Mushy Peas- Final Critique

After last weeks crit where my idea for the mushy pea packaging did not go down as well as I had hoped I went back to the drawing board, developing some new ideas as well as trying to improve the existing one. Eventually I narrowed down the choice to 2 ideas, one of which was new and one which was the old one with some modifications made. After getting some feedback from friends on the course about which they thought worked best, the first idea with changes seemed to go down better as people liked its striking leaf pattern and felt it would really stand out on the shelf.

I thought about whether this was important for my target market for the product to be striking and stand out as I found out from my research that Waitrose's own brand is particularly strong and trusted by its shoppers and by differentiating my brand too much it may provoke the customer to reject it. However when I walked around the winton store I found loads of examples of really unique, individual packaging which was striking and visually interesting so it can't be a bad strategy to stand out. . One particular example was this chewing gum which alongside wrigley's, trebor and orbit, who all conform to the same aesthetic code, just stands completely apart and made me want to pick it up and investigate it.



Furthermore my product would not be a standard dip (it is a new product which could be a dip or side) and to have it blend in with other things on the shelf like houmous, guacamole and salsa would perhaps make more apparent the fact it is not a traditional dip and people may therefore find it strange that it has been thrust amongst these.

So seeing how effective standing out against the products around you can be I decided to go with the striking idea. I thinned the border like Neil recommended and added a die cut so that the silhouette of the product would be the shape of the leaf pattern, not a standard square box. I took this idea into my Thursday tutorial, where the general consensus was still that it lacked dynamism and needed another element. I knew I had the final crit the next day so it was really a choice between trying to complete the designs as they were or going back to the drawing board to think of a way of enhancing my packaging and probably not having the final product for the critique. Although the crits are beneficial, I would rather have a decent final piece to hand in and put in my portfolio than have a less developed piece for the crit for people to comment on so I opted to try and improve it.

I found a way of doing this by adding a 3d element to the packaging where the logo is set back behind the leaf pattern. This meant that the net was alot bigger and more complicated to produce but emphasises the garden feel more as the logo is set back in a way that makes it look like a sign amongst overgrown leaves (which I think alludes to the product being almost hidden which has the effect of making it seem more exclusive).

This went down pretty well in the crit, everyone seemed to agree it was an improvement. However the tutors questioned whether the packaging was excessive in terms of materials and cost as the net is 124mm x 597mm and there would be some die cutting and assembly involved which would obviously cost more than a simple rectangular outer. They also questioned the size of the pot I used to develop my outer around which In hindsight, I can now see is too big, I assumed mushy peas came in a standard 400g tin which they don't, it is actually 300g. Therefore I will downsize my net to fit a 300g pot and reduce the costs this way which is incredibly annoying as I spent a bloody long time designing the current net through trial and error until I perfected the design but it has to be done and adapting it to a new size shouldn't be too difficult.

Target Audience- Jill and Grant

To make the targeting of our audience easier it was suggested that we create fictional characters with a bit of backstory so that throughout the ideas stage of the project we could ask ourselves whether they would like the idea which would act as a kind of guide as to which ideas were more appropriate for the market.

I started out with a vague idea of just Waitrose customers which is a pretty broad spectrum. However after reading some surveys about Waitrose customers a more specific picture emerged. Waitrose shoppers are typically:

-A's, B's and C1's (on the NRS social category system).

-More likely to be aged 45+.

-Not parents or have children which have moved out (80% of Waitrose customers have households with no children).

-95% more likely than average to buy premium items in general.

-Interested in quality food products.

-Interested in organic and ethical products.

All this information has helped me to create Jill and Grant.......




This is them on a romantic city break in Rome which Grant surprised Jill with on her 50th. Ahhhhhh.
Seriously though, they are both 50, he is a GP earning 55K p.a she is an experienced nurse on 20K p.a. They have just paid off the mortgage as their two children graduated and got jobs(!) in the last 3 years and live a comfortable life in a detached 3 bedroom property on a nice, leafy suburban road in a major town in southern England. He drives an new Audi A8 and she drives a reconditioned new Fiat 500 (which they traded their old cars in for and got a really good deal) , they try and take public transport when they can as they are environmentally aware but their jobs necessitate the cars (at least they are relatively efficient new models!). Being health professionals these two are health conscious and choose to shop at Waitrose for their choice of great fresh, quality ingredients. They also read The Independent and are aware of ethical issues relating to food which informs their product choices. Convenience is a big issue for them as they have long, hard days and are often busy when they get home so don't have time to create elaborate meals.

