James Mosely is an expert in the field of typography and the history of letterforms and printing types, he has lectured at the University of Reading since 1964 and teaches BA and MA students as well as being an advisor to PHD students. It is important to continue James Mosely’s legacy and present his ideas and knowledge to future students, even when he is no longer able to do this in person. By digitalising and professionally producing his lectures to be available online, not only can they be watched more than once, but they can also be viewed by anyone at any time, including future students.
Restated brief
The aim of this project was to produce a coherent set of 20 lectures, each around an hour long. These were to be created via PowerPoint but made slick and professional via smooth transitions, small animations, images, consistent design, branding and a voice-over by James himself.
The set deliverables for this project were:
20 video lectures
20 PowerPoint files
Branding slides
Trailer
To go with the main outputs of the project we agreed upon these components essential to the content of the project:
Type: the creator of the lectures is a type expert, the design needs to reflect this.
Look: these digital lessons will be used for BA and Ma students and need to look good with a professional feel that is also easy to learn from.
Tasteful animations: small, smooth transitions and movements that combine the slides together and reflect what Mosely is saying.
James’ PowerPoint slides already existed as they were the same ones he uses for his in-person lectures, so these did not need to be created from scratch. But rather made consistent and implement the agreed branding.
Research and ideation
There was several areas I researched for this project going into it:
Trailers
Title sequences/animations
Existing online lecture logos and branding
Existing opening slides for online lectures about typography
User personas
Conference branding
I was surprised to find many examples of existing online lectures about typography, however, the ones I found did not offer much inspiration as they were rather unsuccessful and not the style I had in mind. Nevertheless, it was great to look at them. I also looked for any branding for online lectures on typography and graphic communication, I came across logos but couldn’t find examples of slides that used consistent branding. Furthermore, I looked into conference branding as it retains similarities to the project. I analysed the composition, colours, and different type used in these logo devices to see if there was a common theme or any ideas I could take away to inspire my initial sketches. Although this was useful research, the findings were still different from the subject matter of the lectures and what I would later find out was the client’s personal preference.
Existing branding for online lectures about typographyExisting logo devices for online lectures
At the start of this project, one of the deliverables was to have a trailer advertising James Mosley’s series of lectures as well as an animation title sequence. To come up with ideas for this I looked at documentaries and mini-series on Netflix. Specifically, I looked at the title sequence of a series on design, this was great as it included animations that used type as well as shapes and colour that transitioned and morphed seamlessly. At the time we felt something like this could be implemented using material from the existing lectures, to give a flavour of what the series was about, however, this was never put into motion.
Title sequence stills from design documentary ‘Abstract’
Finally, I completed two user personas to show the kind of people that will be watching and using the final deliverables of the project. These included an undergraduate typography student and a masters typography student. It was important to think about the different audiences varying levels of knowledge on the subject. As a result, the content and layout of the lectures needed to be easy to understand and cater for everyone, a way of doing this was including definitions of words undergraduate students may not be familiar with.
User personas
Design development
At the design stage of this project I started by creating initial ideas for the branding on paper. I then looked at typefaces, a colour palette, and logo device. Initially, I worked with a muted palette of greens and cream alongside grey and experimented with different images and layouts for two types of slide, the top level branding and lecture name. Originally I struggled to come up with designs as I was not sure what direction to go in and had never designed branding for a PowerPoint before. However I feel these were a good start, with a few potential directions and a variety of ideas which included decorative borders, textures and images picked out from the existing slides, flourishes, and bold text. I worked with the supervisor to develop these to produce more polished visuals ready to show the client.
Showing the initial designs to the client was insightful as although the designs were not bad, it made the client realise what branding he wanted to go alongside his work and that he did in fact have a style in mind. James Mosley provided examples of images that represent his ‘house style’, these included a colour scheme of black, white and red, with the typefaces ‘Scotia’ and ‘Elephant’ and decorative elements. I got on board with these straight away and combined design elements I already had with his preferred typeface and colours.
Branding slides development
In the restated brief the typeface ‘Zenon’ was to be used for display type, however, after experimenting and discussing designs with the client we decided ‘Elephant’ worked better as it is a traditional English extra-bold serif style. In the original set of PowerPoint lectures, the typefaces ‘Calibri’ and ‘Georgia’ had been used for the main text, in a variety of sizes. However Georgia was implemented throughout in two sizes consistently, this was chosen over Calibri because it is a serif font, therefore corresponding with the display typeface better.
The lecture slides presented to me usually consisted of a picture and caption but each one varied. To find what presentation layouts would work best I took a sample of slides from the first lecture and laid them out in different ways with different compositions and animations. From there the client and supervisor presented feedback and we agreed on a set of compositions to be repeated throughout the presentations for consistency. To implement these, master slides and grids were created to make sure elements were in the same position throughout. This will also benefit anyone in the future who wants to make changes or produce more lectures.
At the start of this process, the idea was the lectures would be more like fluid videos than PowerPoints with complex animations and seamless transitions. However, the client preferred a more simplistic approach with the image and text static to allow for easier watching. This was easily implemented and made sense as the branding also had a traditional approach and if the lectures were to be given in real life they would be simple. We still kept some fading transitions at the start for the top-level branding as it gives a more professional feel and provides an introduction to the lectures.
Example of experimentation with one slideExample of master slides used in the PowerPoint files
Final stages
The final deliverables are as follows:
20 video lectures
20 PowerPoint files
Branding slides
20 Lecture thumbnails
The 20 lectures were uploaded to Microsoft Streams, 10 at the start of Autumn term and the other 10 at the start of the spring term, each lecture contains the relevant branding slides, including the top-level, name of the lecture and a further reading list. Although slightly later than originally planned, they were uploaded to give enough time for the students. The raw PowerPoint files, including older versions alongside the branding slides, are all available on the Typography department OneDrive. This means that they can be added to and developed by members of the department in the future. The master slides are helpful here to allow others to pick up the design. Lastly, each lecture has a thumbnail which is a picture taken from the corresponding lecture and cropped to 16:9.
Examples of final branding
Reflection
Overall this was a successful and insightful project that gave me the opportunity to produce a unique series of work. I had the chance to learn new skills, including how to work closely with a client that has experience within the design field and has a vision of what they want the final outcome to look like. The closing words from the supervisor of the project were “This has been a pretty epic project with all kinds of challenges that might seem unusual to you, but are in fact a part of life for most practising designers. You’re just getting to experience that early, and with some unique components.”
During this project, I was able to do my own experimentation but also circle back to ensure it wasn’t too off-brand for the client. It was also important to maintain the clarity of the lectures and the flow between slides, the same as if the lecture were to be given in person.
If I were to start this project again I would make an effort to have more of an in-depth conversation with the client at the start. Ideally, this would save time in working out a visual direction, as initially most of the communication was done through the supervisor, however, it was also useful for me to do my own research and ideation. It would also be beneficial to create a more bulletproof system to work through the lectures, receive feedback, make changes, track these changes, and tick things off. I used Trello to make lists of what needed to be done for each lecture, which I ticked off as the project went on to keep track of what needed to be done. However this was only introduced towards the end of the work, a tracking or list system from the start could have helped keep the process consistent, but it took a while to figure out the best way of working through the lectures while both the client and supervisor reviewed them.
I would also work to improve time management on this job. I found instead of working at a steady pace there would be periods of time where I was not working on the project, then I would rush to get lots done when the lectures needed to be made available for the students. It was also important to keep the files organised, well named, and up to date on the OneDrive, as myself, the client and the supervisor needed to access them, and they will be needed again in the future. Towards the end of the project, I feel I got on top of this and left them in a good place for them to be picked back up. Nevertheless, if I were to do the project again I would aim to keep on top of the file names more, earlier lectures ended up with many different versions, yet later ones only have a couple, largely due to the fact I was comfortable with the design and fewer changes needed to be made.
London AV Solutions is a family run business who provide smart home solutions using cutting-edge technology to simplify and enhance the lives of their clients. The services they provide include home cinema design and installation, smart home security system, hi-fi system installation and interior lighting control solutions.
