Submission Boards and Proof of Submission

As part of our submission to YCN, we had to create a set of design boards to submit. My partner mostly worked on putting the design boards together as this was part of his responsibility within the group. His skills in type and layout are a lot stronger than mine and I feel that he best knows how to lay things out in order to maximise the impact of the imagery and also to make the work we've produced look more professional. We discussed design board content beforehand and he showed me what he'd produced afterwards and it was something we were both happy with. All that we had to do then was submit. Below is our proof of submission.

I am happy that this brief is over with now, I've enjoyed working collaboratively more than I thought I would and I can see how working across disciplines can improve my practice and also broaden my contacts. I didn't enjoy the brief as much as I thought I would and I think this is because towards the end I was just bored of it. I feel that if I enter a competition like YCN again I need to make sure i'm really engaged with the brief and I'm choosing it for reasons that are important to me. 

Final Outcomes

These are the final outcomes we have produced for the brief. I'm personally quite happy with how it's turned out overall. I see the benefit of working with a Graphic Design student. I don't think I'd have been able to complete the brief to a good enough standard just using my own skill set, for example, I don't really understand how things should be layed out and what considerations you have to take to create a landing page so it's been good to have someone else to work with who fully understands that aspect of the brief.  Overall the design is cohesive with the image that The Grown Up Chocolate Company already have. We haven't strayed to far from their standard branding but have managed to create a unique and playful outcome that portrays our interpretation of the brief. 

Our next step is to create the design boards and then submit to YCN. 

Final Illustrations and Application of Pattern

This is the final set of motifs that I've created for the brief. I'm pleased with how they've turned out, although they're quite simple I feel that they can still communicate the fun, playful message behind The Grown Up Chocolate Company. My next task after editing these images was to apply them to the outer sleeve template provided in the Project Pack for this brief. This took quite a while to figure out as I had to make sure I was leaving space for the logo, ingredients and some other mandatory logo's that the brief specified had to be on the outer sleeve. 

I'm happy with how the application of my images has turned out. I feel that keeping the background white was a good decision so as not to make the image over-crowded or bit too busy. I found it hard to work to the size that was asked of me. I didn't realise how small the box was but I feel that I've used the space effectively to create something that fits the brief to a good standard. I've sent my partner the design over, he's really happy with how it's turned out but just wants to make a few tweaks to some of the logo placement and sizing. I'm happy that I'm working with someone that understands more about the design aspect to a brief like this, I feel like his input will definitely improve our submission. My next task is to send my illustrations and the box over to my partner. He will then start to finalise the work he's been doing on the landing page and we can then start to put together our design boards ready for submission. 

Imagery Development

After meeting with my partner again and going through my ideas, we've decided to go ahead with following the route of cut paper and looking at how we can use simple motifs of the different ingredients to create a fun, playful pattern that can be applied to both the box and the landing page.

I started out with some simple roughs in my sketchbook. I then sent these over to my collaborative partner and he seemed to like the direction I was heading in. I decided to use cut paper to create some shape-based motifs that were easy to move around and edit on photoshop. I'm really enjoying working with cut paper at the minute and I feel that it's the easiest way for me to work with shape. When I'm drawing things, I can only understand it in terms of the lines that are down on the page, but when I translate that into cut paper, it's easier for me to identify the different shapes that are used to create the overall image. 

These are the motifs that I've created as a base for the pattern that we will be creating. I don't think this will be a repeat pattern as such, but more just random placement to create an interesting composition on the small space that we have to work with. I will be scanning these into Photoshop and editing the colours and adding small amounts of texture. Me and my partner decided that it would be best for me to create the pattern that will be used on the outer-sleeve of the box and then I will send my files over to him so that he can apply them to the landing page that he is creating. 

Although we've separated the brief into different tasks for each person, we are still communicating, sharing ideas and giving each other feedback so that we can create an outcome that we are both happy with and that we both think fits the brief well. 

Visual Starting Points

I've finally been able to get a start with the visuals. After a lot of jumping from idea to idea with my collaborative partner, we decided it might be best if he steps back a little bit and just let's me move ahead with the visual aspect of this brief. I think this will work a lot better and will help us both speed this process up.

I've noted down some visual starting points and am going to start drawing this week so that i can get my roughs to my partner on Thursday, ready to start developing my final illustrations.

