Life's a Pitch - Two Collective

Two Collective is a collective between Stephen Dale and myself. The collective is a merge of the shared skills Stephen and I have. Although we have different skills sets; Stephen with editorial design, identity and finishing and myself with packaging, illustrations both with screen design, we can share and pass on work to each other depending on what work needs to be done for a client. For the production and delivery of our collective, we will create a publication which will feature a QR code that would directly link to our Behance or other social media accounts that showcase our design work. We would get help from Kick Starter, prints from Presission and stock from G.F. Smith and will launch out collective in the Village bookstore.

A Creative Strategy Presentation Reflection

The 10 minute individual presentation was as usual a nerve-wracking experience as I don't like to be the centre of attention nor do I like being judged as I don't feel confident in myself and so, I don't feel confident in showing my work and my experiences.

Initially, I have the idea to get the presentation over and done with as quick as possible but still hitting the minimum time limit. I was getting really bad anxiety as I do every time I am the centre focus but I know I have to do it as it contributes to my final grade. To my surprise, I did finish the presentation just as the timer went off with means I spoke on for longer than I had thought and and tried to get my point across as much as possible.

The layout of the presentation itself looked really minimalistic and didn't exactly represent me but at the same time I didn't know how to do that. However, I did like the simplicity as it looks clean and neat which I like my design work to be.

Creative Report Final Design

https://issuu.com/shelleyhuang97/docs/creative_report_publication

The final creative report features the questions and answers that was in the interview and are separated by chapters in which are on the contents page. The next step would be send the report to Jess herself and have it printed.

OUGD503 Collaborative Practice Refection

As agreed with the team members, the final design for our submission for The Grown Up Chocolate Company was better than we expected. Working with Hannah and Siobhan was easy as they were as motivated as I were with the brief. When we were doing our own set tasks, we still were able to help each other out by using online messaging in which we all replied to each other right away. We only really met 3 times together, and one with just Hannah and I. It was difficult to find time to meet up as we had other work going on and there was a week where Siobhan was ill and one where Hannah and I were in Berlin. So when we did meet, the meetings were productive as it allowed us to focus on the brief and vocalise our ideas whilst being in the moment.

When we were first told we were to collaborate with others in different courses, I was worried and scared as it is out of my comfort zone and I was scared I wouldn't find anyone to work with which wasn't the case at all. I felt more relaxed as we all met each other as I already knew and talked to Hannah. Eventually, it got easier to talk to each other because we all knew that we didn't want to let each other down or slack so we just all did the work and communicated with each other.

The reason why I had chosen this brief is because I have a keen interest in packaging design and pattern design. The brief was very vague about what it wanted us to produce which was exciting as it allows us to be open-minded but at the same time it was difficult as we had no direction and were struggling for ideas. Nevertheless, the final design turned out really well and we are all proud of what we have produced from the pattern design to the packaging design to the webpage design. I am very happy to have worked with Hannah and Siobhan and it makes me more positive about working with the people.

A Creative Strategy Presentation

• Pattern design – lively
• Use shapes or simple design and experiment with different angles
• Unconsciously judge packaging
• Packaging can sell itself
• Packaging in shops are boring
• Good packaging make people more intrigued 
• Cosmetic/pattern packaging 
• Concept of Birchbox having 5 surprises each month, different box design each month

• Wildlife Trust Charity
• Always wanted to create some sort of collection and stationary
• First time making a set
• Exciting because I don’t really do illustrations and want to get into it
• Always wanted to draw and create illustrations but never had an opportunity to
• Not the most confident drawer but it has helped me be more positive about my abilities
• Broad brief – use it to promote issues

• More packaging – I created
• Pattern design although I didn’t make it
• Mock ups and layout of design – a lot of different ideas
• Understand how difficult it is to communicate – busy schedules
• Understand how it is difficult to come up with ideas
• Worthwhile
• Really enjoyed the collaboration
• Really proud of the final design
• Made me feel more positive about working with others

Jess Williams

• Founder of CC (1yr)
• Former Creative Director of Birchbox (4 yrs) created app too
• Inspiration – creates packaging design and pattern design
• Specialises in packaging, brand identity and digital design
• Skype call – nerve-wracking – New York
• Spoke about the industry and how I would consider her as successful but she doesn't
• Told me a lot about being a Creative Director at Birchbox
• She loves working in a team

• Excited to speak to Jess as my self branding is inspired by Birchbox
• If I had more better quality ones, I would give them out to clients and potential employers
• 5 different facts about me
• Quirky, a surprise and not too serious
• Pattern on box showcases me – era born and predominately shows pattern and packaging design
• Not shown my work on social media because I’m not confident enough
• Don’t feel like my work is enough - always self-critical

