Evaluation

Evaluation


I feel my final pieces meet the needs of the brief in terms of visual communication. Google ask that the visual communication be aimed as anyone who uses the internet, i felt that this could be aimed at anyone from the age of 12 and up so I knew the packaging had to be easily understandable and very minimalist. I don't feel that the visual communication fails to meet the needs of the brief in any way as I have carefully followed Google's instructions of the do's and don'ts and also have made the packaging as simple as possible so that anyone of any age can understand it.


I think the strengths of my visual communication is how simple the design is. Anyone of any age will be able to gather what the product is and what is does. My final pieces do not fail in the visual communication as I believe my work could not get any simpler. The only way the audience can be miss understood about my packaging design is that weather or not the product is going to be sole, this is because the barcode is on the underneath of the product and isn't visible when its on display. I don't think my piece could be further developed as I have met Googles wants and stayed within their constraints.


I think my time keeping on this project was very good as I had a balance of chill-out time and work. My analysis of the brief clearly indicates what needs to be done and I have broken each question down into my own personal mini conclusion so that I have a greater understanding of the company. I found the research quite hard with Google as i could not find any adverts of posters of billboards, the only form of google advertising I found were those in commercials about product usage, I also found a packaging design for the Nexus Google Mobile. I drew conclusions from my research by saying what I could gain from them and what inspiration and ideas they gave me.


I used experimentation mostly in arranging type and placing it in places where I  felt it worked, experimenting lead me to get the best outcomes. Some areas in my research inspired me as it gave me an insight as to what kinds of outcomes I could get given that I had many constraints I had to work within, this inspired me to create something that was as good as that shown in my research. I found many areas challenging as Google didn't provide any imagery of logo's other than the plain Google logo. They also didn't prove any information on the product this meant that i had to find it myself which meant I had to spend more time.

Ethics In Design

Ethics in design

Ethical design in charity and issue based advertising. Ie: Should you charge to design for a charity? 

After some thought on this matter I come to the conclusion that charging a charity for your design is acceptable but under different circumstances. If a designer was newly established and had just got into the industry I think it would be up to the designer weather to charge or not as designing for a charity can spread your name and make yourself more known in the freelance graphic world. Some people may speculate that charging a charity is right in every way as your spending time and effort to create and design for them as you would in any other company, what would you gain from designing for a charity with no pay?

Should you design for a charity you do not agree with?

Would designing for a charity you don't agree with make you a hypocrite? This would be a matter of your own personal morals and if you are comfortable in designing for something that you do not believe in. Morals may change if there was a salary to be considered, many designers would design for something they don't believe in as at the end of the day they will still get pay and get a greater form of recognition. In some cases designing for someone or something you don't believe in may change the outcome of your finished piece as you might not be motivated and interested in what your doing.

Should charities spend their money on design at all?

In some cases spending money on design would be ethical as advertising raises the awareness of a charity which may lead to further donations and increase the charities income. Given that people may be against charities spending money on design as they might feel that money could go to greater use in which the charity is for and that spending money on design can come at a risk and it may not raise awareness and may not increase the charities income ending in a loss.

Are designers part of the process of selling inappropriate goods or promoting bad companies?

In some cases yes, a designer is part of the process in selling inappropriate or promoting bad companies. This is because for example a designer has to design for a cigarette company his/her job will be to promote the product in any way possible to increase sales and raise the awareness of the product, depending on the designers way of thinking the end product could result in promoting a product which isn't seen as ethical. Others may say no because a designer is given a job to do and he/she has to fulfil it in any way they see fit so its not the designers fault in any way as its down to the company which message they want to get across their product(s).


What should a designer refuse to do?


I feel a designer should refuse to do what goes against his morals and isn't for the greater good. Designing something which will increase or do any harm to someone which isn't ethical. A designer should refuse something which he would not do for example: If a designer saw a poster and thought thats wrong, that changes the target audience or aims it at an inappropriate audience.


How can you square this with making a living for yourself?


As a designer charging companies for your design is ethical as you have to make a living out of your profession. This is where a designer may have no morals when it comes to designing as designing for any company for any product wont matter because your getting paid at the end of it, but how may this effect your person? will people view you as a designer that has no ethics and only wants money in his back pocket? or does he want to be know as a designer that sticks to his morals regardless of the salary.


What role should the designer take in promoting sustainability?