The client has two offices, one based in London and the other in Surrey. For this project we worked with the Surrey branch to create visuals to display on their office walls.
Our supervisor for this project, Rachel Warner, had worked with the client previously so was invaluable in the process.For more information about London AV Solutions visit their websitehttps://www.londonavsolutions.co.uk/
The brief
The client approached the typography department looking for a pair of designers to create them some large scale wall graphics to display within their Surrey offices. This was a valuable opportunity for us to work with a professional client outside of the university and to gain more experience when working in large scale print.
This project called for two different deliverables, firstly a collection of motivational posters to be displayed within the offices upstairs to inspire employees during the working day and secondly a set of four large scale boards to installed in the downstairs meeting room, these boards should showcase their previous work and their brand to new and existing clients they convene with here.
In our initial meeting the client provided us with a printout of their initial ideas for each of the four boards as well as the copy they would like included on the morale posters upstairs. We used these as our guide when we later began sketching out design ideas. They initially asked us to use the same burgundy and teal colour scheme that they had in their downstairs meeting room but this changed to black and gold later in the project.
The process of getting the restated brief signed off was more troublesome, as a professional working client we found that they were incredibly busy and wanted to see results as soon as possible. Because of this they were reluctant to take the time to go through the brief, we discussed this in real jobs meetings where James stressed the importance of the brief being officially signed off before starting design work, we went back to the client with this and they did eventually sign off on it.
Research
Competitors
When google searching “london av solutions” our client is not the top result even though that is their company name, the results that appear before them would therefore be some of their highest competitors. These included TenAV, ITSL group, Mechdyne and AV Contacts, all of these companies provide very similar smart technology services. TenAV, who are also based in Surrey and have been running for 16 years, throughout their website they really emphasise the point of putting the clients’ goals and needs first so we should try and include this ourselves. However, TenAV caters more to businesses but others such as AV Contacts are much more direct competitors as they also work on personal homes.
Users
The users for the posters upstairs are the AV Solutions staff, their goal is to get work done, the posters are there to inspire them and make the room more colourful and pleasant to be in. The posters will also remind them of the company’s core beliefs and motivations which should in turn make them feel motivated to work there.
The users for the boards downstairs audience are the customers. One user could be a brand new customer who has never used London AV Solutions before. Their goal will be to learn more about the company to see if they are worth hiring. Some of our boards will be used to advertise the company, showcase their core values and the type of technologies they can provide.
A third user could be a different customer who has already used London AV solutions. Their motivation could be to add more technological solutions to their house. They would therefore have a need to find out more about the different types of technologies that London AV provides, our boards will feature these as well as photography of particularly successful projects that showcase the clients best work and act as inspiration for their customers.
Design Inspiration
The project was temporarily put on hold because the client found themselves overloaded with other work. During this time I looked for inspiration and ideas from existing office murals and other motivational posters.
Professional corporate design:
use of diagonal, coloured panels
professional, clear, high quality photography
blue and white tones
clean design
Company values in office space:
large scale, oversized
not framed, filling as much space as possible
typographic
very bold, easily read from anywhere in office
Office space wall art:
framed options, smaller
main motivational word with extra description underneath
no imagery in frames, purely typographic
illustrations used in yellow example, much more creative, probably less suitable for high end, corporate client
Designing
Morale Posters
Sketching
I began the design process by creating some basic sketches to explore different layouts and concepts that could be used for the morale posters in the office upstairs. I decided that the main message for each poster e.g. ‘work together’ should be large scale and in full caps so that it could be read by everyone, even the employee with the furthest desk from the wall. The posters could also feature some decorative elements such as a swirly border or a cityscape to make them more visually appealing as wall art. The cityscape concept was also inspired by the company’s logo.
Design progress
Moving on to the digital design process we felt that the posters may be more effective in colour, this way they would help create a more positive and cheerful atmosphere in the work room. I also created the cityscape concept but in monochrome to give the client more choice.
Both our supervisor and the client liked the artistic circles used in the second design concept so we developed these further, leaning more into the positive colourful approach.
Part way through this real job a new project manager at London AV Solutions was brought in and had changes they wanted to make to the brand, specifically their colour scheme. They wanted to change to a black and gold scheme for a more opulent, high-end feeling, so we adapted our designs to meet this.
We had also been working on the designs for the boards, for the client meeting room downstairs, at the same time and so changed the circles for the symbols we created to coincide with the first board.
Final morale poster designs
Boards for client meeting room
Sketching
We began our design process by creating some sketches of different layouts we could use for each of the boards, this allowed us to quickly explore alternative ideas and concepts to see how they would work with all of the elements together before digitalising them and adding more detail.
Design progress
I then moved our designs into InDesign and created multiple concepts for each board for the clients to choose from. I created some concepts based on the artistic circle designs that I created for the morale posters which the clients liked. I also created some alternatives featuring a zig-zag pattern similar to the corporate styles of design I used for inspiration.
Optional design concepts for board 1 (showcasing company morales):
Board 2 was undecided at this point
Design concepts for board 3 (includes a smart screen showing the different AV features the company provides): Board 4 (showing different remote control options):
As discussed previously, the project manager then changed and she requested that we change the colour scheme to black and gold. From the previous concepts we showed her favourites were the zig-zag designs, she also had some additional changes and finally brought us an idea for the second board. All of which can be seen in the next major design phase: She also requested that a graphic of a house be used instead of a photograph on the third board. The house graphic would act as a diagram to show where their various different products could be installed in a house. Anthony worked on creating a graphic for this but the client ultimately decided to provide one themselves.
We developed the designs further, using feedback from Rachel, our client and the real jobs team. James advised that the boards should have a design that flows seamlessly between them. I adapted the designs to accommodate for this so the zig-zag line connects them as one set.
Final grid
The grid did change as the design developed but the final grid where the zig-zag acted as a connector between the boards can be seen below. The grid was very useful as it allowed us to keep consistency in our placement of elements throughout the different designs for each border. This helped them look like a professional, cohesive set.
Final designs
Production
We spoke to DPS at the start of the project about the different printing options but when it actually came to getting the designs printed we discussed the options with Geoff and he said that the clients should use an external printer instead as it was such a unique large scale project and the offices were not in Reading. Although the client found the printers I still needed to send the artwork over to them myself, this taught me valuable lessons about communicating with an external printer and how to correctly export the board designs to be printed. I followed the blackboard checklist to prepare the final artwork and enlisted the help of James and Geoff to export the boards at the highest possible quality since at such a large scale a professional display piece could not afford to be pixelated.
Final products in use
“Thank you so much Olivia and Anthony for your lovely designs, it was a pleasure working with you both”
“We love how our new meeting room looks”
Reflection
Working on this real job was a truly valuable experience as it allowed us to work with a high-end, professional client outside of the university which will be a fantastic work experience to include on our CVs and to talk about in future job interviews. It taught us lessons about managing such a busy client and emphasised the importance of key non-design elements such as having the restated brief signed off and how to export files for large scale print. It also further improved our InDesign skills and use of grids as well as bettering our professional communication skills.
Overall I am delighted with how this project turned out and look forward to showing it to future employers. If I could change anything about the outcome I would have loved to have been able to see the final boards and posters once that had been installed in the offices but unfortunately this was difficult due to coronavirus restrictions.
Alana House women’s centre, a charity in Reading that provides a safe space for women to express themselves and strive towards their goals, approached the Real Jobs scheme with a recipe book project based on their community café. With contributions from the women, staff and volunteers, it would collate recipes, poems, creative writing, artwork and photography. Robin Smith and Cristèle Sarić worked with the Alana team to produce the book in its entirety. Aimed to be a symbol of a community coming together in solidarity and support of these women in need, the original deadline was to publish the book on International Women’s Day to align with this goal.