Visual Starting Points:

Ingredients:
- sugar
- cocoa (beans/butter)
- milk
- vanilla
- coconut
- caramel
- toffee
- fruit
- nut
- peanut
- sea salt
- ginger

I could maybe develop a pattern using these ingredients? Possibly using cut paper or maybe lino cut to produce a more handmade, rustic kind of feel

The Grown Up Chocolate Company - Visual Approach Research

Throughout our research and ongoing discussion during this collaborative process, me and my collaborative partner have identified multiple different themes that we could follow through on this brief with. We are struggling to decide how we want to represent The Grown Up Chocolate Company in our packaging and the feeling that we want to give the consumer via our packaging. We've decided to look into different visual approaches/styles individually in order to gain better understanding of where we could take this. We will then be meeting up to collate and review our research and decide on a final route to follow.

I find this illustration to be really visually striking. The combination of cut paper, collage and hand drawn elements is really well executed and gives off a very hand made feel. I think the combination of all the textures of the different bits of paper that have been used help give the image more depth, rather than just using pieces of flat coloured paper. I think an approach like this would work well with our brief due to the hand crafted look it has. The Grown Up Chocolate company are proud of being a handmade confectionary company, and following this through with handmade illustrations would fit perfectly. I also think the idea of using different scraps of paper could be made relatable to our brief. Possibly taking this approach and using bits of sweet wrappers/gift wrap would be something to look into? 

Shaped based imagery is a simple yet effective way to make an illustration really stand out. I was drawn to this piece due to its ability to be sophisticated whilst still remain quite playful. I think the elegance is mainly down to the clean cut shapes that have been used to construct the image. The colours used then relax the whole image down a little, giving it a more fun, playful feel. This is also a good way to approach the brief and would fit in well with our target audience. Fun playful chocolate bars for sophisticated adults.

I really feel that collage/cut paper could be a really strong route to go down with this brief. I think it helps that it ties in with The Grown Up Chocolate Company's current use of imagery but allows room for expansion and personalisation, not necessarily just within this brief but also for other products that the company might come out with in the future. I also think that the idea of collage and cut paper could be useful when thinking about the personalisation element of their new product. Would it be possible to create something that the customer could also edit and change? For example if we used collage based illustration, could we make it so that the customer could add their own images into the collage? This is something I will ask my collab partner when we meet up tomorrow. 

I've also been looking at how emrboidery is used within illustration recently. This has kind of sparked another idea, not necessarily using embroidery, but more the idea of 'de-facing' an image. I was thinking that maybe we could create a set of 'stickers' or 'filters' that the customer could apply over their own uploaded image. These stickers would be reminiscent of childhood, possibly looking at face paints? This is a past-time that the majority of people would have engaged in when they were kids and it would be fun to let the customer apply these illustrated face paint stickers over the top of their own image. I think this is a route that we could look at following, especially because it connects with The Grown Up Chocolate Company's idea of childhood, they make chocolate that are the same as the ones you'd eat as children, but with an adult twist, so it'd make sense to look into injecting bit of our childhood back into our adult lives in terms of the packaging as well. 

I think I've got a lot of different ideas and questions to take to my next collar meeting so I'm going to write them down and make sure they're brought up in discussion so that I can blog about it after the meeting. I'm also hoping that at our next session we will be able to get working on the practical aspect of this brief and start assigning tasks for each other to be working on. 

The Grown Up Chocolate Company - Confectionary Specific Research

I found a packaging website called Lovely packaging that had a section dedicated to confectionary packaging. I found it really useful to look through this because along with pictures of confectionary branding/packaging, there were statements from the companies/designers on why they had chosen to use certain elements in their design and how this related back to brand values.

I particularly found the packaging for 'Moonstruck Fortunato' to be aesthetically striking and the concept behind the design to be very strong. The packaging takes inspiration from the location in which the company is based and incorporates architecture, landmarks, nature and some folklore into the imagery. To me this promotes that idea of handmade/locally produced goods. Having a strong connection in your packaging with the identity/location/morals of the brand is a good way to create packaging that has a strong concept and is executed well.