As a designer in order to promote sustainability you need to think ahead and also think in a different form in the future as opposed to here and now. I believe a designer should be payed more as sustainability is something which is added on and isn't always taken into consideration when designing for something. In order to design promoting for sustainability a designer has to do more work and spend more time in researching products which are designed in this way.


Unpaid internships?


Pro's

• Experience in the industry.
• Possibility of a full or part time job.
• Another company may recognise you.
• Port folio pieces in outcomes.
• Self experience what its like to work in a real design environment.

Con's

• No salary
• Own cost of travel which results in a loss
• Looked down upon.
• Making tea

Final Google Products

Final Google Products

Conclusion

These are my final packaging designs for my Google products. I decided to try my packaging on a cube as I thought having a design on a cube is more innovative than a standard dvd case. Googles products are useful easy to use and also innovative so I felt having the packaging this way complimented that. Having a cube as the packaging makes it more inviting to pick up and look at as 5 panels have imagery or product information. What will go on the inside packaging? I came up with the idea that Cd's are a thing of the past and the way forward is using the internet, the contents of the packaging will be the logo of the product and on the back will be the serial number. For example Google Chrome serial number 3522-5633-3436-3463 will be entered on Googles site www.google.com/products.

Here is where the product will be downloaded which will be off the internet with all the appropriate files. 

Google products development

Google TV packaging

This is the base template of my Google TV packaging. I managed to find a vector image of the Google Tv logo as the brief of Google didn't provide any. I decided to have the Google logo and TV image quite large on the front cover but allowing enough white space to be visible. 

I then started to add information onto the back of the product, I found this information on googles site www.google.com/tv/ as again Google didn't provide any further information on the product. The information I gave are the 3 main key features of the product, the reason for this is that when someone picks up the product from a shelf the main reason of the product is given on the back page. I also colour co-ordinated the header of the type to make the information seem more important and makes the viewer more inclined to read it.

Here I was experimenting with the back cover and the placement of the information. I started to right align the information type and add some images that related to the information which were screenshot off of the Google site. These images compliment the colour of Googles Logo.

As I thought the images were to large and dominant and in my opinion cluttered the back page I made the images smaller and more together. I felt having the images smaller and more together and uncluttered the back page, the images still relate to the text as the colours used in the header of the information match those in the images.

Lastly I decided that I wanted to have an actual image of the product to give the user some insight as to what the layout of the product might look like. As Google didn't provide any imagery of any form this proved to be a difficult task, how I managed to get an image was to go onto Google Tv's site and there I screen shot an image which I then placed onto my packaging.

Google Chrome packaging

This is the base template of my Google Chrome packaging. I managed to find a vector image of the Google Chrome logo as the brief of Google didn't provide any. I decided to have the Google logo and Chrome image quite large on the front cover but allowing enough white space to be visible. 

I then started to add information onto the back of the product, I found this information on googles site www.google.com/chrome/ as again Google didn't provide any further information on the product. The information I gave are the 3 main key features of the product, the reason for this is that when someone picks up the product from a shelf the main reason of the product is given on the back page. I also colour co-ordinated the header of the type to make the information seem more important and makes the viewer more inclined to read it.

Lastly I decided that I wanted to have an actual image of the product to give the user some insight as to what the layout of the product might look like. As Google didn't provide any imagery of any form this proved to be a difficult task, how I managed to get an image was to go onto Google Chromes site and there I screen shot an image which I then placed onto my packaging.

Google Maps packaging

This is the base template of my Google Maps packaging. I managed to find a vector image of the Google Tv logo as the brief of Google didn't provide any. I decided to have the Google logo and TV image quite large on the front cover but allowing enough white space to be visible. 

Here I began to experiment with the back of the packaging. As Google want their packaging to be very spacious I thought having the text to close to the edges of the packaging wasn't relevant and made the back cover look too cluttered. I found some images that went with the product to give the user some visual understanding what the product does, these were found of the google maps site and placed into this document. This was the starting base for the design of the back cover so I had to further develop it.

I found that Google maps did not really have a standard logo, there were a few various different images they used along with Google maps. One of the images was the simple Google pointer which was shown above, another image was this one shown above which is also known as the Google Maps app symbol, I was unable to use this image as there wasn't one with a high enough resolution .