This should help me to decide between some of my ideas as I imagine the couple wheeling their trolley round the supermarket, glimpsing my product and deciding in a split second whether to give it a second look....

Name change again...

I'm pretty indecisive so naming my blog is a minefield of choices, mistakes and regret. I wanted to choose a word which sums up the fact that this blog is just me rambling on, off the cuff just writing down thoughts and opinions. There was jibber jabber, yibber on... and finally yibber which after much consideration sounds like an accessory required to be worn on the 3rd sunday of every other month by a strictly orthodox Jewish sect. I've got to think of a new name really cos it just sounds daft. Maybe Jabber? thats at least an actual word, though it does make me sound like a knife fanatic. Screw it. Jabber.

Mushy Peas- Research

Been researching packaging for existing mushy peas products and made a wee mood-board of them.



Im trying to get as far away as I can from the fluorescent tinned product so I will avoid the visual language of these products' design. Fortunately these are typified by garish colours, gradients which look corporate and outdated, cartoon peas and unflattering photographs none of which I was planning on using anyway. I think the colloquial, jokey style of the blobs, splats, rounded fonts sums up what is wrong with the product as it conveys a cheeky, light-hearted attitude towards itself which is synonymous with junky, processed foods that because of their inferiority, rely on a jokey feel to encourage consumers not to take them too seriously. Of these tins, I think the Bachelors and Harry Ramsden's designs sell their product the least well. The bottom right tin is the nicest of the bunch and it contains luxury lamb, mushy pea and mint dog cookies which actually look more appetising than some of the tinned human-food.

New From Old Crit

Had my idea for the mushy peas pack critiqued today and I'm actually a bit lost now. There were alot of little suggestions thrown at me, try photography, look at reducing the decorative element, look at the shapes of marrowfat peas but no real consensus on a particular direction which makes things quite difficult for the weekend as I have to decide how to progress my idea.

First of all I'm not really up for photography, It's not my strong point at all and though it's good to try and diversify my skills I don't really have the time to mess about trying to take loads of photos only for them to turn out rubbish and me not have an outcome for this project or my portfolio. It could have potential but I have alot on at the moment and having to be time efficient means I don't have a couple of days to possibly waste experimenting with photography that could turn out crap.

I don't want to feature peas on the packaging, it's too literal and obvious and the FROMTHEGARDEN brand would offer seasonal dips and side dishes, not just peas. Moreover I just absolutely don't think it needs to make it any more obvious to the customer that it is a pea based dip, through the two sides of the packaging you can see the peas (and since my mushy peas would be lightly crushed not pulped there would be no mistaking them for anything else) and it would say 'mushy garden peas' quite clearly about three times on it so if you don't get what it is from that, you don't deserve my peas.

There was also a suggestion that I consider making the mushy peas an italian product based on a broad bean dip but I think this misses the point of rebranding mushy peas. Also this ignores the recent trend for celebrating traditional british food and would mean it couldn't be served as a side with fish and chips

I think Neil's feedback about exploring the visuals of gardens has a little more mileage in it as I really want to communicate the fresh, local, organic and nutritious aspects of the product.

Which is kind of why I think that my original idea is really not that bad. It gets across these things which I have found in my research to be of great importance to Waitrose's customer.

Maybe I'll try and vary this idea a bit and try out a couple of the things suggested and my direction will become a bit more clear because at the moment my thinking is a bit all over the place.

Waitrose Branding

As I am targeting Waitrose customers for my mushy peas product, researching their own branding which they use to appeal to this demographic is a good starting point for understanding what their aesthetic tastes are.

One of the strongest elements of Waitrose's visual branding are the illustrations they use on their bags for life, essentials range packaging and various instore boards and posters. I found a good example of these on their website on a page showing which foods are in-season when.

http://www.waitrose.com/food/foodseasonality/britishseasons.aspx

The images have an intensely rustic quality, using a rough line capturing the basic form of the subject and a loose application of tone and colour, which often spills outside the object onto the ground. This reinforces the idea of freshness through the raw, uncontrived imagery, We get the idea (through the splatters and colour splashes), that these food items are exuding colour which we associate with potency, freshness and vitality.

They have obviously chosen illustrator Emma Dibben (http://www.emmadibben.com) for this style as they want to communicate these things about their product to their customer who they obviously feel strongly values freshness in their produce.

The illustrations are also quite dramatic with their vivid colours adding vibrancy and splatters creating an energetic feel as they are indexical signs of the illustrator using a quick, animated process as they look random and unintentional. The way in which Emma Dibben imbues a sense of energy and enthusiasm into these images makes them quite celebratory of the food portrayed which reflects the likely attitudes of the typical Waitrose customer who would most likely be shopping there because they value good food and are willing to pay slightly more than in LIDL, Tesco or Asda.

