Inspire me!

Below is a really good website for packaging, it's really given me some inspiration.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/06/02/beautiful-and-expressive-packaging-design/

So whilst the whole idea of business identity and stationery was fresh in my mind i was doing some research for the rebranding, and I receive an email form a friend who is studying arts and events 3rd year. She is doing her dissertation but also having to think about her end of year final event and she is trying to sort sponsors out so to apply to these companies she needed a letterhead to establish an identity for the members of the group. The names are Natalie, Amy, Ciaran, and Celia. They are calling them selves 'NACC Promotions' the initials of their names. hers the design below it's black and bold just how she wanted it and teh way it's set out kin of expresses a stamp maybe of authority. This for the team was important to firstly establish a foundation, and also make them corporate and legitimate.

Old to New

For this part of the project we were given the choice to rebrand any of the following, tinned veg, spam, fondu tapioca and other redundant product. The idea was to bring them back in to circulation as either a new exiting or unusual product. The re-brand could be in keeping with the origins of the product, or have a modern up to date end product.

I ended up choosing mushy peas which

I was trying to steer away from, but the opportunity to re-brand the current mushy peas packaging was all to tempting. I felt that what ever I did would look more sophisticated.

I decided to go down the root of opening the scope for higher end people to except mushy peas as and indulgent accompaniment to expensive meals.

I worked out to do this I couldn't have the existing brand, style or even ingredients. My idea was to rebrand it as pea puree, a

perfect accompaniment to meals such as scallops wrapped in bacon. The reason I chose to do it this way is because it allows people of all social classes to go to the supermarket and buy the very thing that created the nostalgia at an expensive restaurant.

The product would come in a squeeze bottle and when heated up in the micro wave, thus be presented on the plate to the level of a high end restaurant, bringing back them all those nostalgic memories a couple of family experience.

In terms of concept I am very happy at the moment I don't think there is any competing products on the market. Next thing to perfect is the packaging, I need something that enhances the posh pea brand. I intend to look at M & S and waitrose labeling and packaging to move the product on!

Here is the full stationery including business card front and back, Letter head and compliment slip. I chose to keep the soviet colours throughout creating the continuity in the piece. I think the gold and red strips bring together the separate elements of design, for example the business card strips continue from front to back.

The design for the business card came from the influence of the musical score and represents the idea of expressing political issues through the sound of music

The badge stays in the corner of all the documents to give that slick business look.

In terms of Typeface I chose a typically Russian font. Its formal and conforms to the business stationery theme. My only criticism is that it's not the clearest of Fonts.

So for my business identity I was in to minds whether to go down the root of the controversial political pressure, or go with the musical influences and symphonies.

To be honest I was torn between the two so my final pieces represent both side

of the coin, showing that the political issue was as much a part of his life as the music.

The design consists of the original soviet badge but the symbols in the middle have been changed to what Dmitri Shostakovich truly believed in and if he could he would proudly represent.

The badge its self represents the sickle and a hammer to represent the farmers and the star represents the communist party. My badge takes a realist approach to the regime replacing the sickle with shackles to represent forced labour and wheat to represent the the famine that the soviet union caused.

Business Identity and stationery

The next part of the Brief was to create a set of stationery for a person that was chosen at random My identity was Dmitri Shostakovich, who I found out after some initial research that he was a Russian Composer of the soviet union period in the 20th Century.

The great thing about this project was not only we were getting to grips with creating stationery, which is a very handy to tool in the industry, but also we were given the opportunity to dive deep in to the mans personality, finding what they were about and what they stand for which a letter-head and identity are essentially used for.

For Shostakovich as well as finding out his background, I also received a small history lesson in the process. I had a lot of information to base my identity on, for example even though he composed in the communism period, his music represented ideas far from a communist way of life.

His work was controversial and on various several occasions his music was denounced under political pressure.

As far as his privet life goes his family was threatened and eventually he was blackmailed and forced to join the communist party due to political pressure.

Back to the old school, back to the new!

So it's Vis-Com second year and I have been back in to the swing of things for a week now, and let me tell you it has felt like 4 weeks already. On the first day back we were given are new brief, which I like to call the brief that gets u thinking!

This was quiet a shock for me considering the last time I done much thinking was in July for my Placement. The first of the four projects in the brief was simply the word 'Thank-you'. The idea was to say thank you to someone or something, but in your own way be visually different.

We only had a week to think of something, so the outcome would have to be short,sharp and precise. By the time the tutorials came round I had an idea, that I thought was thinking outside the box. I was going to be a piece about Irony, the thanks shared between to distant friends that buy each other the most pointless presents.

The idea was shot down after I was told that I hadn't addressed the brief, the thank you had to be from me not a general one. After having looked at a really creative piece by Kessels-kramer where the pages had been ripped out and some letters had been stamped on in Dutch. So with-in a couple of hours I was thanking my Favorite Book by Howard Marks called 'Mr Nice'.

The idea was that I would say thank you by stitching through the binding of the book, It would turn out to be a delicate process, also a delicate finish,making the words thank you a little more special.

In the critique I expressed by new idea, there was a mixed view but the overall opinion was that the piece was unresolved and that I had forced it together because of my love for Kessels-Kramer.

It was a blow, but in hindsight I do feel like I rushed in to an outcome with out following common design protocol in my sketchbook.