I ended up creating my own interpretation of the Google maps image. I done this by screen shooting an image using Google Maps then in photoshop chose a selected area using a circle marquee tool and then placed the image into the Illustrator document. Lastly I decided that I wanted to have an actual image of the product to give the user some insight as to what the layout of the product might look like. As Google didn't provide any imagery of any form this proved to be a difficult task, how I managed to get an image was to go onto Google Maps site and there I screen shot an image which I then placed onto my packaging.

Google Earth packaging

Google Earth logo that I created in Illustrator.

To create the Google earth logo I traced over another Google earth logo which was pixelated. I firstly created the blue circle using the shapes tool, then using the pen tool I traced over the white waves and placed them accordingly over the blue circle. To make sure the waves were placed on top of the blue circle using the arrange tool I brought the waves to the front using the panel shown above.

This is the base template of my Google Earth packaging. I had to create the Google Earth logo as the brief of Google didn't provide any. I decided to have the Google logo and Earth image quite large on the front cover but allowing enough white space to be visible. 

I then started to add information onto the back of the product, I found this information on googles site www.google.com/Earth as again Google didn't provide any further information on the product. The information I gave are the 3 main key features of the product, the reason for this is that when someone picks up the product from a shelf the main reason of the product is given on the back page. I also colour co-ordinated the header of the type to make the information seem more important and makes the viewer more inclined to read it.

I decided that I wanted to have an actual image of the product to give the user some insight as to what the layout of the product might look like. As Google didn't provide any imagery of any form this proved to be a difficult task, how I managed to get an image was to go onto Google Tv's site and there I screen shot an image which I then placed onto my packaging.

Conclusion

In conclusion to my work I think this idea works very well. Ive taken into consideration all that Google ask in the brief and have applied it in my work. One of the main points that the brief ask is that the products work together similar to that of the Adobe creative suite, I think I have achieved and each product packaging is very similar but isn't to cliche. As the target audience is very wide I have taken into consideration the style and placement of the packaging, I think anyone from the age of 12 and up will have a form of understanding what the product is, this is achieved without making the product look child-like in any way shape or form.

The 5 levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow’s pyramid is used in psychology, education and many other fields. It describes physical and psychological needs, starting on the lowest level with things that you need to stay alive such as food, air and sleep. As it rises up the levels it shows needs such as safety (having a home, being out of danger), belonging (to a family or peer group), self-esteem (feeling good about yourself and having respect from others). The top level, self-actualisation, is about having control over one’s life and having challenging projects to achieve.

People are not fixed on this pyramid but can rise and fall on it depending on what is happening to them at the time. But the point is that you cannot perform (learn, design etc) when you are hungry or tired or worried about falling out with your friends. The items on this list are real needs.

Advertisers cash in on these needs. They try to convince the audience that the things that they (the advertisers) are selling are needs. In fact they are simply “wants” or desires.

This usually occurs where the adverts are for goods of which there are many, similar products, such as cars, baked beans and so on. The advertiser has to pick out a unique selling point to mark the product as different. So they will often pick on something that can be sold as a “need”. (Can you remember what else is used by similar producst?.....redundancy)

For example, car advertisers will focus on, say, the results of a side-impact test in which their car did very well (though this may only be marginally better than the next car). They sell the car as being very safe and hint that the audience member must protect their family by buying the safe car – the audience member should feel that they “need” the safest car.  The advertiser is working on the needs of  Maslow’s safety level. All cars are pretty much the same – they go from A to B – but the advertiser needs to distinguish a point and make it seem more than simply desirable.

Other car advertisers may instead try to work on Maslow’s self-esteem level. Cars like BMW, Audi, and Mercedes are sold on their great appearance, performance, or technology. Owning one of these cars makes you feel good.

Food averts often try to persuade on Maslow’s level of health and nutrition, appealing to mothers and customers to buy the healthiest option. Less salt or fat is sold as a “need”, whatever the goodness of the rest of the ingredient. 

Other food advertisers sell on the level of belonging – the family all comes together for a lovely meal in the main home. Gravy, sausages, soup all are sold as “needs” to bring your loved ones together. Magner’s Cider sells on this level but appealing to groups of friends enjoying a lovely lifestyle together.


