I decided to brainstorm what I wanted from 3rd year as a basis to thinking of briefs. I noted down possible options that I had already as well as subject topics that I was interested in designing for. I also thought of what kind of design I wanted to do which predominately was branding and packaging. Other areas that I wanted to explore more was illustration and photography as I touched on these last year and I wanted to develop them further into my work. I thought of things i'm currently interested in and what summer has kind of brought about which is mainly restoration projects, travel, interior design and getting back to crafting things. I want this year to be more about my interests and design coming together so I enjoy the practical side more.
I also started looking at my branding after ending on it last year. I noted down what I wanted to come across in my branding: simple, professional and concepts. I then thought about my own interests, hobbies and personality which could be built on and into my branding or ways of showing these aspects of me. I think that a very important part of networking and displaying yourself as a designer is you not just your work so I want to create ways of communicating these aspects of my life.
I looked at what I did for my branding at the end of second year and picked out the 'HI symbol which was my favourite aspect. I wanted to build on my branding carrying forward this logo but to redesign the visual aspects I had created with a large focus on the digital aspect as I didn't actually make a website.
I looked at websites for inspiration and picked out key things about the designs which I favoured.
I found inspiration of colours from a section of a wall piece of designs I created in my bedroom. The neutral tones and compressed stock would well for the atheistic I was going for. I drew colours from a photograph (along the right) and then revised them (along the bottom).
I looked at different combinations of these colours as a working palette for my branding. When I had a selection I was fond of I then tried it with very faint tones as a base of the site which I then added a dark brown tone to for a near black defining colour which would be good for text.
I put the base tones against the rest of the palette as it was going to act as a base. One of my nicknames is Bilbo so I thought of using this as my logo instead of the initial 'HI I had created. I tried finding a typeface for what I was going for but struggled.
In the initial brainstorm I had thought of surrounding the 'HI logo within a shape so I had thought of a circle and a square but also a combination which formed a new shape which mainly curved but with one point. When playing with the nickname Bilbo I noticed the shape in the B and how they could create a bespoke typeface for the logo. Fitting it into another typeface however didn't work how I had hoped so I could have to create it myself.
Concentrating on the web aspect of my portfolio I created a navigation of what would be on the site. I then drew up some different designs focusing on the atheistic aspects I had already discovered I wanted to use to display my branding list: simple, professional, concept.
Going back to what I wanted to do in third year, from the topics I had listed I broke down and placed them under the area of design I was interested in and what they would in tail.
This set me up to then go on and write briefs with a key focus on what subjects and what type of design I was planning for my portfolio.
Brief 1: I wanted to create a high end fashion label with an advertising campaign as I love the clean, strong visual design that the market currently holds as well as the extravagant window displays and store interior. It has always been something that has interested me and that I have been influenced by from a young age due to my mothers career therefore I feel it will be a topic I will enjoy experimenting with. This could lead me to get very creative with the concept of the brand as well as the packaging and campaign. With the different routes to go down and explore I feel that this will be a long time period brief to really develop the brand to be strong and designed across lots of different outputs.
Brief 2: I love packaging and the packaging of things which include gifting. Different stocks and materials can be given new purpose with a bit of experimentation and thought and gifting can bring about a concept eg. presents are themed with the packaging. My plan with this is to create a brand which bring all the simple fundamentals together under one range.
Brief 3: With my interest and new obsession with interior and restoration projects I thought that a home furniture store would be a perfect subject for me to focus it into my design aspirations. I felt that combining the branding with a campaign would help bring my concept skills to light as well as strengthen them in the area of marketing brands.
Brief 4: I wanted a brief that was going to be open and would allow me to be creative as well as bring about aspects of my personality to my portfolio. I had ideas in mind when writing this brief but I wanted it to allow me to be inspired by what I meet in life as I often meet with things that inspire me from day to day experiences. As this is an aspect that really defines my thought process and fuels my creativity I wanted a brief to explore and demonstrate it.
Brief 5: With the new obsession with own brand products with large brands, in particular supermarkets, offering cheaper basis products I decided that I wanted to design an own brand. Mainly because of its current popularity in design but also because it means having to design something to look cheap rather than luxury which changes the design atheistic completely. I struggled however to think of a brand which doesn't have it's own brand already as the market has already been taken full advantage of. I then thought of Selfridges, a company who's design and branding I love. I therefore wrote out a brief for a 'super posh' range which would take on the atheistic of own brand products. However I felt that this ended up being confusing as I had to keep the brands history and reputation which is luxury products and expense but create a cheap own brand range. This didn't seem a plausible avenue the brand would take necessarily unless it was a novelty range.
Brief 5: Due to the confusion in the last brief I wrote I looked back at the subject list I wanted to do to get myself back on track. After thinking about Selfridges I really wanted to do something with there brand and when looking back I noticed I had wrote makeup/skincare. This then led me to write a brief about an own brand make up/skincare range for Selfridges called 'Self'. This seemed a much more appropriate avenue for the brand and a more realistic brief in the industry. The initial brief still has a lot of desire to me and feel it could be a follow on brief if it was more thought through and pinned down.
After writing the briefs ideas formulated and I started to capture ideas and thoughts so I didn't forget.
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