Understanding the brief
Once we had met with the clients from Alana House, our understanding of the job and its importance became clearer. We were able to pinpoint the specifics of what the clients envisioned and ensured we were on the same page. As the book was aimed at a wide audience as it would serve as a fundraiser, it was important to the clients that the book be designed with universal intentions. It should look and feel homely, but not be assuming of prior cooking experience. Because they were wanting a small book, the idea of a ‘scrapbook’ style was the main idea. It worked well with the wide array of content to be included, as well as being something that those that contributed could be proud of and feel belongs to them.
At this stage, we had to be mindful of design inspiration given the clients did not have an established budget as of yet. Given this would be a fundraiser, and the nature of the client business, we felt it would be more appropriate to keep costs as low as possible to maximise the gain to the service.
Initial research
User personas
To inform our decision making, we created user personas to help identify user needs and their goals. This was information because of the aforementioned universality, and thus we chose personas with a range of backgrounds and experience:
Our produced user personas
From then on, we were able to identify four key user needs:
The book would need to be be bound in such a way that it can lay flat on a countertop in order to follow recipes. This also means needing to be able to be read from a further distance
It needs to be enticing as a ‘coffee table book’ outside of cooking
Interactions should be accessible and easy for a range of age groups. This is particularly true when picking typeface, type size, space allowed to hold the book, etc.
Personify the community spirit of the contributors
Research into existing designs
To establish what is conventional, we looked at published books aimed at different age ranges to make a base set of ‘rules’ for us to follow. This helped us in understanding the average sizes, print specifications, layout methods, and understanding how navigation is used to aid in following instructions. This step proved to be essential as we started this project in the middle of a national lockdown, and thus we were very aware that we would not be able to test print any time soon. So, having a baseline to follow would lessen the risk of inappropriate design decisions when it came to that stage. Some of the books we looked at contained a wide range of designs within these specific rules which was helpful in generating conceptual ideas for the internal spreads and cover.
The overlap of the donut on the top example was the inspiration for the maintained continuity between the front and the back cover. The other examples aided in our final decision making in the size of the book and the layout of the internal spreads
With these in mind, we extended our research to looking at more umbrella styles. We had identified common practice already, and so wanted to develop these ideas further. So, we created multiple mood boards – each looking into different styles of eye catching book covers, user friendly inside spreads, and illustration styles that resembled the ‘scrapbook’ feel.
Examples from our mood boards. We felt these matched the more rustic feel of scrapbook design and achieved it through different methods of designThis illustration style that was chosen to create the scrapbook feel for the final product. These illustrations had a lot of layering which was something we were considering early in the projectThe use of icons and a similar typeface in this example was an inspiration to our choices made for the internal spreads
We had also looked into different binding methods and compared the best options that would align with both the scrapbook style, as well as the user needs. Based on these, we looked into the pros and cons of wiro spiral binding first. This would allow for durability – responding to our the users who would need a book that could withstand splashes and general wear and tear. However, this would have split the design of the internal spreads and limit the ability to be stacked. We also offered perfect binding to cater to the tight budget, but advised that this would mean going against the user needs of it lying flat on a countertop. This was thankfully agreed as being too much of a disadvantage, and thus agreed on section sewn binding – a more expensive choice, but worth the cost to make a more pleasurable user experience.
Our design process
Equipped with our research, we then went on to designing. This part of the process spanned roughly from October until final adjustments and sending to print in March.
Designing the internal pages
Creating sample spreads and cover designs to establish the clients’ perceived preferences was the first plan of action – the insides being tackled first as this would form the bulk of the book. We created three designs each in an attempt to provide a wider gamut of styles. Compiling all six, we whittled down our options to the three most successful that we would later take forward to the clients:
Earlier samples of our inside spreads, creative writing pages and covers shown to the clients
This was a useful method of working as it meant we explored the options but would not overwhelm the clients with too many ideas. It also meant we could still operate as a partnership – though created separately, we each had input in the design decisions going in through preliminary feedback and discussion. However, some of our ideas did end up being quite similar in styling. We may have benefitted from deciding a base set of 6–8 entirely different styles beforehand, some pushing the original ‘scrapbook’ and ‘handmade’ umbrella more than others, in order to avoid this overlap.
After a few rounds of feedback from our supervisor and the Alana House team, we ended up taking forward style 1 for the rough look of the inside pages.
The base styling of the recipe pages allowed enough space for handwritten notes from users, fit within the scrapbook theme without being too gimmicky, and was the most ‘clean’ to allow the food photography to be the attraction. However, we and the clients discussed that the scrapbook theme had been taken too far in some cases – particularly on the poetry and creative writing pages. The team favoured a ‘less is more’ approach, thus citing that the tape and coffee stains were perhaps a bit on the nose. This favouring a more subtle approach was taken into account for the rest of the design process.
A notable difference from our original sample and the printed design is the lack of backing illustrations. We had originally intended to host a workshop and encourage service users to produce these illustrations based on a list of ideas curated by us, which we would later render digitally and colour-correct. This idea would mean there was an extra form of participation from the women outside of their providing of content, and meant the book could really feel like their own creation. However, the workshop was unable to go forward due to poor weather conditions rendering participants unable to come in, and the subsequent national lockdown preventing a postponement. Taking on this responsibility for ourselves under the circumstances felt like too ambitious of an undertaking given the timing – and in hindsight, probably would have been too much even in the most ideal of scenarios. It also would have removed the personal touch of being made by the women themselves, something we felt was key, and thus decided to abandon this feature. That being said, the white space allowed from the lack of illustrations better mimics the minimalist approach preferred by the clients and the later printed cover – thus ultimately a better design decision anyway.
Designing the cover
Using the same process as before, the cover samples were created after implementation of content had begun on the inside spreads. This was decided in order for the book to appear as a unified package – we had the grids, typefaces and styling of the internal design to dictate the feel of the cover.
Earlier cover samples we presented to the client. The concept (middle left) ended up being the winner as it represented most the idea of a cookbook with the use of fruit and vegetables on the cover, and the clients liked the attractive centralised typeface and layout
The clients were very keen about discussing the cover and offered a lot of feedback for the samples – indicating a real passion for being involved in the decision making for this part specifically. In order to maintain this close client relationship and focus on their creative involvement, dedicating one person to lead the production of the cover seemed to be the most effective approach. This method of working separately on the same overall product is oftentimes risky. To avoid detachment of the cover to the insides, outside of using the same grids and typefaces, we wanted to best simulate a collaborative environment within our remote work setting. We made sure at every stage to offer feedback to each other first and foremost to keep the design stage as more of a discussion. Cristèle focused also on the illustrations to be used inside as well as designing the cover to maintain consistency in the styling, but also to ensure we each had some part in both ‘pieces’ of the cookbook. While this separated methodology did have limitations and was not the approach we originally intended, this was good professional practice of upholding good communication with your team when working individually. We also had more exciting content to show in client meetings as each part was happening simultaneously, and editing the inside pages before sending to print later was much easier as we could ensure the ‘rules’ were applied consistently.
After close collaboration with the clients, and further feedback from our supervisor to achieve a print-quality finish, we decided upon the cover:
The clients wanted to enhance the branding aspect by using Alana House’s official colours instead of the red. The subheading has also changed its placement by being slightly raised and centred. The title placement needed to be positioned so as to better balance its relationship with the illustrations. We also included the full title on the spine to indicate that this was a cookbook instead of the illustration indication we tried previously
Of all of our base styles, the clients expressed again that they favoured the more ‘minimalist’ approach taken with this sample. They also appreciated that the illustration style and typeface fit within the base theme of hand-making and ‘DIY’. With the other samples, they were hesitant about the more busy layering – something we wanted to try as a direct contrast to the heavier use of white space on the inside pages. Both the clients and our supervisor were also unsure of the balance between the textual elements and the frequency of the illustrations. The overall clarity of the fridge magnet design was also questioned, debating whether this was visually indicated well enough as being what it was in reference to.
‘“Love Trust Hope”, somewhat overwhelms the covers. I think you’ll need to seek a more meaningful balance between the main title and the subtitle, since it’s the subtitle that actually says what the book is about.’ Eric Kindel, project supervisor
This choice had flexible space for trying the textual elements in different positions, and allowed for the ‘yummiest’ colour palette for the food illustrations – a key consideration for cookbooks.