  From this research I've started thinking about how we can tell the story of The Grown Up Chocolate Company through the packaging that we have been asked to design. Although the personalisation of the chocolate bars is key in this brief, the packaging leaves for other options to be explored. We already know that The Grown Up Chocolate company is a small, bespoke business, operating in the Harlow area of London. We also know that The Grown Up Chocolate Company creates chocolate bars that are reminiscent of chocolates we ate as children, with an adult twist. Is there a way that we can incorporate the things we used to do as children, or the things we wish we could still do as adults into the packaging design? Is there a way that we can bring the origins and roots into our packaging design? And if so how would we do it? These are questions that I will bring to my next meeting with my collaborative partner.

The Grown Up Chocolate Company - Collaborative Meeting 09/02/12

Today me and my collaborative partner met up to go over the progress we were making on our project. Ste told me that Graphics had a talk from YCN and they mentioned that the projects that did best tended to be the ones where people had pushed the brief further and done more than expected/asked from them. From this we spoke about possibly expanding our project and rather than just looking at the packaging and landing page, we could possibly look at incorporating other things into our project such as extras within the packaging, web/mobile ideas and a way to get customers to return or further personalise their experience with The Grown Up Chocolate Company.

We've also decided to separately research different avenues that we could go with this project and then share them with each other next week and choose a final theme/style that we want to carry forward for the project. After this we will be able to give each other set tasks and start to develop the work further.

Contract

The Grown Up Chocolate Company - Updated Timeplan

This thursday, me and Ste met up to review and re-organise our timeplan. After the christmas break we fell behind with this brief a little bit due to other priorities such as upcoming deadlines and personal briefs that we were working on. We've only planned up until the end of February as once we start moving the designs forward, we'll have to take things week by week, seeing what the other persons been working on and where we need to go next. We are going to continue to meet up every thursday during responsive sessions or after our lectures to review, plan and work on the brief.
Hopefully this revised timeplan and the 'Todoist' app will allow us to be a lot more efficient with our time planning and will help us keep track of our individual and collaborative progress.

The Grown Up Chocolate Company - Todoist App

This weekend we downloaded an app called 'Todoist'. The app allows you to create joint to-do lists which we thought was a perfect way to keep each other up to date on the progress made in between group meetings. The app allows us to add and complete tasks and keep a conversation going about our project. It let's you know what tasks need to be completed by a certain date and how your collaborative partner is doing with their workload. It also lets you assign tasks to each individual which helps us see who needs to do what.

I feel like this app will really help us keep on top of the brief and keep track of our own individual and collaborative progress. I also think this app will be useful to me personally and help me keep up to date and on track with other modules. 

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The Grown Up Chocolate Company - Existing Packaging Analysis

The Grown Up Chocolate Companies current uses playful colours, bold typography, and black and white photography to portray their brand message and identity. The main colour used is usually a vibrant pink colour, and this is maintained across a lot of their product packaging and throughout their website. They also expand the colours on some of the packaging to reflect the chocolate bar that the packaging is for, for example salted caramel has caramel coloured type and fruit and not has a red/brown colour type. This is something we could possible touch on when looking at developing our own ideas for the personalised packaging. 

Alongside the typography and colour, the other most prominent part of the current branding is the black and white photographs of children pretending to be adults. This enhances the idea that the chocolates are not for children and that kids will do anything to get their hands on the product, including dressing up as adults. 

All in all, the current branding is quite simple, I think it stands out from other available brands as it uses a white background and bold, bright coloured typography where as a lot of other brand use richer colours such as purpler, red and gold. Even though the branding is simple, it still sits together well and works across a variety of formats which is important when creating a brand identity. I think one of the main challenges for us is going to be keeping our design cohesive with their current branding whilst still standing out from other submissions. 

The Grown Up Chocolate Company - Applied Illustration Packaging Research

Teavana 

The Teavana branding uses a strong cohesive colour palette and shaped based playful illustrations to create s strong brand identity, that perfectly suits their audience. The colours used here indicate a natural, clean tea, something that will be healthy for you and your body as well as being something that is a natural product. The illustrations applied to the packaging are shaped based, simple and playful with an effective use of the colour palette to pull together the different designs. 

Kallo

Kallo's branding and packaging is another example of how effective illustration and colour can be in provoking a natural, handmade feeling. The colours used throughout are muted, earthy tones which when applied to the off-white bag creates a handmade, natural image which links to the whole food ethics of the brand. The illustrations are once again simple and shape based, but have more of a handmade quality too them and almost resemble lino cut imagery which I think could be a strong point when looking at creating a more personal, home made feel. 