Innocent

As one of the brands that visually dominates the fridges of most supermarkets, Innocent are key for me to look at. Their visual language reflects their simple ethos of selling pure, healthy products which contain no added anything. The use of slightly off white paper allows the vibrant natural colours of their products to stand out and sell the product rather than resorting to gimmickry. The labels themselves are the epitomy of simple using black for the text, white background and the colour of the product for the flavour description and the mascot (the little guy with the halo).

As well as being simple and clean to suggest purity there is also an endearing, naive quality to innocent's branding. The emblem of the face with the halo is distinctly hand-drawn, it looks like it could have been knocked up in a few minutes and evokes associations with childhood scrawls and doodles. The use of the rounded type (VAG rounded) reinforces the naive, childlike feel of the innocent designs as it alludes to the colourful fridge magnet plastic letters we all used to play with as well as (this may just be me) picture books and charts.




This is an aesthetic which aims to connote purity, naivety and of course innocence and reflects innocent's identity as a personable, friendly brand, the polar opposite of say coca-cola (who have ironically just bought a stake in innocent) whose branding is slick, colourful and brash.

Innocent's branding has been aped or at least drawn upon extensively by a multitude of competitors in the healthy food and drinks market and the use of rounded sans serifs, minimal colours, clean designs has become pretty much THE visual language for products which want to appear healthy.

Although I want consumers to understand that my product is healthy and will have to heed this visual language, the absolute last thing I want to do is just mimic innocent as for one my product is completely different (but not a million miles away from their new veg pots) but also I hate the idea of just adopting the existing visual language because people will 'get it'. I think products are successful because they stand out (like innocent) and look good in their own right, if I saw an innocent wannabe next to innocent I would not pick the imitator. That said I know branding is a bit more complicated than that and that it cannot be so individual as to confuse, my mushy peas package cannot look like a pot of boot polish or a pouch of sugar coated chocolate based snack foods.

I think I will try and draw upon the principle that innocent have used successfully of letting the colour of the product do the selling. As I stated in my last blog I want the product itself to be a lush green, exuding healthiness, purity, nature and freshness. In accordance with this I'm also going to do a quick study of original source packaging as they are another brand who use this principle well.

Research:

http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/Case-Studies/All-Case-Studies/Innocent-Smoothies/

Interesting Design Council article on innocent

http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/Case-Studies/All-Case-Studies/Innocent-Smoothies/Packaging-refresh/

Design Council article on innocent focusing more on branding

Mushy Peas

The latest project we've been given is to rebrand a formerly popular food product which is now generally regarded as undesirable and naff. From the list of various 70's treats (lard, tapioca, fondue, rice pudding etc) I chose to try and make mushy peas more appealing. I think the main reason that mushy peas have fallen out of favour is the general trend towards foods that are fresh and unprocessed. We have all seen Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and others on T.V advocating fresh produce and, coupled with the mistrust surrounding processed foods, this has been the force behind a massive shift in attitudes towards food.

To bring mushy peas back onto the dinner-plates of Britain then, the product needs to be made fresher and more nutritious. Mushy peas are actually not made from small garden peas that we buy frozen and have on the side of various dinners. Instead garden peas are left to mature and dry out to become marrowfat peas which are then boiled down with some sodium bicarbonate to soften before salt, sugar and green food colouring are added (the product becomes a less vibrant grey-green when boiled so to make it the fluorescent green colour we associate with mushy peas they add some chemicals that are banned in most of europe, and are under a voluntary ban by alot of stores and chippies).

Now I like mushy peas but what I've just described sounds despicable so what I propose to do is move mushy peas from the tinned foods section to the fresh soups, sauces, smoothies and dips fridge in the supermarket and use fresh green peas (or frozen ones which have been defrosted since these are actually more nutritious) along with nice fresh ingredients like lemon juice, fresh herbs and olive oil that many top chefs use in their mushy pea recipes (which will preserve the peas to some degree). Hopefully, the peas would retain a lush green colour and look really nourishing and tasty as opposed to the artificial toxic glow of processed mushy peas.

They would appear in the refrigerated section with fresh dips, soups and smoothies and I will need to research some of these in order to establish the competition and also get ideas for the packaging. Brands such as Covent Garden and Innocent spring to mind instantly but I'll have a proper browse in Waitrose to see the other products I am up against. Upmarket Waitrose is really the supermarket I envisage my product being in as I anticipate the fresh produce will drive the cost of my product up to well over the 18p Asda Smart Price Mushy Peas or even the 48p Bachelors Chip Shop Style version. This is not to say it would be sold nowhere else, it's just that aiming the product at the customers of a particular store helps me to picture the type of person who would buy it.