For both insides and outsides, the rest of the design process until sending to press was simply inputting the recipe content as it came in, as well as keeping in touch with the clients and our supervisor for feedback, updates, and rigorous detail-checking on each part of the book.
Getting more involved
Both we and the clients were keen to get involved in the development of the actual content as well as the design, and thankfully there were opportunities to do so. The recipe curator of the client team, Deborah Puxley, noted that they were short of vegan recipes but were eager to include more. Knowing veganism is popular amongst our age group, we offered to post a plea to our personal social platforms for friends to get involved in the cause. Because we had opened ourselves up to being involved in this way, we also were able to have a say in the selection of the best recipes to include in the book. This, in hindsight, was crucial as it meant we were able to prevent over-promising the amount of recipes that could be included per spread. Especially given the tight budget and limited number of pages, this control and advising of available space definitely saved some future heartache.
We were also able to provide more of an art directing role when it came to food photography. This was an initial worry given the restrictions of lockdown meaning we had to perform this role remotely. It would have been better to be there with student photographer Tara Fergueson (University of Bath) to physically see and direct the shoot. However, to substitute this level of collaboration, we discussed in a meeting prior roughly what direction would be best, and the technical aspects such as the file formats. Robin was also on call with Tara on the day of the shoot to check in and answer ongoing questions. While this was the best solution under the circumstances, it did mean there were some unexpected surprises in the finished photos:
Examples of some of the strategic cropping. The salmon (top) ended up being one of the more unsuccessful examples, and the soup (bottom) being one of the more successful
A number of them were shot in landscape, rather than the portrait formats we showed in our sample. This is something we should have clarified earlier, but was too late to rectify – an unfortunate lesson to takeaway for future projects. To work around the issue, we operated via strategic cropping and selecting the most delicious-looking piece of the image to zoom in on and create portraits. Most were able to be finessed well enough, but some were awkward to work with as a result and would have been better if we had just been more specific in the first place.
Pre-press checks and sending to print
When it came to sending the book to press, this is the area where we sought the most guidance and learned the most technical skills. Neither of us had sent a job of this kind and scale to press before, so figuring out how to specify finishes, what information is needed to request an accurate print specification, and what makes good file practice expected of a professional editorial designer were all covered during this stage. However, our deadline for sending to press was unfortunately pushed back twice – actually being finished in mid March.
We were receiving feedback from all parties up to the wire. While this proved difficult to navigate at times, this was somewhat inevitable given the vast amount of people involved in the team needing their say. This did prove useful, though, as it meant more rounds of proofreading and thus flagging all of the minor errors that went uncaught prior. While embarrassing that the occasional double space and typo slipped under the radar, it brought the realisation of how meticulous one must be when performing pre-press checks. Thankfully, our clients were open to pushing the deadline in order to finesse the final product more, and it definitely benefited from this extra time. The original aim of printing in time for International Women’s Day was no longer a priority as the clients had a second event at which to fundraise. The release of the book could thus align with this new date instead, and brought the extra few weeks of editing with it.
Outside of these factors, the process by which the book was sent to print was thankfully straightforward and we had relatively few changes before doing so.
Pictures of the printed book. We opted for a lavender fly leaf to enhance the quality given there were no special finishes on the cover
Reflection
Overall, this was a big learning curve for both of us. While difficult and frustrating at times, having the experience of what goes into good editorial design, liaising with a large client team, and how to send work to a professional press is invaluable. We ended up producing a cookbook that not only we and the Alana House team are happy with, but something the service users themselves can be proud of. We are glad to have been involved in providing a vessel and an outlet to these hugely creative women, and hope it is something they cherish.
‘Thanks Robin and Cristèle for all your work on this!’ Eva Chapman, PACT staff
The clients for this project are from the Department of Pharmacy and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Reading, where they are developing a project to examine medication reuse. The ReMINDS brand is to focus on medicine, the environment, people taking their medicine, pharmacy and drug manufacturing. It is important for people to know that old or left-over medicines in the home can cause harm, and that these should be taken to a pharmacy for safe disposal. This is because otherwise they can harm children if taken accidentally, the land and environment if put straight in the bin, and rivers, water and their inhabitants if flushed down the sink or toilet.
Restated brief
Main points of focus and the deliverables
The main aim for this project was to create a set of deliverables all building to run medicine amnesties on the Whiteknights Campus, where people will bring their old and left-over medicines to the ‘Medicine Amnesties with Frankie the Fish’ where they will collect and safely dispose of all donations. ‘Frankie the Fish’ is a special shaped container with vinyl stickers to make it look like a fish character, designed to collect the donations and spread the message that if people flush their left-over medicines it can harm the environment and its inhabitants. This event is (or was to be) funded by the Vice Chancellor’s Endowment Trust Fund, 2019/20 and run by the University of Reading, Department of Pharmacy and Department of Biomedical Engineering.
The main deliverable for this project was the large container called Frankie in the shape of a fish that would be wheeled around the campus and elsewhere for medicine amnesties. This provides a safe disposal mechanism and raises awareness of the problem of medicine waste. To make the container look like a fish, it is spray painted bright yellow and was designed to have vinyl sticker fins, scales and eyes. For this, a Print Cut File with these shapes and aspects was to be created to be sent to DPS to be printed. In preparation and to plan how this would look, I created mock-ups using colour and the fin, scale and eye illustrations. Due to the client unfortunately pulling out, as I will explain below, there was not the funding to print the vinyl stickers so there is no physical container to show as there is currently no medical amesite happening because of Covid-19.
The client also wanted a logo for the ReMINDS Project to create a brand around the project and the medicine amnesties that could then also be used on the deliverables that were advertising the event. As part of the advertisement for the event, the client wanted a flag banner to catch people who were walking on campuses’ attention and draw them towards the container to increase involvement. A leaflet was the other deliverable that the client later decided they wanted to have to advertise the event prior, to build up awareness and educate people as to how to get involved and why.
Target audience
The target audience for this project is very wide, being focussed on any student, lecturer or even visitor to the Whiteknights Campus. It is for those who take an interest in increasing the safety in their home and those who are conscious of helping the environment. The wide target audience meant that there was no strong style that needed to be followed.
Schedule
Until Covid-19 took a massive hit into this Real Job, I had stuck to the schedule well on my behalf. I feel that I was very organised and did all I could to keep things running quickly and smoothly. The first restated brief had the goal of completion for the 14th of February, this however was unable to be met due to tasks such as creating the window in the container and, mainly, spray painting the bin with an external company slowing down the process. The client, however, wasn’t worried about the schedule too much, therefore I took it upon myself to set a new deadline of mid-March, which the client approved of. This was to give us a date to work by so to not let the job take a back seat. Until Covid, when students had to head home, we were on track to have the project deliverables ready by mid-late March, with a minimal, quick change to be made to some of the colours after the paint colour came out differently than expected. However, with Covid this meant there were no students on campus, as well as it still not like normal this new academic year, therefore there was no strict deadline to get it done over summer. It was also tricky and inefficient to work on it remotely as I needed to physically see the container to make the important decision on colours. I picked it up again when back at university in September, but unfortunately the client was unsure how to continue in the current climate, therefore I set myself the goal to continue it again over Christmas when my first term deadlines were complete. I think throughout the project I have worked steadily hard and in an organised manner so to hit my schedule where possible and create new deadlines when necessary before Covid. This was my first Real Job on my own and with the deliverables increasing through the project I was pleased with my organisation and prioritisation of tasks to stay on top of things.