Folksgaga Liquor

Swedish distillery Folsgaga used popular folk talks from Sweden illustrated with bold, shape based imagery to appeal to a broader market whilst also maintaining their rich, nordic roots. Once again I think that the colours used really add to the imagery and I think as I go through this research I'm learning that a cohesive colour palette is important when creating a range of products. I also like how the wrap around label of the bottle has been slightly modified to represent mountains, which links to Sweden's mountainous landscape, little tweaks like this can be really affective and tie a branding together perfectly. 

Aroma Mediterranea

The Aroma Mediterranea soap packaging combines a clear, graphic aesthetic with hand rendered illustrations to create a professional yet hand finished product. Another strong point to this packaging is the opportunity to expand the illustrations off of the product, this is something we could look into when thinking about how to construct the Grown Up Chocolate Company's landing page and how we can use the illustrative aspect of our designs in a web based format. 

The Grown Up Chocolate Company - Competitor Research

Cadbury's 

Cadbury's is one of the largest confectionary distributors in the world, with a range of products including individual chocolate bars, gift sets, hot chocolate and personalised bars. Most recognisable from their rich purple wrapping and cursive typography, Cadbury's are a well established brand that stand out easily on shop shelves. 

Cadbury's option to personalise their chocolate bars is similar to the brief given by The Grown Up Chocolate Company so I think it's important to take note of how Cadbury's have made the personalisation option work for them. To start with their landing page for this feature is clear and legible, highlighting how the personalisation will make the product 'memorable' and displaying the different personalisation options to the left. The customer can then go on to a customisation page where they can choose the type, message, images and which product/product they want to personalise. They also have options to make your own hamper and choose what goes in it as well as personalised selection boxes where they can choose which chocolate bars are included in the box. 

Thorntons

Thorntons are another well known high-street brand that give off a more luxurious, high end feel in terms of their branding and packaging. Their branding uses rich red and gold tones which adds to the feel of luxury and again uses cursive text which also emphasises this luxurious image. They also offer a range of products and personalisation options. 

Thorntons personalisation option is different to Cadbury's in that rather than personalising the box and outer packaging, it's the actual chocolate that is personalised. You can choose to personalise your chocolate with text which is iced onto the product either online or in store. I feel like this is a really effective way of personalising a product but it doesn't line up with the brief that The Grown Up Chocolate Company have set, they are just personalising the wrappers for the bars. Ribbons are also included in the Thorntons packaging which suggests that you should buy their product as a gift. 

Lindt

Lindt definitely come across as a very high end brand, the royal blue, red and gold colours that are used along with the cursive type give a very high end feel. Lindt also emphasis that their products are made by hand by 'master chocolatiers', something else that also adds to the idea of luxury.
 

Lindt's packaging reflects the high end luxurious feel perfectly. They use a lot of gold and simple yet delicate illustrations to accompany the brand name on their packaging. Unlike the other two brands, Lindt don't have a personalisation option, or not that I can see anyway. They offer a range of different gifts and stand-alone products but in terms of the packaging it is usually quite simple but still effective due to their emphasis of luxury that is consistent throughout their branding. Lindt are also well known for their chocolate bears and reindeers that are wrapped in gold foil and each have a red ribbon around their neck and a little bell. 

The Grown Up Chocolate Company - Timeplan

Me and Ste met up this week to figure out a time plan for the brief, highlighting what we wanted to get done and when. The main point of this was to try and organise our time around the christmas holidays, around our own personal deadlines and so that we had plenty of time for production in case anything went wrong. We've decided we might revisit this after christmas once our brand and market research is done so that we can refine when we're working on certain aspects of the brief in order to balance this workload with our other projects. 

Week 1 - 30th November 
Research competitors and look at how the design is used, for example typography, layout and imagery. 