BMW Advertising

Here is an advert from BMW, its a very simple poster but with a much greater meaning. " The ultimate attraction" is that main caption on this poster, the main image on the poster helps to back up this caption by having a magazine with a picture of a BMW over a women's face. This imply's that even laying in bed with a beautiful woman does not give you as much attraction as a BMW does. In terms of Maslow's Hierarchy "Esteem" this is what the poster aims at. Most men know the feeling of being in bed with someone they find highly attractive and by having the magazine with the image of a BMW it gives the viewer the feeling that a BMW is more attractive than any woman. In the pyramid it goes belonging then esteem, this poster has a play of the 2 as its suggesting that a BMW will raise your self-esteem and that its even better than belonging.

Here is another advert from BMW, again the advert is very simple and just has a large image and a caption. The caption says " My bonus is faster than your bonus" this simple phrase automatically suggests what you might buy with your bonus you got from work and if you did buy a BMW with it its going to be faster than what your friends may have got. In terms of Maslow's Hierarchy here there is "Esteem" and "Self-actualistation" Esteem being confidant that your BMW is going to be faster than someone else's car. Self-actualisation being that with your hard earned bonus you have bought something that you have earned with your hard work so you have the feel that you have achieved something and bought a car which is better that another persons.

These are screenshots from youtube which are of a BMW commercial. The commercial is for the new BMW 5 Series, in the commercial there is a man who gets to test drive the new car but during the video he uses words like "affordability" "performance" "looks" these are all phrases that relate to self esteem, when someone heres these words in terms of a car that is all they really want. A part of the ad also gives some of the cars specs which uses words like "technology" "intelligent" which lead people to believe its more than just a car and that the specs that are shown are very impressive for a car of is stature. There was also some background music in the video, I believe without this music the video would not have had the same impact that it does with the audio, the music which was played seemed very inviting and also gave the car the effect that it was up and coming. The music to the video makes the viewer grow affection for the car "belonging" it makes you look at the car in a different aspect leading you to want it more.

Packaging Design Research

What is packaging design?


Packaging is one of the key elements of a marketing strategy for a product as it is as it is the visual face that will be promoted recognised and sought out by the customer.


10 rules about packaging design


1. Conduct a thorough audit of all competitors in your market before you start, and make sure you understand their respective positioning and attributes.Then create your own.


2. Look at what is happening in other markets, e.g if you are just considering the UK or Europe, what is happening in the US or Far east that might give you a point of difference.


3. Put measures in place at the start so you can track and learn as you go, e.g measure awareness and attitude to your packaging now and in the future. A good research agency will tell you how to do this.


4. Choose a design agency based on track record, not on price and get testimonials direct from at least three existing clients. Make sure you like them and feel you can work with them.


5. Be different and ensure your pack has its own visual equity and has a strong personality and attitude.


6. Make sure your pack works at all stages of its life cycle, from leaving the factory to ending up in the users hands.


7. Protect your pack in terms of trademark law and copyright and make sure your not infringing your competitors rights.


8. Mock up how your pack would look alongside your competition. Test it in store and make sure it really does leap out at point of purchase.


9. Design with tomorrow in mind. Create a pack that is in keeping with the current market trends and future trends.


10. Consider doing some pre-market testing to make sure your pack will find a willing audience. But be careful how you test it as consumers never quite know what they are looking for until someone shows them something new.


After reading these 10 points I feel there is some great information in here into getting the best end product for my packaging design. I never really considered some of the things that are in the points above for example; " Mock up how your pack would look alongside your competition" this is useful as once I have finalised my products and have mocked them up I would need to take into consideration how they would look on a point of sale and maybe even do a survey and ask for opinions on how the product looks.


http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/about-design/Types-of-design/Packaging-design/Ten-golden-rules/




Structure and shape of packaging


Designers have 2 key tools to grab the consumers attention, graphics and structure.


The structure of a pack can serve multiple purposes:

• To create shelf standout and sell the product
• To protect the product
• To prolong the life of the product
• To facilitate the use of the product
• To reassure customers that its part of a familiar range

These points above are all something I need to bear in mind when deciding on my packaging structure, the structure also needs to compliment Googles current design and their innovative products. I want the packaging of Googles products to be inviting to pick up without over complicating it. The packaging has to be aimed at the people that would use Googles products but at the same time work well together like the CS Suite as the Google brief asks.

After taking the points above into consideration I decided to go with this net which I created, I simply measured the size of a dvd case as this is the size i want my packaging to be the height is 190mm width 135mm and the width of the spine is 14mm. I had to create this net myself as I couldn't find one on the internet. I feel this packaging type will best suit what the product purpose is for also the most common in which disks are contained so the audience automatically know where to look if they wish to know further information about the product.