Updated restated briefs
Throughout the project I created new restated briefs to make sure the client and I were on the same page, and to give myself an organised, approved list to work from. As the project went on the client introduced new deliverable part way through working on the original ones. In the original restated brief, made towards the end of January, the deliverables were simply a design for Frankie the Fish to go on the container and a logo for the ReMINDS Project. However, after many emails, calls and meetings discussing the project and its progress, by February the client had added a more deliverables to enhance the project. Therefore, it made sense to update the restated brief with the new deliverables to confirm these with the client. The client had been more specific as to how the design for Frankie the Fish was to be stuck onto the container to be the fish character, as opposed to just a 2D design that could be used for other deliverables. As well as this, they wanted a leaflet to let people know about the event and how to get involved, a banner to advertise it further, both with the ReMINDS logo, as previously discussed.
I also amended the restated brief a couple of times after Covid to update the schedule, more for myself by the end as the client was no longer replying to emails, as this helped me to organise my time alongside the expected deliverables.
Process
Initial contact with client
My first contact with the client was through email and closely followed by an online call. In this meeting the client outlined what the ReMINDS brand was. She talked about what she expected from the deliverables and I made note of this. Following this meeting we had consistent email communication where I exchanged initial designs and ideas, having another couple of meetings online a few weeks later to discuss how this was going and extra deliverables she wished for me to do. From then on, aside from frequent emails to the clients, I met with another one of the clients in person. This was mainly to discuss plans for the physical container and to confirm ideas and decisions from over emails about other deliverables.
Overall, I think that this project improved my communication skills and gave me more confidence in talking to clients, both in person and on email, making sure I kept myself organised so that I could answer all their questions and have the work done for when it was needed.
Covid-19 and client dropping out
Unfortunately, after Covid-19 left uncertain circumstances at university and on campus it meant that the client was unsure how we might progress at the moment with this project. This is because the medicine amnesty requires the campus to be busy in order to raise awareness and collect the medicine. I suggested a call to discuss future plans but didn’t receive a reply after a month or so, so was advised to continue without the client. I plan to get in touch again when the work has been signed off, to allow them to see what was made and to give them a chance to use it in the future when circumstances are simpler. I am disappointed to not get the final result of the bin and seeing all the deliverables at work advertising and showcasing the medicine amnesty but because of Covid it is expected.
Research
When I was initial assigned this project, I started by getting a clearer understanding of what medicine reuse was and why this project was so important. I felt this would give me a good base to start this project, and through learning facts around the subject area, like how much of our waterways is contaminated with pharmaceutical runoff, it inspired me to help make the positive change. While I was doing this, I also researched into competitors, or companies/campaigns that do or promote this kind of work already. This was useful in furthering my research, as well as looking at the branding style of this area.
When starting to design deliverables such as the logo, I initially created mood boards from researching medical and pharmaceutical logos online to generate some ideas and to see the different styles that I could play around with. From this research I could see there tended to be a simple, but professional-looking illustration of something related to the health, medicine or pharmaceutical industry, such as DNA, a medical cross, stethoscope, pills, etc. This illustration was often in a bright colour that was integrated with a plain, san-serif typeface for the company name. From my research I chose to use pills to represent the area and as I felt it suited the project best. I then did further research into different styles of arrows I could create for the logo after deciding to represent the idea of medicine reuse with the pill and arrows. I also created a mood board when coming to design the fish character from researching online to get a feel for the different styles I could play with for the client to decide between, as well get an idea of the age groups that different styles might apply to. When it came to creating the leaflet, I found it tricky to arrange everything on the page and to know what style to go for, therefore I found researching medical leaflets useful as examples.
As this is something that is new to the university, there weren’t people to directly ask about past experiences and problems with the medicine amnesties and the branding surrounding it. However, after explaining it to some peers, I got some feedback and tips about what they, students (the people who will interact with it on campus), thought. They commented on how the bin should be linked into the branding deliverables, like with the fish drawing and bin drawing on the leaflet. As well as that, they mentioned that there should be explanation of what the medical amnesties are on the leaflet to raise awareness. As well as this, I created user personas on my Trello page to highlight different possible users and to think about the different people that may interact with the medicine amnesty and the deliverables surrounding it, using this to help in my designs.
Trello board
Through this project I have taken what I learnt from my previous Real Jobs and used the Trello board in an efficient way by keeping it updated as I went. It helped to structure my work and make sure I hit all the necessary aspects for the project. I was successful at uploading the development of my work for different deliverables and explaining reasons why I made these decisions.
Design stage
Fish character
The first task I did after restating the brief was create a fish character. I did this by doing some simple research online at some different types of fish and styles of illustration. Below I show the different fish characters I drew based off of this research online. The client then chose a certain fish character, which I then tried in different colours and sent back to the client for them to pick one, of which they settled on Orange tones. I am happy with the fish character that was chosen as I felt the colours are vibrant and the client liked the idea of it looking similar to a Goldfish. This was to be included on the banner and leaflet to carry the brand and the ideas behind it. Later in the project, when the container was spray painted it looked more of a neon yellowy-green than planned, therefore the colours of the fish were to be slightly amended so the separate features would match the colour the bin turned out better.
Initial fish illustrationsFrankie the Fish drawing
Mock-up
In preparation for printing the vinyl stickers for the physical fish container, my next task was to use the features from this fish character and create a mock-up of the container and plan where the vinyl stickers of the fins, scales and eyes were to go. This allowed the client and me to imagine how it may look in person and to play with different layouts to find the one that looked best. Further into the project, when having to amend the colours after the spray-painted bin came back a different tone than planned, it was useful to use the mock-ups to play with different colours and the arrangement of these. With the yellow being brighter and less orange than planned, a more toned down, lighter orange suited being used more frequently for the fins as the brighter orange clashed otherwise.
The client organised and bought the container previous to me being assigned to the project, therefore after our initial call I was sent over a picture of the shape of the container we were to work with. The first job I did concerning the physical fish container after making the initial mock-ups was to measure-up the bin for the hole to be put in it and to plan for the size and layout of the vinyl stickers. I did this careful and in great detail so it would be as accurate as possible. Once I had measured this, it was organised for the hole to be made in the container, which would later be covered with clear plastic so to see the medicines inside. While the bin was off being cut, I worked out the size each feature would be to use on the print cut file.
The next task, and the one that took up the most time, was finding the best way to colour the bin. To work this out I spoke with DPS and asked what they best suggested. A wrap was suggested, however deemed more complicated and riskier than printing them separately. Therefore, to give the container colour, spray painting was suggested as the most durable for its outdoor use. When deciding the colour, I sent the client images of the different colours, as well as showing one of the clients the swatches in person for a clearer idea of the colour they’re picking. The colour didn’t come out as the clients expected, being brighter and more of a green-yellow. This was a shame as clients questioned re-doing this, however, as they realised, they had chosen it themselves, they kept it and we decided to simply change the tone and/or arrangement of the oranges for the fins and scales. Now with no client due to uncertainties with Covid, there is no physical fish character container that is finished as there is no funding behind it to have the vinyl stickers printed.
Print Cut File
Once I had measured up the container, I could then decide the size of the fins, scales and eyes of the vinyl stickers. The making of the Print Cut File was something I had never made before. It taught me further tools within Illustrator and the importance of using layers effectively, things that have benefitted me in my other studies.
Logo
I initially created mood boards from researching medical and pharmaceutical logos online, to generate some ideas and to see the different styles that I could play around with. I liked the idea of incorporating pills as this fit with the project and brand and as well as being understood by all. It also holds a more serious message than the fish cartoon, which is what the client asked for the logo. Once I had decided on this, I experimented with different ways to introduce the pill as a logo, trying to use the pill as the ‘I’ in ‘ReMINDS’, however this wasn’t clear enough and didn’t work as I’d hoped. I liked the idea behind my initial drawing of the pill packet, but when incorporated with the words I felt it didn’t look professional enough. Aside from the pill, to relate the logo back to the idea of medicine reuse and helping the environment, I felt that arrows represented this very well. To add further depth to the logo, I experimented adding water into the design to relate back to Frankie the Fish and the suffering environment in the contaminated water. After experimenting with colour and different arrow styles I decided to incorporate this into the arrows by giving them a water-like colour scheme and texture. I also tried a version of the logo hand drawn and then image traced to create some more interesting textures, but this did not look professional enough compared to ones from my research. I sent the client these logos throughout and built and changes based on their comments, in the end I sent them the final logo in a selection of colours, and they chose blue. The final adjustment suggested by my supervisor was a shadow so the pill would stand out even when on a white background. After creating the illustration part, I focussed on researching typefaces used in medical/pharmaceutical logos, of which I then tried a range of san-serif typefaces and decided upon Sukhumvit Set. To tie the words into the illustration I pulled two different blues from the arrows and used these on the words. As we wanted ‘ReMINDS’ to have more hierarchy over ‘project’ this was put in semi bold weight and the brighter blue, while ‘project’ was in the darker navy and a light weight.
