Picking my movement...

Originally I wanted to do Pop art, then I looked into it and realised it is way to broad... I was then going to pick Andy Warhol but I feel that the main option there would be to do some kind of screen print esque type thing... and I'm a little bored of all that!
I'm really interested in Film Noir films, so I thought maybe I could do Film Noir posters. I have now decided to do film noir in general, the posters are completely different to the actual films, its pretty strange really... Film noir is known for the dark blacks and lights shining through, shadows and figures, where as the posters are colourful with detailed drawings of the film stars...

I will study cinematography within film noir, language used and typefaces in the credits. I would like to create my own film noir image, I will create a scene and style hair, clothes and makeup to create a proper film noir feel.

Thinking about the poster now, It would be great to make my own film noir poster but focusing on the history of actual film noir rather than the poster art. I would like it to mainly focus on the image I create, I want it to be extremely dark and mysterious yet beautiful. I will need to use photoshop to get the lighting and shadows just right.

Double Indemnity is one of my favourite Film Noir films, I have embedded some stills from the movie below... This is the kind of thing I am going for...

DADAISM...

Dada is a movement that started in Switzerland in the first World War, it involved visual arts, literture, poetry, graphic design and theatre. It was very much 'anti-war' and was an anarchist in nature. Dadaism influenced many later styles such as the avant-garde, surrealism, pop art and punk.
Artists in this movement include; Max Ernst, Kurt Schwitters, Johannes Baader, John Heartfield and Hannah Hoch... Some examples of there work follow in order....













































Hannah Hoch is my favourite Dada artist, I love the black and white cutouts against the colour backgrounds and the surrealism in them...

Project 3: Design Time Capsule...RESEARCH

ART NOUVEAU.... (French for 'new art') Fluid and organic, decorative and smooth colours. Art Nouveau was heavily influenced by artist Alphonse Mucha (see poster art below)
Artists and architects in this movement include;


Antoni Gaudi
















Max Klinger












Peter Behrens




















Otto Wagner























Heinrich Vogeler

















POP ART

Pop art is movement of the late 50s and 60s , characterised by themes drawn from popular mass culture, such as advertising, comic books etc...
Here are some examples;

Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Peter Blake, Richard Hamilton;

Progress...

To begin with I sketched some ideas in my sketchbook, chose a final image and turned it into a black outline drawing. Quite a rough drawing but that's kind of how I want it to look on my finished design...
I then scanned my drawing in, opened it in illustrator and drew over it using the pen and brush tools. I used a rough brush stroke for this to get my desired affect. I turned this into a symbol. By this time I had found the typeface I wanted to use for the product name, so I added this in too...
I then decided to incorporate my brand (Jessie-Rose) this is just using a simple script font. I researched this in my sketchbook...
I then started to play around with some other type...Once I finished the pin up, I decided I wanted a gradient background of pinks and creams. I did this by using the blend tool. I drew a rectangle at the top which I coloured the desired pink and a smaller rectangle at the bottom which I coloured cream and blended them together....I wanted to make the product name typeface look like it was in lights (kind of like lightbulbs around a dressing table mirror) To do this I blew the text right up, drew a circle to fit inside one of the circles in the typeface, I coloured this a bright yellow, I then drew another one slightly smaller inside and coloured this white. I then blended these together so it looked like a light shining. I copied this 'lightbulb' into all the circles and then turned it all into a symbol together so I had it for other parts of the packaging...


I then started to use colour in the pin up drawing.. For this I had to go into my symbol and add the colour there, doing it this way I can use my symbol exactly the same somewhere else on the box. I used the pen tool to go round areas I wanted to fill with colour, I made sure I was drawing the lines directly onto the brush stroke outlines and then filled with desired colour and 'moved to back' so I couldn't see the sharp edges...


For the left and right sides of my box I wanted to keep it simple. So one side I put the product name and the other the brand name, I also carried the gradient background around all 4 sides and then used a block colour for top and bottom. On the back I have included the product name logo again along with a description of the product, some information on other 'Jessie-Rose' products which I created another logo for and a promotion of collecting packaging for a free lipstick, which I created another logo for! I had a bit of trouble with all the information on the back.. Originally I had the ingredients on the back also, but I decided to move this to the bottom of the box so I could add some information above the pin up line of girls...


