like where my studio space is. It is right next to the window in a really quiet but sociable area of the room. I am surrounded by motivated and creative people so I will be in good company all year.

Yesterday we had a talk on the critical studies module of the year, a.k.a, the dissertation. I am doing the 50/50 split of critical studies and studio work so I have till April for pretty much both modules.

Today, I read through all the possible competition briefs that I could have a go at. I chose one involving packaging design. "Express any well-known consumer brand through the design of a new aerosol-based product."

http://www.bama.co.uk/Downloads/DAD2007Brief.pdf

I am quite excited about everything. I am preparing myself now and getting organised for an incredibly hard working year.

Oh also, my studio work I would still like to do something involving the experience of packaging. I have a tutorial with my studio work tutor tomorrow to discuss this