Research:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/apps/ifl/food/recipes/queryengine?templatestyle=refine_by_1_gg&orig_kw=&config=db&scope=recipes&page=1&pagesize=15&attrib_26=keywords&oper_26=eq&val_26_1=mushy+peas&submit=Search

BBC food mushy peas recipes

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/jamie-oliver/minty-mushy-peas-recipe/index.html

Jamie Oliver mushy peas recipe

http://www.mushypeas.co.uk/aboutpeas.html?pid=3

Lockwoods Mushy Peas website complete with 'mushy malcolm' mascot lol

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/heston_blumenthal/article631377.ece

Heston Blumenthal and his test tube mushy peas

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1633141,00.html

article on food trends in UK

Debussy Research- Tony Blair Stationery

As I was first given the brief to design business papers for a celebrity the class was directed to research Lucienne Robert's designs for Tony Blair's new papers.

Roberts created these after Blair had resigned as PM as the identity for 'The Office of Tony Blair'. This is acknowledged in the visual language of the design which has a distinctly ordinary feel with the use of the slab face 'serifa' and thick bars underlining this creating an aesthetic which looks far from the formal, statesmanlike identity of a prime-minister.

I can appreciate why the project was well received, the designs handle well the step down from PM, creating an identity which is appropriately less formal (Blair is now a public speaker and does charity work so appearing approachable is key). However I'm not as amazed by it as some seem to be (it won the Wallpaper Magazine 'award for best stationery' and design critics seem to love it) it's a tight, well conceived piece of simple design but nothing more.

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/images/uploads/2008/01/february186.jpg

Internet!

After a massive ordeal getting the web at my house I am finally online, which explains the sudden flurry of posts.

If you like not being treated like a tiny human wallet by big companies, don't get your internet from Virgin, if I ever see Richard Branson I'll be having words with that man.

Debussy Research

Looking into the life of Claude Debussy was surprisingly interesting. I never had any music lessons or anything as a kid so although I don't dislike classical music I've never really paid it much attention and knew practically nothing about it. So when I picked Debussy out of the bag to design business papers for I had a few pre-conceived ideas of what the guy would be like. The image of a severe, fusty old man with a gaunt face soon disappeared when I read about how he defied the establishment by producing music that subverted rigid conventions and earned him condemnation and dismissals as 'bizarre'.

The book Modern Music: A Concise History by Paul Griffiths opens with the sentence "if modern music may be said to have had a definite beginning then it started with the flute melody the opening of the Prelude a L'apres-midi d'un faune".

So far from being irrelevant and boring Debussy was a maverick and has had a big influence on music today. On Spotify I was listening to The Album Leaf (whilst researching Debussy), an solo-ambient rock project and read on the accompanying review for the album; In a Safe Place (The Album Leaf – In a Safe Place) in which the reviewer draws parallels between the project and Debussy (weird coincidence!).

I also read; An Illustrated Guide To Composers Of Classical Music by Peter Hammond which profiled Debussy, painting a portrait of an impulsive, brash ladies man who hated routine and dubbed himself as 'the French musician' (kind of as if he was the only French musician).

I listened to the music as well and made a Spotify playlist if you want to check it out; Debussy

I enjoyed it actually, it's relaxing, refreshing and reminded me that the music I listen to makes up a very narrow section of the variety of stuff out there.

Thank You Research

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man"

I found this quote, attributed to Albert Einstein, whilst researching bees for the 'thank you' project. It outlines, pretty succinctly, why they are vital to humankind. I've also read various articles on the web about the bee situation which are linked to here;

BBC campaign to save bees

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7739798.stm

Why are europe’s bees dying?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/regions/south_west/8250136.stm

Bees ‘poisoned’ by farm chemicals

http://www.saveourbees.org.uk/index.asp

Save our bees campaign website

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-the-bees-and-the-human-race.html

Visual Research on flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33211454@N04/sets/72157622460964039/

Thank you-Debussy

First thing monday morning on our first day back at uni after the huge summer holiday we were given our first brief with the crate for this scheduled on friday, I wont pretend it wasn't a shock to the system and I thought we'd probably ease into project work with a london trip or gallery visit and some fun day briefs in teams (like type and tape or something similar) before diving right into it again but I suppose that would only be putting it off and since we don't have a lot of time in this busy year it makes sense just to get straight into it.