I really wanted to use the pin up girl on the back of the box as well, but thought it looked to boring just on its own again, so I decided to repeat them, overlapping along the box, I really like the effect! and can now have the girls holding a word up on there newspapers... Originally I put the word 'flawless' on the papers and left it but I came to the conclusion that this didn't really make sense... Is 'seamless' flawless, are 'Jessie-Rose' products flawless? This is when I moved the ingredients to the bottom and put a little line above 'flawless' Jessie-Rose products leave you looking....
I'm really pleased with the effect and the ingredients are now nice and hidden on the bottom!


I then started on my bar code, I made this by drawing a simple rectangle which I filled with white, I then drew simple lines which I made different thickness, I cut off the bottom of most lines and added numbers in using the font Helvetica. As I was drawing my bar code I was checking an image of a bar code I got off the internet so I could get it as similar as possible....
I then needed to turn my box into 3d, I did this by using extrude and bevel and uploading my sides as symbols. I now have 3 sides of my box looking 3d.... THIS TOOK SIX HOURS! But eventually it worked and looks good apart from some faint grey lines on the joins.
I am really pleased with my final design, I love the fonts I have used and the colours seem to work really well together. Before this project I had never used Illustrator before...I have learned so much and am proud to have my final design and say I have done it having never used the program before!

My idea...

I have decided to base my design on cosmetic brands such as 'Benefit' and 'Soap and Glory', In my sketchbook I have collected many 1950s images and adverts, here I will follow this on with images found online rather than books... I product is going to be a sort of body balm/cream for legs, so thats why most of the images will show a lot of leg!


I really want to draw some kind of pin up posing on my box... This would look pretty cool in a sort of 1950s tattoo style.... I'm going to have a look at different tattoo styles and maybe some ideas for in a logo too....

I quite like the idea of cherries being in the logo of the branding somewhere...I'm thinking of doing a tattoo style drawing but without the harsh colours, maybe some pastel pinks and greens...

AND MORE...

I need to decide what my target customer is, this obviously varies to what kind of product box I want to design..

Cereal:
Something like bran flakes would appeal to a healthy adult, male or female, the packaging is simply telling the buyer the nutritional information, shows a picture of the actual product and is usually a very grown up simple design...
Then there is the opposite...A cereal for kids, always a very bright colourful design with a lot going on. Usually with some kind of cartoon character and in some cases a free toy.

Cosmetics:
Make up is obviously aimed at females. It can vary dramatically though in the brands target audiences... There is very cheap make up for younger girls and young teenagers, very cheap, very girly, very pink! It can be very clean and organic (like a face cream box design) this would be aimed at an older female who just wants a simple face cream, this kind of packaging is what tghe brand Clinique uses, they have a huge range of creams, serums etc and they are all in very similar packaging, it is very much a brand design rather than individual products. Their packaging seems very clean, exactly what they want their product to come across as, it uses very soft pastel colours and small type.
A lot of cosmetics are sold by the packaging it sits in... Most expensive cosmetic packaging is very sleek, it makes the product look like more than it really is.

Chocolate boxes:
Again this can vary a lot...A child would be attracted to a big Christmas variety box where as an adult would rather something smaller and better quality. There can also be big campaigns aimed specifically at different genders, for example the chocolate Yorkie is designed for men...Their one liner is 'Not for girls', a big, bulky chocolate for a big man! Hilarious really! But this is a huge trademark for Yorkie now.

Toys:
This is obviously mainly aimed at children, similar sort of designs to kids cereal boxes, a big brightly coloured box, showing the child all the amazing toys inside! But toys can also be packaged differently when aimed at adults to buy for children, what may seem like a boring design to a child can make an adult think what a well made, good quality toy for their child to play with...

So basically the categories are:
- Small children
- Young girls
- Young boys
- Teenage girls
- Teenage boys
- Parents
- Adults buying for children
- Teenagers
- Women in groups of 18-30, 30-45, 45-60, 60-80
- Men in the same groups

I need to decide what kind of product box I want to design and before I start find a target group.

PACKAGING RESEARCH...

In this project I need to create a type of box packaging, here I will research different types of box packaging...

- Cereal boxes
- Washing powder boxes
- Cosmetic boxes
- Toiletries boxes
- Medicine boxes
- Chocolate boxes
- Cleaning product boxes
- Gift boxes - Perfume boxes
- Drinks packaging (Eg; Champagne)
- Food packaging (Eg; Frozen foods, rice, cake mix etc)
- Toy boxes
- Video game/console boxes

...The list goes on and on...