• Inspiring to hear about creatives in Leeds
• Wanted to move to London but no point
• Sometimes you don’t realise who is behind a good piece of work
• Nice to hear people share stories ad experiences
• Nice to hear designers still wanting to learn from other designers

She Does Digital

• Outlined that men are dominant in digital design
• Empower women to not be intimidated by the digital design industry

• Galerie P98A - Interested in letterpress
• Feel more accomplishment than digital
• Shows that people still like the traditional printing press method
• Surprised that the studio is run by the profit of the prints
• Never done it before and felt intimidated
• Want to learn more about traditional letterpress methods

• Never deigned for a digital experience so I dreaded it at first
• More exciting than thought and it was exciting to see it working
• Amazed myself that I could do this and learn a new skill
• Not too good at publication design
• Struggle with what looks good
• Feel it could be better had I looked into more stock
• Struggle with the layouts 
• Struggle with the InDesign layout process

Concertrat more on:

• Focus more on pattern and packaging design
• Try out unique packaging designs that are Pinterest worthy
• Focus on my drawing/design skills
• Take advantage of screen design since that is a skill I want
• Inspired by She Does Digital – more women in design
• Break stigma of men only in digital work
• Wider set of skills

Take advantage/do more of:

• Take advantage of more traditional methods of printing
• More exciting than digital and you feel like you’ve accomplished a lot more
• However, it takes more time out of your day and requires more effort

• Maybe contact Birchbox or Glossybox about potential internship
• Look into placements for the summer
• Look into more studios around Manchester/Leeds
• I know that not every good studio is in London
• Not really found the packaging I like to make
• Intimated because ‘Meet the team’ are mostly men

Feedback

• It is clearly shown in the presentation that you want to specialise in packaging design by the work you produce.
• Even though you say you're not confident, your work is good.
• I know that having your work out there for everyone to see can be difficult but that is how you get yourself out there and it will be vital for being in the industry.

Creative Report Designs

As Jess expressed that her favourite Pantone colours are the fiery reds, I thought to try and use different shades and tints of red on the pattern design with the tones to implement that rather than using just one red colour.

The pattern designs are created as Birchbox are known for their pattern deigns on their boxes and also to show Jess' fun-loving personality. 

The cover of the design is very simple and minimalist as inside of the publication will feature all different pattern designs so the outside can allure to the mystery of the inside. Sofia Regular is used on 'An interview with' as I wanted it to look bolder but not heavier in weight and also stand out as much as Jess' name. 'Jess Williams' is in the typeface Sofia Light as it looks more sleek and not as heavily weighted as the Regular typeface. I also wanted her name to be the main focal point so it is it is white so it stands out more than the 'An interview with'.

 

I tried to keep the designs as simple as possible, only using limited colours but also make it stand out. 6 designs were created but only 5 designs were needed to separate the chapters. The pattern design on all 6 images are non-consistent. Even though they are all patterns, they don't follow the same form as it gives the designs diversity and different movements making it more fun. The chapter numbers use the same grey and is in Sofia Regular like the cover and the chapter names are in Sofia Light to show differentiation and to make it look similar but not the same.

'Out Of Order' Exhibition

3rd year Illustration from Leeds College of Art had held an exhibition at Munro House called 'Out
of Order' that showcases individual print methods such as lino, digital, screen print, embroidery and publication.

The exhibition was a very inspiring as i've always wanted to try to and have recently been doing illustrations/draw more. To see the illustrations in different styles and contexts has made me more interested in illustration and although I may not be good at it, I would like to try it out so I can further define my practice.

Creative Report Typeface Considerations

The typeface that will be used for Jess and her answers will be in the typeface 'Sofia Pro Light' as she explains that she is a fan of the typeface and uses Sofia for the Communal Creative branding.

For the questions, Helvetica Bold Oblique will be used as I am a neutral outsider that is interviewing Jess about her experiences. The reason why Bold Oblique is chosen is so that readers can easily differentiate the questions from the answers.

Creative Report Initial Sketches

I knew from the start when interviewing Jess that I would want some sort of pattern design on the creative report as pattern design is a huge part of Birchbox and because it would seem more fun to produce something bright and bold. From the answers on the interview, I sketched out elements so that they would be cohesive to the stuff she mentions and so it would give the creative report character.

The reason as to why I want to create a publication is because she said she is a big reader and the elements she mentions would work well in a publication.

Berlin Experience

Having never visited Berlin, I didn't have much to go from and no idea what it would be like. The whole atmosphere of Berlin was quite relaxed and calm. Having only been in Berlin for a few days, a lot was done in terms of walking, visiting places and going into shops since everything was pretty much walking distance. I like that Berlin is a creative city where you can go into shops and they would be art supply, stationery and art shops. In the short amount of days we were there, I had visited Hamburger Bahnhof, The Reichstag, Bauhaus Archiv, Galerie P98a, Ace & Tate and shops.