Overall, I think that this logo is effective and hit what the client asked for because it represents the subject of medicine reuse well and in a professional manner, like the logos I found in my research. On reflection, and something I have learnt from this real job is to have more initial ideas and to go into detail for a number of these, not just go into detail with one or two before I send these to the client. Despite the client always being excited about what I showed them, it is more professional to give them a range of options to start with.
Initial logo ideas
Arrow experiments
Typeface experimentsLast series of logo experiments sent to client before they picked
Banner
The design for the flag banner was to be used at medicine amnesties to draw attention to and advertise to people on campus what was happening. The client wanted a simple design that was similar to the leaflet design, in terms of using the same colours, the logo and the fish character. The design I created I think is effective for its purpose because it tells people what the need and catches attention with the bright colour and fish drawing. This was the deliverable that, despite not having designed before I found the simplest to design as there wasn’t much text to fit with the logo and drawing. The background was chosen to be yellow like the physical fish container, so to match the other deliverables and create a cohesive balance between them, as well as it being a bright colour to catch people’s attention. Once the design had been decided, with a few amendments of the layout of text, it was recommended by DPS that the yellow should become opaquer so that the design didn’t show through on the other side. It was also initially going to have different drawings on either side of the banner; however, this was changed to create consistency on both sides.
The biggest query surrounding the banner came right at the end when I was planning to sign off the banner at the end. My supervisor raised the question of whether it was meant to be one-sided with a reverse show through side where the writing would be backwards, or double-sided where the writing would be printed on both sides from left to right. Over the last week I saw an example of a flag banner in the street that showed a one-sided flag banner, this initially made me think I should do the same. However, after exchanging emails with my supervisor for advice, as well as re-reading old emails from DPS, and doing some basic research online that taught me how a double-sided banner is made from two printed graphics that are stitched together with a lining in the middle to allow the message to be clearly displayed, I decided to have it double-sided.
Leaflet
Like the banner, the leaflet was a later addition to the deliverables. The client and I decided that a leaflet would build up knowledge of the project and awareness of the medicine amnesties. The client gave me the information they wanted to be on the A4 leaflet, and after creating some initial designs I felt it was too information heavy, however the client stressed that if possible, all the information should be included. While this was frustrating as I felt it was limiting the design as it looked overly busy and would catch attention less, I did also understand that most of the information was necessary for the reader to understand the ReMINDS project’s goals and details of the medicine amnesties. Therefore, since the client dropped out, I decided I would choose the amount of information myself based on the design, however, of course include the essential information. I played with a couple of designs with more and less information, but landed on the one I did because, although I preferred the design with less, it is important for motivation as it gives the reasons ‘why’ behind the project.
When doing this I did some research into medical leaflets, something on reflection I think I should’ve done sooner in more detail, however doing this gave me an idea of the general layout and design of them. From this I learnt that many of them have quite busy layouts, with a decent amount of information, as medical topics/projects tend to need explaining. These are separated into sections on the page using colour and shapes in the background. In terms of typography, they generally use san-serif typefaces, so to represent the serious nature of the topics.
One issue I had to tackle while designing the leaflet was how to show the fish container. This was because initially we would have had to wait till it was completely finished and taken a photo of it for the leaflet to then be complete and be able to be shared. This was not only inefficient in terms of timings, but also it was pointed out that a photo of a bin or container would never be overly aesthetic, therefore I suggested a drawing instead as this was more visually engaging. I based this drawing off the mock-up I had made previously. This improved the leaflet as it added something more visual and paired with the drawing of the fish well. I also added the waves underneath the blue box as I felt these were appealing colours that matched the theme and balanced the colours over the leaflet.
I decided to use the same typeface that was used in the logo to carry the brand over to the leaflet. It also followed similar tendencies to the medical leaflet examples I found in my research that also use a san-serif typeface.
Final designs
RJ00410 Leaflet
RJ00410 ReMINDS Project Logo
RJ00410 Container Mock-up
RJ00410 Banner Mock-up
RJ00410 Banner Template
RJ00410 Print Cut File
Feedback
Unfortunately, due to the client dropping out and the medicine amnesty not taking place I have not received any proper feedback for the work and deliverables. Before the client was unable to continue the job, they were very happy with the work that I had completed so far and trusted they would be effective in creating a brand and advertising the event.
Reflection
This project has developed into a very interesting and individual project, with the branding deliverables being not only a logo, leaflet and poster, but to design a fish character for a bin that will be used at the medical amnesties.
This was my first real job I took on my own, which at first was slightly daunting as it meant I didn’t have a peer to ask for a second opinion, but with this job I have learnt to ask lecturers and my supervisors more for advice when needed which I think is a valuable skill and one that will benefit me in my studies.
I think I have handled the workload well, especially considering the projects unique deliverables that seemed to have increased throughout the project, and managed to stick to deadlines as well as I could, with factors such as finding and getting the spray painting done being trickier to sort than initially planned. Having to juggle a Real Job on my own alongside modules helped me to cut out my previous habit of procrastinating, as it was important for me to prioritise as the job was time sensitive. This is an improvement that has helped me across many areas of my studies.
Up until Covid sent students home mid-March, I was on track to have things sorted by the new deadline, with only slight changes to make to the colours of the fins, etc on the fish container. I was disappointed when this all had to be put on pause when I was no longer to access the bin to make an accurate colour change, as well as there being no rush to have the deliverables sorted as campus wasn’t busy like normal, so the client couldn’t hold the medical amnesty anyway. I felt that I was very on top of this job while I could be and am pleased with my progress at working as an individual.
This job has allowed me to improve my communication skills through skype calls, email and numerous meetings where a range of different things had to be discussed, and I have learnt to make sure I take detailed notes so I can pass on information correctly. For example, being in contact and talking to DPS directly was confusing at first, however, it has been a great insight to see how these things work and how I should best handle my files.
A more specific skill I have learnt to do on this project is create a Print Cut File for the scale and fin stickers that will go on the bin which taught me about more in-depth tools on Illustrator and further taught me the importance of layers and print specifications.
On reflection, something I have realised from this project is that I need to come up with more initial ideas for things, for example when creating the Reminds Project logo I didn’t come up with enough styles and ideas to show the client, even though they were happy with what they picked for me to develop, next time I would like to give a client more choices.
ROSES is the Reading online sports economics seminars held every Friday. The seminars are organised by our client James Reade who also promotes the seminars on social media and posts them on Youtube. In the past James had either made posters for these seminars himself or asked a colleague to design them on photoshop which James was pleased with but from a design perspective they weren’t very effective and had a lot of issues with alignment and consistency.
Restated brief
The brief was a simple process for this job as the client made it clear what he needed, we needed to design posters for the ROSES seminars and to find an accessible way for James to replicate our designs for future talks. The posters and the template needed to be versatile to deal with different levels and amounts of information which the original poster designs we were shown did not handle well but James expressed that he enjoyed the rule used in the original posters as well as stating that the posters needed to look professional and the images used needed to reflect the subject matter of each talk. As for the template, the client was very open minded about how we created the template and what format we used, as long as it was accessible and effective.