Above is a cereal box design for 'Sugar Smacks'. This was a popular cereal in the 1980s aimed at children. The design for this changed many times, this change was usually dependent on the free gift in the box. The design above works really well, the colours and the star like shape around the image would bring your eyes straight to this box on a shelf. The type is very bold and simple, the customer can see exactly what the product is called and who it is made by straight away. This particular design would definitely appeal to kids, it comes across almost as a toy box, the whole design is aimed at people who would buy the product just for the free toy! Although this design is from the 80s and can seem quite dated to some people I think if this was back in the shops today people would buy it just for the design!




Cosmetic products don't tend to use box packaging that often especially cheaper high street brands, but many more expensive brands are starting to contain there products in boxes. It makes the product seem 'special', some cosmetic brands rely on there packaging to make the product sell. Above you can see the box and the product that is contained in it...If this lipgloss was sold on its own without the box it would probably be sold at lower price, the box brings a lot more 'class' to the product.
Bars of soap sold individually don't tend to have a box packaging but the image above is a multipack. It is a very simple design for a very simple product. The product name just says '3 Unscented Bars of Soap' the product brand is called 'Body True' the brand, product name and packaging all fit together very well. The packaging is very sort of 'organic' with a nice rough texture. It doesn't seem to have much information on it, but it has all you really need, it shows that you don't have to have lots of description and images if you clearly tell the customer what the product is.... 3 Unscented Bars of Soap.....What else do you really need to know?!
The box above is for Pepto-Bismol, a medicine. The product itself is pink so they have incorporated this onto the design, with an image of the product itself in the bottom right hand corner. The product name is very large with the version smaller underneath, I like how they have put this in a letter 'P' it really stands out and makes it more interesting than just a blank colour across the box. On the front is tells you simply what the product does along with a little diagram, it c;ear;y states what flavour it is with an image of some cherries which matches the colour scheme, then shows you an actual image of what the product inside looks like.
The design above is for Cadbury's Roses. The brand and product is so well know it doesn't really need much else on the box. The design has been the same (or similar) for many years now and is instantly recognisable. It has the colour purple in the design which relates to the Cadbury brand, all the text on the front is the brand name and product name. On the back of the box will have a separate description for each individual chocolate, which is a lot more detailed than the front.
Above is a cleaning product box design for Brillo. This design is like above as it has hardly changed in years and years. It is a very simple design which works, the colours and type are very bold and it has a short basic description of what the product is. Of course this product was probably helped a great deal with Andy Warhol's work on the design in his own work.
Retail shops are starting to offer gift packaging a lot more nowadays. Like makeup this started for more expensive, designer brands but is now branching out to high street brands like Gap and American Apparel. This is a great idea for presents, especially around Christmas and other holiday periods. They are usually very simple with just the brands name on like the above one for Chanel. There are very few perfumes that do not come in some kind of box whether this is individually or in a gift set like the one above. Perfume boxes are usually very simple and sleek with most of the detail on the perfume bottle itself. I would say that people are more drawn to the product by how the bottle looks rather than the box, the bottles are always in view in stores for testing the perfume.


Some bottles of wine and champagne are packaged in boxes, this is a great idea and I don't know why more companies don't do it! Everyone buys wine as a gift for someone, why not make it look more like on in a nice box?! It also makes the product look a lot more expensive! Simple but very effective.


Various types of food is packaged in boxes like the above, they normally have a large picture of the product on the front and in some cases like this one (cake mix) will have simple instructions on the back. The image in the one above shows you a perfect finished version of the product, it has been sliced and placed with berries to make the product seem more appertising than just a big slab of cake on its own, which is what of course you will get once you have made the cake. This normally would have 'Serving suggestion' next to the image, this allows the brand to show more than just the actual product.
Most toys for children are packaged in boxes, normally for kids the theory is the bigger the box the better the toy! Toy packaging is usually very bright and eye catching and will vary in colour schemes depending on if the product is aimed at boys or girls, for example dolls are normally in pink packaging or a toy boat would maybe be blue for boys, this happens a lot more in packaging for babies (gift packaging etc pink for girls, blue for boys). Toy packaging will usually have what age it is suitable for in bright bold type, this is because if buying a gift for a child that is one of the first things your going to think of... Is this to difficult? Will they swallow parts of this toy? etc...