Packaging similar to Google's

This is the Apple's packaging  for the Ipod and Mac products. The packaging of this product is very similar to what Google ask in their brief, Google like having large amounts of white space and nothing ever being cluttered. The packaging above are very minimalist and straight to the point as they only contain the product image, logo, name of product and some minor information none the less this gives the product a massive effect visually. The term less is more is definitely the case here but the product still gives the feel of a well designed good quality product.

I can see a packaging very similar to this working with Google's packaging as the base template would be very similar to that of Google's which it asks in the brief. This is something that I will experiment with because in my opinion having the packaging structure as a cube it would feel more inviting to pick up and look out as its not a standard style of packaging. Having a cube as the packaging is very innovative just like Google themselves.

This was the only form of packaging I could find that existed from Google. I have never seen Google package a product as their products aren't really commercial, none the less this product still follows Google's style of design with the large amounts of plain white space. In my opinion this minimalist style this packaging has gives the product a greater prestige to it and makes it look more expensive.

This is another style of packaging which is quite similar to Google's. The style design of the product is very minimalist and only contains the very basics of the product which are logo, product name and product image .

This is the Adobe creative suite packaging, Google ask that my packaging work together similar to that in the creative suite. How Adobe have done this is by the simple use of colour, this is something I will take into consideration when designing my own packaging as this could be one of the main details that separate my products.

This gave me an idea for the inner packaging of my design. Simply using 3 or so layers of corrugated card, cutting into the card as needed to fit the inside product inside. This same method can be done using other different materials maybe even materials that are biodegradable, this would make the packaging more environmentally friendly.

As I could not find any sort of Google advertising like posters, billboards etc i resulted in looking at their advertising. After watching Googles adverts it gave me a greater insight and further information on the product. These adverts also gave me extra ideas and thought running through my head. I though that I could possibly incorporate these commercials into flat design and use the same message they have in the advert. I found Googles commercials to be quite humourous but they don't seem to put the same humour in their design.

Visual Communication Theory

What is Visual Communication?




Visual communication from theory to practise - I found this book very resourceful and it also gave me a more in depth explanation to visual communication than I already knew. A point I took from the book was " why focus on an audience? ". Aiming a design at a mass audience is very easy as what is produced is subjective but by narrowing your audience it makes sure that the message you are trying to portray gets through without being questioned and only your audience then will really take interest to your design which is what I would be trying to do. This is a prime example as to why it is very important to understand your audience because if you try to guess or ignore the tastes of your audience the outcome will be disastrous.


Visual communication can also be very simple, for example type is a very simple way to portray various types of communication. Type is relevant in brands and logo's - every company will have some form of visual communication and the way they have been designed as this will effect their audience.


The visual communication from theory to practise book also talks about how the visual communication of the page layout for the " Wall street " newspaper, which allows the typical busy life of a business man to be able to read for short amounts of time but still take in a lot of information. The simple tabloid papers on the other hand are aimed at people who have a little spare time on their hands - people who will sit for a while to read the newspaper, so the front covers have simple yet jaw dropping headlines. These headlines are aimed so that when you look at them your interested as to what has happened.


Visual communication even occurs in products - energy drinks are a prime example of this as the typical colours used are blue, red and silver. In this case cliches aren't always a bad thing as trying to stay original risks confusing busy shoppers and confounding their expectations . Another example at visual communication is Tesco's value food, the packaging on their products are most of the time blue and white - this really does give the cheap feel to them and makes it easier to find their products so the visual communication of the packaging is aimed at people who want a cheap shop.


The book also cleverly indicates that if your visual communication is weak then people will have various ideas and views on what it is that they are looking at. If you want a design to portray an image aimed at a certain audience then it is important to make it clear for example; picture an image of a house at night  and you are standing about ten meters from it and only one light is on, your initial message is to portray that someone has burgled this house, now, any other person looking at that image may think differently for example someone else might think that its a welcome to a warm cozy looking home, another might think that someone is up late and watching television.


In terms of this current project, Google who I have chosen for YCN have their visual communication already made. Googles design is very very simplistic and they love large amounts of plain space. Google design in a way which mostly anyone can understand which widens their audience. As Google have a set design I have constraints which I have to work within this can make things slightly more difficult as I cannot do what I want .