OUGD603 Plato Cosmetics - Design Boards - Collaboration / Research (Brief Three)

OUGD603 Plato Cosmetics - Evaluation - Collaboration / Research (Brief Three)

This brief came about when myself and Daniel Gilmartin (Level 6 Illustration) decided that we wanted to work together, however at the beginning we weren’t sure what we would create. We were originally looking into taking part in a D&AD or YCN brief, however we came to the agreement that none of these briefs were suited to both of our skills equally. For this reason we began researching into one of our similar interests; myths and legends. This lead us to create a subscription based cosmetic brand based on The Lost City of Atlantis. We created this brief so that we could collaborate and both contribute an equal amount; I focused on the identity and website design, whilst dan focused on the packaging design.

I really enjoyed this brief as it was really interesting researching into Atlantis and coming up with a relevant concept behind our own brand. The concept of the brand was a subscription based cosmetic brand that would provide a utopian experience, which referenced back to the story of Atlantis. The final resolutions for the brief were really successful as we both made sure that every development was discussed before going further, which meant the brand came together perfectly. 

Within my portfolio, this brief will demonstrate that I can work really well within a team, but also that I am a very concept-driven person. This is a really important aspect to add to my portfolio as it will give me an edge to other students; having spoken to a number of design studios as part of PPP, the main echo from each studio was that concept is key and designing for aesthetic purposes won’t get you very far. 

Our time management of this brief wasn’t as efficient as we had originally planned due to COP being due in, however once COP was completed we began working really successfully together and dedicated a day every week to meet up and discuss further ideas we had. If we were to develop this project further, it would be really interesting to experiment with foiling and different print methods, as we didn’t have enough time for this due to individual engagement with other projects.

OUGD603 Icon A Day - Design Boards - Self-initiated (Brief Four)

OUGD603 Icon A Day - Evaluation - Self-initiated (Brief Four)

The original brief for this project wasn’t considered very well, which made it very difficult to show the resolutions in context. The original brief was to create an icon a day for a whole month based on objects and using a random noun generator. This gave me a lot of obscure resolutions, such as ‘battle’ and ‘chair’, which made it very difficult to put into context. I did, however, manage to create a brief in which I could feature a lot of the relevant icons, which was to create a poster design that included the iconography to promote the refurbished Warrington Market, which will open in 2018. I found this brief was really useful as it began as a way to dedicate some of my time to improve my Adobe Illustrator skills, however it developed into a brief that was very informed. 

I really enjoyed this project as I developed my Illustrator skills which will hopefully benefit me within some of the next briefs that I participate in, it is also really beneficial as I now have icons that I can use in other projects that I complete; I won’t need to design them from scratch.

My time management of this brief was really well executed; I allowed it to run alongside other briefs and dedicated an hour a day to the iconography, which was beneficial as it has given me a break from other projects in which I can still be very productive. 

OUGD603 Plato Cosmetics - Social Media Promotion - Collaboration / Research (Brief Three)

Ideally the social media promotion would be a video of the products being made, however this would make this particular brief last even longer and I feel as though I have already put my all into it, so for this reason I decided to make some social media stills that would serve as promotional material.

The designs are very vague in order to entice the viewer to click through and discover what the company is about.

OUGD603 Plato Cosmetics - Final Website - Collaborative / Research (Brief Three)

Here are the website flats with Dan's illustration for the packaging added, and the photographs of the mock ups. It's really successful as it's now really engaging due to the use of colour, and it follows the same concept. This particular page would turn really colourful when the mouse would hover over the logo design.

This web flat looked a little empty, so I found images online of bath bombs. This works really well as it adds colour to the design and shows what it could look like if the products were real.

I also added a further navigation to this - when the image has the mouse on it the colour will change and show detail about the product, and this will be a click-through link to purchase the product / add it to your favourites for the subscription box.

I then added each web flat into a mock up so you can get a feel of how it would work; it's really successful and navigates really easily, and it's also very different than anything I've seen online previously. 

Finally I created a GIF with all of the website flats in to show how it could work.

OUGD603 Plato Cosmetics - Photographs - Collaboration / Research (Brief Three)