Week 2 - 7th December
Innovative packaging design - Inside of boxes, and other elements the box contains
Add research on The Grown Up Chocolates existing packaging and anaylse it

Week 3 - 14th December
Week off

Week 4 - 28th December
Considerations 
Research Printing stocks - Printing method - Finishes
Research other landing pages - Broad research related to style and Competitors

Week 5 - 4th January 
Week off

Week 6 - 11th January
Outline what features we want on the box, for example, clear windows, belly bands etc
Outline what stock we are going to use, if theres going to be any finishes, and what printing method we intend to use. 
Research applied illustration -  Aimed towards audience

Week 7 - 18th January
Rough sketches on layout and concepts 
Refined sketched developments 
Digitise refinded sketched developments 

Week 8 - 25th January 
Further refinded ideas 
Digitise refinded sketched developments 

Week 9 - 1st February 
Pick idea and elements that we are going to use
Start constructing the design together

Week 10 - 8th February 
Construction of the design 

Week 11 - 15th February
Construction of the design 

Week 12 - 22nd February 
Printing the final box
Construction of the box

Week 13 - 1st March
Refine anything that may have gone wrong. Finish construction of the box

Week 14 - 8th March
Photography 
Putting Design Boards Together

Week 15 - 15th March
Tie up any existing work

Week 16 - 22nd March 
YCN Deadline 

The Grown Up Chocolate Company - Brand Research

James Ecclestone founded the brand in September 2011. He had already set up Casemir Chocolate in 1984, which still supplies handmade chocolates for the hospitality business and over 200 hotels. Wanting to diversify his product, he set up The Grown Up Chocolate Company.
The Grown Up Chocolate Company are a small, independent business and the bars are sold in around 300 independent retailers in the UK including Fortnum and Mason, farm shops, delicatessens, Booths and National Trust gift shops and are predominately available online.

"The idea behind our Grown Up chocolate bars is that they are reminiscent of the bars we ate as children, but reimagined for grown ups only."
 Their chocolate bars are more like high quality versions of high street brands with an adult twist in terms of the ingredients/flavours used.

The company offer a range of confectionary from individual bars to boxes and hampers including flavours such as mince pie, spiced ginger, festive fig and port, salted caramel and coconut to name a few. The bars are priced between £1.99 and £2.95, the boxes between £3.95 and £60.00, and £50.00 for a hamper.

The concept behind their current branding is that the pictures of children on the packaging are kids pretending to be grown ups, communicating that you have to be 'grown up' to have this product and also communicating that kids will pretend to be adults/dress up/ do anything to get their hands on chocolate. This is emphasised by the tagline 'nice try kid, but it's not for you!' further showing that the child is trying to get the chocolate by any means possible.

 

The Grown Up Chocolate Company - Why We Decided To Work Together

I've decided to work with a Graphic Designer on The Grown Up Chocolate brief for YCN. I chose my collaborative partner, Ste, for a number of reasons. His design work is very clean and sophisticated which I think could work with my illustration practice. I also think that the combination of our two practices would produce a well developed outcome for our selected brief. We both have a good work ethic and an enthusiasm for our own areas of practice and feel that combining this will make for an effective collaborative group. I've chosen to work on The Grown Up Chocolate Company brief because it allows space for me to develop my own practice and expand my work into looking at product and packaging and how illustration can be applied to that. I also think that collaborating with a graphic designer will be a good opportunity for me to experience what it's like to work with other creatives outside of my own practice. The pairing of a graphic designer and illustrator will also work well for this brief as we will be able to complete the project using a combination of both our skill sets. We have decided that my main area of responsibility will be the illustrations and support of design work. Ste's main responsibilities will include layout, type and the landing page.

Collaborative Brief - The Grown Up Chocolate Company

I have decided to start collaborating on this brief with a student on Graphic Design. We had a look at a few of the other YCN briefs and decided this would be best suited for both of us as it will engage both our fields of study, Illustration and Graphic Design. The brief asks us to create an original and inventive packaging design for a new personalised chocolate product. The packaging will include a box and outer sleeve and will be accompanied by a landing page that will be used to present the product to the customer.

Early this week I met up with the Graphic Design student, and we talked through the brief and started to plan the things we would need to consider and achieve before the deadline for this brief. So far we have agreed that we will meet once a week to discuss and review progress and work on the brief. We have also agreed to construct a time plan in the next week to help us manage our time effectively and allow for mistakes and production. We had a quick look at the brand and their existing packaging and from that we understood that the brand was quite trendy and modern, aimed at adults, within the age range 20 - 40. Correctly identifying the target audience will be a key part of the first stages of the brief so this will be one of the first things we look into. We are also going to individually conduct wider research on the brand, deconstruct the brief to gain full understanding of what's being asked of us and also start to research packaging concepts and how illustration can be applied to a product. There is also a possibility that we may arrange a trip to the production kitchen in Harlow to help inform our knowledge and understanding of the brand.