The brief was at least a pleasant one with ample room to impose our personality on the outcome. We were invited to thank someone of our choosing using whatever visual medium we thought would convey this best. I chose to subvert the some'one' part of this brief and instead decided to thank a species. Bee populations worldwide are in a rate of decline which is quite unnerving due to the fact they pollinate one third of our food supply. They are vital to our species, Albert Einstein said that If all bees died out we would follow in 4 years. Despite this we continue to develop on their habitats, building on land where flowering plants naturally grow and use pesticides which poison them.

There are various campaigns which offer free seeds of the type of flowering plants that if planted in the garden, will turn it into a place where bees can thrive. However, these are mostly internet based and require prior knowledge of the plight of the bee in order for the eventual user of this product to research and order it. My idea is that I would Thank the bees by designing a free seed packet which outlines the situation in such a way that if it was distributed to the public (on a high street, at a stall at a festival or fair for example) the recipient would read the text on the packet and basically understand the nature of the bee situation, their importance to humankind and therefore want to do their bit by planting the seeds.

We had a crit on this project for which the packet design was unfinished. I spent a fair few hours on the illustration and didn't have time to complete the typographic design of the packet so I went into the crit with an unfinished piece of work which obviously didn't communicate or provoke the response I wanted. My feedback, consequently, wasn't brilliant and I struggled a bit to justify it and explain how it would look eventually as I find speaking to the entire class quite difficult normally never mind when I haven't done it for 5 months and have the pressure of having to say my piece in a minute.

I now have to complete this whilst managing the next brief. This is to design a range of stationary (not pencil cases, protractors and set squares but a business card, letterhead and 'with compliments' slip.) for a famous person picked at random. I got Claude Debussy who I had heard of before and knew was a French classical musician but not alot else. I have just begun research into him and he seems quite the maverick who ignored the dismissals and condemnations of the establishment and pursued his own experimental direction to become one of France's most famous sons. I listened to a few songs on spotify and instantly recognised 'Clair De Lune' (Spotify link- Debussy – Clair De Lune ) from its tranquil intro which I'm sure most people would know if they heard it.He seems like an intriguing character and I look forward to getting stuck into this project.

5 months is a long, long break

after basically half a year off I was pretty relieved to be back at uni, being independent of schedules and deadlines was brilliant for a couple of weeks but when the sun's out and the beach is a 10 minute bike ride away it's difficult to force yourself to stay indoors and work. Without a structure, keeping motivated to produce work is a struggle.

At the beginning of Summer, Me, Rich and Matt (link to blogs) had started up a project which was to simply complete a single drawing everyday and upload it to a group blog (scrawlbrawl). Collectively we found it difficult to upload something everyday and after a few days when nothing was posted, the project sort of fizzled out.

I felt disappointed with myself for not keeping the project going but I continued to try and draw whenever I had spare time and have a fair amount in my sketchbook to show for it. I also embarked on some actual projects.

One of these was a live brief which got sent out on the AIB email for gobbledegook theatre company for some flyer and poster designs for a production about a beach hut called 'the hut' which they liked and actually emailed me telling me they had narrowed it down to a choice between my design and one other person's. In the end they opted for the other designer's but assured me they would consider me for future projects so it was a constructive experience.

Another was a T-shirt design for sorted surf shop which was well received but is probably going to be used next year as they had plenty of unsold t-shirts at the moment.

I also have an ongoing project for my girlfriend's sister to create an illustrative piece based on Lymington for display in her house. For this I am working on some simple line drawings that I will screenprint onto fabric bunting.

Being able to draw purely for pleasure over the summer has helped me to realise a few things about how and what I like to draw which is the starting point for an illustrative style which I felt I've lacked so far. My aim for this year is to start working within and developing this as it's abundantly clear that Graphic designers, Illustrators, Photographers (or whatever other branch of vis com) are successful because they have a certain tone of voice, style or niche which art directors or clients feel is suitable for their product/publication/exhibition or whatever other application. To avoid a formulaic, predictable way of working is a good idea as a portfolio which looks too uniform, with each image a slight variant of the last, will not capture the attention of potential employers as well as a body of work which is clearly identifiable as my own but contains distinct pieces, memorable in their own right.

New Blog

Though last year I learnt a lot of technical, software based stuff, I felt that my illustration and drawing was kind of on the backburner and suffered a little for it. This year I want to shift my focus back onto drawing, using the experience I gained last year to improve and develop it. I'm treating this year as a new start and have redesigned this blog to underline this. If I can keep to it, this blog should be updated every two to three days, I'm going to start posting most of my web research and references for projects up as links or images on here so I don't have to waste money printing off reams of stuff which I'll discard as soon as my projects are over.