DESIGN:APPROACH

Speaking From Experience

I've re-evaluated the problem and the solution, so from here on i intend to; 

Problem

Alcohol can cause fines, and fines cost money!

(this problem getting rid of the personal and fixed problem before hand, opening it up to everyone really) 

Solution 

To inform and warn next years students how much certain objects and what not cost to fix/replace within their student halls, focusing on liberty Park. This resulting in the students thinking twice about being overly active after consuming copious amounts of alcohol and ending in being forced to part with their precious money!

Product  

To do so i intend to create stickers and packaging for them, which state what certain objects cost. These stickers taken back to their halls and placed on the appropriate surfaces. 

As the stickers are a warning i have decided to design the stickers to look like and represent road and caution signs, using the pre-existing connotations of these to my advantage. 

My challenge is to make the stickers more aesthetically pleasing than actual road and caution signs. 

(This changing from the alcohol packaging, making it more appropriate and suitable format, as well as making it possible to actually give the students something)

Speaking From Experience

Just under a week late but none the less, had a cheeky crit...

I went with my work and ideas,

the problem being how to save £170 pounds and the solution being to warn and inform the students not to do silly things like running into a wall as it will cost them such and such, plus other humorous drunken incident which lead to other fines...

During the crit a few issues were raised with my proposed project. 

The main problems that i got back were as follows; 

. message/problem 

In a way i feel the group failed to catch the joke-ness of the problem i had set and took it a  bit too seriously. Nevertheless the point was valid! Basically they thought the problem itself was to personal,  which in fairness it seemed to be as there wasnt anything to show for me wanting to look at more than just the wall incident at a fine. Aswell as this it was also said that it was only appropriate to people living in Liberty park, which rules out a lot of people in the class. 

. Format and Distribution 

The next issue that was raised was that the format was quite an abstract media to produce and wasnt seen to be related to the problem and solution. This in my eyes is quite obvious, i ran into a wall...drunk...what might have stopped that, something telling me not to, the cans? why not. Anyway the point must be valid as if they didnt get it then other people may not get it. 

The more important thing that came up on the subject of the format of my solution was how i was going to distribute it, as it would be beer bottles and packaging, would it be sold in shops? do i just give them a 6 pack of beer? wont last very long! I hadnt even thought of that before it was raised, and now that it has i see that i need to re-evaluate the solution and the problem itself! 

Speaking From Experience

Just a cheeky post, During all this initial research phase i started to think about the kind of imagery i could use for my package and bottle/can design. 

As the message on the cans is a sort of warning/giving caution i want to use road sign imagery, which the audience will instantly recognize as being so. 

What im thinkig...

. General road signs, the stop sign, make people stop and look at it?That triangular one! the hexagon one? 

. Hazard signs, similar shapes but yellow and bla

ck? 

  

Anyway this is the first thing i've designed, to begin with i created the stick figure running into a wall to portray the message of what not to do, giving it some humor yet keeping it simple and making sure its easy to read and understand! This image changing for each different warning!  Then i've included the circular sign with the line through to represent, the message of, 'DON'T!' which again everyone will be able to read. A work in progress anyway.

Audience Engagement

Here are five examples of design that i feel are successful within audience engagement and interaction and also design that relates to what i plan to be producing for the Speaking From Experience brief... 

So firstly i've chosen this. Although its not overly beautiful, its darn effective! Everyone knows what its meaning is, it interacts with the audience by telling drivers to stop, and they do, furthermore it's also universally known making it just so darn successful. It links to my project as for the moment i want my stickers to be the shape of road signs like this one to show warning/caution etc. 

This picture represents a pack of stickers from the snowboarding company, Grenade. The stickers themselves come as a clear vinyl rectangle with the detail being the separated grenade! These stickers interact with it's audience by basically being stickers and giving the audience the choice of where they want it to be. Again this relating to my project as there stickers and im planning to create sticky stickerzz. 

This image follows the general principle as the STOP road sign, the circle and cross connotes danger/warning, tells us what not to do! the only difference it has a message of don't piss on the floor! 

This relating to my work in two ways, firstly the road sign shape and appearance, secondly the message being humorous, which i want to keep in mind whilst creating my own. 

This advert from Tesco also ran as a television advert, which i guess both work together to interact with the audience. This more relates to my project though, with the idea of labeling certain things and giving them a value, this being my idea of creating stickers to show how much it would cost you, if you broke it!

This image represents one of the products that was created for red nose day 2009! This product being the large red nose sticker for cars, which people bought and put it somewhere on their automobile! So the interaction being the audience putting it wherever on their car. And again the relation to me being the sticker itself, big and red, eye-catching! 

Speaking From Experience

During this initial research phase and after having a brief crit it became clear that my problem was quite closed and personal and that it may not affect many of the students if any at all. Somehow i need to make it more appropriate so that it applies to most of the students.

Solution

Concentrate on the idea of fines in general not just one specific one. With this in mind it would make sense to create the designs for a beer bottle/can and the packaging that could have a different warning on each one. One can stating not to run into a wall and another in the same pack reminding people not to jump around in a lift. Think of a pack of Penguins, you get red, blue and green wrappers but its the same thing inside. 

So i need to look at products which are designed as a series of products...

           

Speaking From Experience

So from deciding on what my problem was i went about thinking of solutions on how to tell next years students my awfully valuable advice. 

I came to the conclusion that i ran into a wall due 

to excessive amounts of drinking, and maybe, just perhaps if there were a message or reminder not to run into any walls on what i was drinking it ma

y never have happened, therefore why not design my own beer can or

 bottle, taking it further and then designing a matchin

g package for that, this way im sticking to my proposal of creating something more than a poster.

 

Research Time

I want to create quite a vast source of research in terms of looking at general everyday and contemporary package design and then obviously defining it to bottle/can and beer packaging.