We agreed to create the following deliverables for our client:
4 posters for each ROSES seminar
Poster template for the client to use to create his own posters
User Consideration
This poster had several uses all on digital platforms, as an email flyer, poster on social media, and first slide of online weekly presentations. These all had to vary whilst also being clearly consistent as a series. For this real job, we needed to consider the user and the reader. This made the job considerably more difficult. When considering the user of the template – our client, we first had to attain what software he had available to him. We explored simple free design software that could be used such as adobe spark and sketch. However, after we found that the most accessible software also worked in the correct dimensions; 16:9.
Reader consideration
This was primarily the visual design, we needed to ensure the template produced a visually engaging, informative, and also reflective of the content of the poster. The typeface we chose was inspired by those found on football shirts. This typeface is also available to download for free with google fonts. The box we used that held all the information mimics the sports announcements appearing on television. The imagery takes the main focus thus why a box was most effective as it was least obstructive.
Poster Design
The original posters used for ROSES, from a perspective of a non-designer appear to be modern and professional but from our perspective, the posters lacked an effective structure and it was clear no guides or clear rules were used for any of the elements of information. The images used were also not carefully considered or positioned, some images obstruct the legibility of the type, as well as this, the hierarchy of the typography seemed to be lazy and not well organised with the names of the guest speakers in very large, bold type which we understood the client enjoyed but with the name so large, it created more issues than it solved and with particular name lengths, the white rules became too small and unbalanced.
To begin with, we created different approaches to poster layouts that we got peer feedback on to help us choose which layout to take forward and develop.
Initial ideas
After our initial client meeting, we both went away to come up with as many visual outcomes as we could. We felt a banner over the image as shown enabled a clear section for information, whilst still allowing the image to be prominent. Our next main concern was to create a template that had as few possible points of error, meaning keeping manual intervention low, and where it was necessary minimal. Our client was very clear on wanting a rule, so we used one to divide up our information, so we implemented a red one with the same red as the logo to tie the components together.
Taking forward the poster layout that received the most positive feedback, we developed iterations of the poster and took this to our supervisor who helped us to refine the poster iterations to a refined design to be sent to the client. The adjustments made mostly surrounded the hierarchy and positioning of the text, we reduced the amount of different type sizes to just a couple of paragraph styles. The positioning of the text was carefully thought out as we needed to make sure that future posters with longer titles or longer dates would not make our design fall apart, we ensured this wouldn’t happen by shortening the format of the date and adding a rule to separate the date from the title and speaker name of the seminar which meant that the information for the poster could be placed and adjusted within a neater, tighter rectangle across the image with a tint behind the text to reduce the interference with text and image and therefore increasing legibility.
Final design
The final design has banner, as we felt this visually conveyed how sports announcements are made in the industry (television). We had less variation in typography, it instead had intentional use of white space to indicate hierarchy with more subtlety and elegance. We also decreased the weight of the rule to stop it from drawing away from the image and information too much. We added ‘Reading Online Sports Economics Seminars’ as we felt it was not clear without what exactly ROSES was and therefore a potentially interesting target audience could miss their opportunity.
Template
Once we had decided on the final design, we then had to make it as a template. Our first challenge, as some of the talk titles were 2 lines and some were 1, was having the box be self-adjusting. This we were able to achieve by adjusting the padding and changing the box settings. The next challenge was to ensure the paragraph styles were set correctly, this had to be done so replicating the same order of styles could be easily achieved by the user. Then we had to tackle the guide putting guides in place to indicate where the components should be placed so there is no variation between outputs. Unfortunately, the rule was the one part of the template we couldn’t automate. Since this is simply adjusting the rule to align with the top of the text, we wrote clear instructions for the user and felt this was the best way to keep the effective design, with limited interference from the user.
Client
James Reade, our client was very open minded about the process of making a template which helped as it allowed us to explore multiple platforms and ways of creating a template. Throughout the process we maintained contact with him through email, although his replies often meant pushing back our meetings, particularly towards the end of the project as we were hoping to talk James through how to use the template (despite the template including instructions we thought having a chat on top of this would be ideal) before the Christmas break but due to James being busy with his own work and a lack of communication from his side, this chat has been pushed back and therefore extending the project. However, this isn’t a detrimental issue as the deliverables for the project are completed and apart from this issue our client has been very helpful throughout the process.
Reflection
This project has been highly beneficial for our personal skills due to the research we carried out when looking for the appropriate software for a poster template. The powerpoint template is a skill we can use in the future whilst simultaneously keeping in mind the client’s needs and knowledge of software, as rarely clients will know how to use or have access to the adobe cloud. Although we had creative freedom on this project, designing a template for specific information was limiting however, we feel that we dealt with these limits well and produced posters and a poster template James Reade can effectively use for future ROSES seminars.
Longhaul is a company which strives to create savoury performance food for endurance athletes. Currently they have one product on the market, a pouch of blended all-natural whole foods with no added sugar. Although they have two flavours available right now, they are working to offer a larger range and are expanding to four flavours. Each pouch ensures slow released energy that should keep you fueled steadily over a long period of time. They reached out to the department to update their packaging design and make some tweaks to their brand identity so their products have a better shelf presence and stand out from other brands once they launch in grocery shops and supermarkets.
The initial brief called for us to edit the logo and strapline and design the packaging for four flavours (two existing and two new ones). However, it soon became clear that they did not actually want any change to their logo, although they did seem to like the proposed tweaks we brought forward. Instead, we worked on a new strapline, which went through many different versions until the very end, and then also made the packaging for the four flavours. Unfortunately, we also started realising that designing finished packaging for the two new flavours was not going to be possible since the client had not yet finalised recipes and gotten them approved. Instead we offered to give them editable files for them or future designers to edit once all the copy and information has been confirmed.
In the end, our deliverables were as following:
Logo files with new strapline
2x indesign files of finished packaging for the existing flavours
2x indesign files with missing information for the new flavours to be used by designers in the future
Research
The user
Longhaul specifically brands their product towards endurance athletes. Since none of us in the team are endurance athletes, we had to break out of our own comfort zone and start thinking outside the box. We created a few user personas who ranged from professional athletes to recreational athletes who are serious about their sport. While it was easy to figure out what they would want from the product, it took some more time to think about what they would want from the packaging design. We were confined to the type of pouch the client had chosen, but we had to figure out an attractive and effective way of communicating important information. Although we tried to do this before starting the project, it was something that kept developing as we designed. In the end, it became clear that athletes buying endurance food (or other sports supplements) most care about what they are about to put in their body, what it’s for, and at which stage they should be using it.
The current market and how Longhaul compares to it
To understand how sports food packaging works, we had a look around at the current market. We actually found that most existing energy related food packaging is not the most eye catching or effective. However, they do often use bright, almost neon, colours so they do still tend to stand out amongst other food packaging. Further, if using any sort of image, most products would use a photo of the main ingredient that the flavour is based on.
The one brand that both we and the client thought stood out the most was Tribe. This brand is also very focused on natural performance energy supplements, much like Longhaul. However, the main difference on the surface is that Tribe creates sweet flavours while Longhaul makes savoury blends. Tribe’s packaging really works on visualising the natural aspect of their product by showing illustrations of scenes of nature such as a wave, iceberg, or peak of a mountain. The colours of the scenes change for each flavour.
While finding such a successful design was nice for us since it showed that sports food packaging does not always have to be neon and pretty boring, it also made the challenge for us even bigger. There was a brand out there that stood out, so how were we going to design something that stood out even more compared to that?
Our mood board built up of other sports food packaging and other pouch packaging
Designing
Setting up a template and colour matching
We received a complicated product data sheet from the client that discussed all the technical data from the printer and manufacturer. I took to trying to decipher all the different measurements on their technical drawing and translating this to an inDesign file that we could work with including a different bleed than we’re used to and strange margins.
Template based on the printers’ guidelines for us to work on
In the logo files we had received we found three different versions of everything: RGB, CMYK, and Pantone. Unfortunately, neither we nor the client knew which file had been used in the end for the packaging (Pantone or CMYK). Alex went and printed out many different versions to find equivalents which we eventually got to compare the original packaging to after the client had mailed those to us as well. After doing this, we also did a few legibility tests of the red and blue used on the packaging since we saw this as a possible issue. Although we proposed a few changes, the client decided in the end that they were still happy with their original logo.
