M.Y.O.B – Initial Designs

Week 2 prep – Logo designs

As the Graphic Communicator I was nominated to create the logo. But I wanted the whole team to be involved so we discussed what sort of styles and colours would be used and noted these down. While an other did sketch ups of what we were discussing. Screenshot 2020-01-23 at 13.30.18

Using all this information I created a mock up of two simplistic cacti and asked for feedback from my team. They suggested adding details and texture. where I added the spikes and bandage symbolising the broken, unwanted plants being restored to become personalised and cared for.

Screenshot 2020-01-23 at 13.37.12

Taking this further I wanted to add a background so that the image can be placed anywhere with ease. We felt the yellow was almost like a baby store colours and the team wanted to stay with a sunset theme and pastel colours so used the orange.

Screenshot 2020-01-23 at 13.34.30

Being a Typographer I looked into what different fonts would look like experimenting with the opposite extreme and realising the bigger bolder fonts are more eye catching and engaging. a student at a glance will know immediately what our company is called.

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M.Y.O.B. – Customer Persona

Week One – who are we selling to – stereotyping 

Discussing as a team we created a profile of who our most ideal/ likely consumer will be –then showcased by product student + adjusted by myself. Naming her Lucy Davies being a welsh surname would be more likely than Scottish like my own. We decided for a female – although would be open to all– because females are more drown to our cute aesthetics and so forth more likely to buy our products.

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We then looked at how a more stereotypical student would answer these questions using our group of 5 as a base line of ideas. However, we decided to make the persona vegan as this is more of a current ‘tend’ or lifestyle that we can make links to within the branding of the business, meaning vegans are most likely to care for nature and balance so in-keeping with the plant ideas.

M.Y.O.B. – Ideas

Week One – First thoughts

Brainstorming ideas – it was suggested to subcategorise the products and go from there.

ideas

The top 4 ideas included my own being scrunchies and a small box for when you are at the gym and in need of a place to keep jewellery. The other two being simular things to use personalise plant based objects. One to decorate a pot with hydro paint and the other to personify a cactus or a plant.

Taking a quick gage on how people felt it was decided that personifying a plant wins when looking at both our options and our 5 agreed values.

 

Mind Your Own Business

Week One – Introduction – Due 13th Feb

Being a Graphic Designer my dream is to run my own business and to make that happen I need to learn how a business operates. One of the best ways to learn is trial and error. Joining this study means in a team we can create and test a micro business and if we wanted to move further branching out of Cardiff met and into the public eye.

My team has four others – including a product designer, fine artist, fashion and an architect student. This diverse team is well positioned to be practical, have good aesthetics and brand awareness. We decided for this project the product student should take control and be essentially the manager of the team but overall we all make the decisions together. The Architect to become the banker, the fine artist to become the photographer and video editor, the fashion student to help with the product and stylising of the company. I would then do the branding of the company.

Next we decided the five core values being;

  • Communication – both within our company and to the customers
  • time management – setting and achieving deadlines + if need be delivery times
  • sustainability – eco-friendly + relevant so keeping with the trends
  • open mindedness – taking criticism + try new things + hearing new ideas
  • honesty – say when things aren’t done + to the customers.

48 Hour Project

Tuesday 1st – Brief and initial thoughts

Having 48 hours only to create a whole new rebrand of the student voice was going to be challenging. With the group of 5, I made sure we had a clear grasp of what the Cardiff Met’s Student Voice is about and where they want to go. So our key objectives are to;

  • Increase awareness and engagement with campaigns for both staff and student
  • Create a brand image of them to apply into both digital and physical items
  • stay within the guidelines of Inappropriate influence rules
  • Have the designs bilingual as well as their personal requests

Diving straight in we looked into who the target audience and how that links to this project. Being our own audience we looked into what we like and what we want, searching through trends and patterns.

In conclusion we found that the style is usually black and white with one or two accent colours representing the person. To use this in design we decided to have vivid, aluminous green as our stand out colour as this brighter colour was trending and is just the right level of punch to grab the attention of walking by students.

Work Experience with Hex Week 1

Week starting Monday 24th June

This week has been a whirlwind of exciting elements – some that I am familiar with and others that are brand new to me.

As the first day approached I was told the essentials but little did I know that I was diving straight into client work. Monday morning was relaxed with a meeting discussing last weeks progress and this weeks aims, where I met the whole team. They were really chill and easy to get along with. The team has a lot of knowledge that they shared throughout the week so far. 

As I’d only ever worked for one client before I was apprehensive to work with a digital agency but with the calmness of the team I was able to understand the brief and get straight to work. This being a research task on the competitors of one of their clients, discovering the patterns of the social media posting. Leading onto the making of a spreadsheet including the caption, image and date of release which would then be pitched to the client.

Next I was tasked with working with another colleague – Jai. This project was very interesting with new elements, being that the company had strict brand guidelines. Jai was able to talk me through these regiments and keep me on track. I was able to design and create 3 pull up posters from the website information and the guidelines. The task followed through and lead onto the making of banners, which I found simple as the design was already made. 

On one day I was invited to join a client meeting – this is where I had no experience. From the meeting I learnt the ways of talking to a client correctly, which means that I have the ability to go forth through uni and into my career having an advantage over others without clientele experience. 

This meeting lead onto my next task to create a catalogue with all of his products. Through using the clients website (created by Hex themselves) I was able to easily find the information on each product placing them within my design. Due to the original order form being a little off from being sent over various different softwares I really struggled finding the correct balance to fit in with the catalogue. I asked many questions mainly on the order form that goes on the end page to be ripped out and sent back to the company after handed out to the customers. Once designed the whole Hex team came together and offered suggestions and tips to adjust the finer details for a more impactful design. They all helped with deciding the fonts, the colour scheme and how to go about the pixelation within the client’s logo. With all of these features thoroughly examined we were ready to send to the client. 

Awaiting for approval I was set another task to help out the company quickly with their up and coming project. I had to do a very basic task of re-arranging some words so that it fits within the design Hex has created. This proved to be more difficult as the main typeface chosen was not compatible with the software I was using. After finding the secondary font I was able to create an almost cluttered infographics of words placed within the given measurements. This fast pace work has given me more of the idea in what a real world work environment would be not just a simulated version within Uni.

Overall, I am excited to start another week within We Are Hex and get stuck in more with each project. I have learnt how to brand myself when talking to clients, keep on track in a fast pace environment and how to be around other creative minds on an intellectual level instead of the tutor and student style at University. Therefore, I feel more confident as a designer going into the dangerous world of creation.

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