Test prints of which colours could have possibly been used on the pouches
Initial sketches
As usual with design processes, we started with sketching some rough thumbnails for the front on the pouch. Although this did help us understand what the client wanted better, we quickly also realised this was not the best way for us to explore ideas. We had very specific colours and assets to use since those parts of the brand already existed. It was very difficult to see how specific aspects would look together in the different situations. What we did learn from our initial sketches was that we were trying to stick too much to the existing brand and how they had used it in their original packaging.
Initial pencil sketches I madeThe original pouch sleeves
Moving on from the original design
Based on what we had learned from our quick thumbnail sketches, we moved to working digitally and tried our best to move away from the original packaging design. However, we were faced with a whole new list of issues. First, working digitally meant that it was easier to try out small changes and more difficult for us to work collaboratively. This led to a whole range of different ideas, which may sound good initially, but it left us completely lost. There were so many options. We took a very shallow approach: focusing on sport. Since this idea was not specific enough, none of us were able to create a design that truly fit. Everything was either too general and so boring to look at, or would exclude certain athletes. For example, after a meeting with our client we all agreed that representing specific sports would not be appropriate for food that is meant for anybody that falls under an endurance athlete.
Sample of pouch designs based around showcasing sport
Typebased and more geometric
After a discussion with Rob, our supervisor, we made an attempt to choose something more specific and move away from imagery that suggested certain sports. This attempt entailed a typographic approach and a geometric graphic approach as these can be very successful when done right. It already became clear quite early on that this was also not the way to go, but I believe our team was trying desperately to hold onto some kind of direction so we did not want to let go of these approaches.
Although this approach wasn’t what we ended up going with, we did start getting the information hierarchy down. We did still continue to develop this to make it even clearer, but we started realising what information would be important for athletes and what should stand out more than other aspects. For example, to grab the attention of an athlete walking by in a grocery store, things like protein is more important than knowing the details of the flavour, which they can read after picking the product up.
Sample of pouch designs that follow the typographic and/or geometric approach
Restarting and figuring out what the brand means
We had a meeting with Rob after trying to make the typography and geometric designs work for very long. During this meeting, he asked us for a few keywords that described what the brand was and what it stood for. It quickly became clear that we had no clue. This was the root of our problems. How can you design something that suits the brand if you don’t know what it’s about? We went away and created a list of words to describe the brand and what the design should be like, eventually narrowing it down to ‘energetic, impact, light, bold, clean’. Although that list may still seem a bit contradictory and generic, we knew exactly what we meant with the words. After that, our designs finally started going into the right direction.
Effective mountains and tweaking the visual information
Alex and Ro had been experimenting with using mountains as the main graphic for the pouch, reflecting the mountain that can be found back in the logo. However, these still were not suited. They were either too detailed or too simple (and so looked more like a shape than a mountain). During a meeting with Rob talking about exactly that, that the style did not seem to work correctly, an idea suddenly hit me. In our first year, I had taken it upon myself to learn how to create polyart. I created a mountain using this style, which gave us a nice balance between geometric and detail. We all immediately really liked the new idea (which was the first time, so it was a very good sign), and were hoping our client enjoyed it as well. After we got positive feedback from them, Alex went back to edit the mountain so it used tints and fewer swatches as it had already taken me a few hours to create the original mountain, and this was another job that would take a while. Doing this made it easier for us to switch out swatches so we could make the mountains in new colours easily.
Pouch designs focusing on mountains
Our initial idea with the mountain had most of the information as text on the front. It was quite text heavy for packaging that should catch somebody’s eye. Luckily our client really wanted to use their icons, so we could replace much of the text with icons. Unfortunately, the existing icons did occasionally have a different line width and used the colours in a less consistent way. I went in and made changes to make them more consistent. For example, gluten free was first in red since all the other icons mentioning the food was free of something had a red line through it. However, it made gluten free seem negative and putting a red line through the icon would create a double negative. Instead, we decided to keep it white and in line with the other white icons. I also went as far to create a new icon that signified organic. This was originally because the icon was missing from the files we received, but in the end we and the client liked the new icon more.
The back
Alex did most of the work for the back of the pouch while the client was too busy to get back to us with feedback on the front of the pouch. The original pouch had way too much text on it, so we agreed on which bits had to be taken out. While a lot of text had already been taken out, a real change was making everything fit on and still follow the type size guidelines. What we really liked about the original back was the clients’ names that they had in a different font at the end of their message. We decided we could make this even more personal. I wrote out their names initially to see if we could fit on handwritten signatures. On the final design, we had managed to get them to write out their own names, which makes the pouch just that bit more authentic.
Pouch designs for the back
The colours
We looked at colours throughout the entire process, it was not done at a specific point, we were still tweaking up until we sent the files off for sign-off. There was a lot of playing around. Many sports related food products use neon colours on their packaging. We tried using bright colours as well, but this felt very fake and tacky. We also tried correlating colours to the flavours, but most blended foods just turn a shade of brown. Not only is that not a great colour to use for this kind of packaging, but it also really limited us. In the end, using tints and only three swatches on the mountains gave us a nice balance between giving the flavours a relatively bright colour that wasn’t necessarily related to the flavour and a muted colour scheme that fit with the natural aspect of the food.
Production
Production was different than expected. At first, we were working towards press ready files, however in the end we had to perfect our inDesign files for other designers to work further with. Luckily, we had kept our files very clean. We just had to compare them to the printer’s specifications so we wouldn’t burden a new designer with that job and risk our designs being compromised. When we were almost finished, we came across a rather confusing requirement for the type. Alex got in contact with the printers and found out all text had to be a solid colour, meaning we had to go through and either make text fully C, M, Y, K, or a Pantone swatch. Luckily the client had already told us he was willing to pay for more than just 4 colours, so this was an easy fix.
Final designs
Final pouch designFinal design pouch series
The client was very happy with these designs, listing:
[It’s a] more current design, and the use of a mountain is very well aligned with the brand image we want to portray.
The design is both clean and eye catching
More striking and would stand out on a shelf against competitors well
The colour combinations go really well and the nuance in the colours of the mountain looks great.
The design works well as a concept that we can apply to new product ranges
Reflection
This job took much longer than any of us had expected. At first, it looked like the turnaround was going to be in just a matter of weeks, but it took just under a year. Although I am very glad that we ended up having more time, since our designs for the original deadline were not successful, the job did stretch on for a little too long. There wasn’t much we could do about this with our client occasionally being out of the country and corona hitting everybody in a way that could not have been expected. That being said, there was much I learned during this job. Our main challenge was finding out what sort of graphic and design would fit the brand the best. I now know to never start a project without having a clear sense of what the company is about and what the brand should mean. Further, this job also made me understand group work better. We took an approach that leaned towards equal distribution and everybody working on everything, which is not always the most efficient. However, there was not much to distribute amongst us since we were creating a series of packaging (Maybe the team was just a little too big for how small the job actually ended up being).
We have been extremely impressed with the designs that you have all put forward & are very happy with the final results. So thank you for all of the hard work! – Amelia Watts (client)
It’s been a pleasure working with you all and I’m very impressed and pleased with the final result. – Staale Brinchmann (client)
Real Job – A group of Part 2 students create new packaging for Longhaul – an early stage start-up sports food company, specialising in savoury performance food.
Real Job: Cyan and Caitlin developed promotional material for an exhibition of farm toys @TheMERL. https://merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/online-exhibitions/playing-farming/
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Real Job: Do you like Owls? Liselot, Immy and Joanne worked on new wayfinding and interpretation boards for Turbary Woods Owl Sanctuary near Preston, with help from Oliver Tomlinson @TDL_Creative
Real Job: Couldn't end the year without at least ONE of our undergrads designing a typeface. Connie Worthington unpacks her excellent work in this report. She's keen for feedback from our Typeface Design tutors or MAs! #typedesign @FredSmeijers @typefacedesign @CAFOD
