OUGD503: Collaborative Practice

As a response to one of the D&AD briefs, I will be collaborating with two others to solve a brief for Airbnb. Our task is to empower Airbnb's existing community to grow, and there is scope to do this across any media.

We began by looking into Airbnb's brand identity and how they interact and engage with their customers.  Their website is informative and has good user experience as it's easy to find what you need and visually pleasing, using full page motion pictures as backgrounds and a welcoming tone of voice that makes the audience feel as though they are part of the community.  Their branding is strong and well devised, which is one reason why this brief appealed to us as it is a company we are familiar with and is an original concept.

Research into existing campaigns and data:

We originally had ideas to use the factor of 'home away from home' and link people's profiles together with a list of who has visited who they've visited, however none of these initial ideas had an exceptional element, and we found that many of them are already integrated in Airbnb's existing campaigns.

We kept circling around the idea of belonging while travelling, and looked into postcards and online profiles, flicking between both physical and digital campaigns.  

OUGD503: Feathr - Final Designs

After experimenting with a range of colours and receiving feedback, the three colour combinations that were most popular consist of mainly neutral colours.  I submitted all three as a series to the website before the deadline (14th January).

After a couple of weeks I received an email from Feathr congratulating me on being chosen to have my design commercialised.  They gave me some pointers on a couple of things I could change, suggesting that I should make the letterforms look a little less rigid and more hand drawn. Following this, I'm going to re draw the design with less care about neatening and straightening each character.

OUGD504: DESIGN BOARDS 1-4

Brief 01: Design Process

 

Brief 02: Logo

Brief 03: Design for Web

Brief 04: Augmented Design

OUGD504: Module Evaluation

Overall I am fairly happy with my submission for this module, but looking back I feel that I could improve all outcomes for the briefs as I have learnt a lot by completing them.

I think my development process is one of my strong points in this module; throughout each brief I have experimented with several different ideas before developing the final one. I am quite happy with my use of colour although in briefs 3 and 4 I feel that I could have been more experimental, even though the greyscale colour scheme I used was most appropriate. My research into topics related to each brief has allowed me to become aware of factors I haven't considered before, such as search engine optimisation and preparing documents for print.

Designing for web was a brief I enjoyed, however I've become aware of the fact that all links and button styles didn't work as well as they could have.  If I design a website page again there are a lot of things I would consider from the beginning, user experience being one element I need to improve on.  Another weakness in this brief is my lack of knowledge on HTML and CSS, which would be useful to know more about to inform my design, in turn making it easier and more precise for a coding specialist to follow. I've also developed my awareness of augmented design which is something I plan to explore further in my practice.

I feel as though I've learnt a lot from this production brief, especially learning about different print processes and how to reach a solution to a brief within the time frame as well as fitting with the context of the piece.  Producing the design process leaflet at the start of the module caused me to give thought to my individual process and in turn, compelled me to continue following this process for the other three briefs.  I feel that the research for each brief has broadened my knowledge about each subject area, e.g. leaflet design, logo design, and website design.  I have also noticed my ability to use the digital programmes has improved a lot over the course of this module, having had to design the structure of the website on Illustrator and the leaflet on InDesign.  It's also made me think about designing for print specifically, considering the bleed marks, folding points and sizing.  Another aspect of this brief I appreciate learning about is the integration of design within digital platforms, the variety of interactive design that currently exists and what the opportunities with this are.

With more time I would've liked to experiment with different print finishes, especially in the last brief. Limiting myself to one stock choice hasn't helped me explore the range of outcomes I could have produced, however it has made me realise that to make a print look more professional I should consider a variety of finishes.  If I participated in more formal crits I think it would have a positive impact on my designs, as I often look past this if I'm not at a comfortable stage to present my work.  In the next module I plan to utilise the knowledge I've acquired over the past few months which will inform my work in the future.  I would also like to try and finish the briefs with spare time before the deadline, which would allow me to produce more finalised outcomes as well as taking it a step further and possibly get my work publicised.  Another part of the module I would do differently is to contact more professionals and make an attempt to present my logo and branding to the client for feedback.

OUGD504 (Brief 04): Final Designs and Evaluation

I was able to digitally print my final solutions to this brief once I'd positioned all the separate pieces on to A2 and A3 documents.  I then used a guillotine, ruler and scalpel to cut out the designs by hand; on a larger scale, laser cut or computerised cut outs would be more ideal both to save time and create maintain accuracy throughout.

Final business cards; six variations - one for each city

If these were to be produced for advertising, there would be a much bigger run than six cards, each A3 sheet printed with the six variations then cropped and cut down.  

Two pockets cut out and folded

Photo cards

A6 fold out cards

With more time I would have liked to print on the reverse side of these cards, perhaps in a block colour (grey) or including the grey diagonal lines cutting parallel to the sides of each shape.  These can either be stood up (bottom) or unfolded to create the flat A5 flyer.

Poster

Overall I am generally happy with the outcomes for this brief, though I think there are several things I could improve on.  Although I like the design I've incorporated in the title on either side of the poster I would change it slightly so that they extended further, as well as changing the alignment of the text in top left corner.

Looking at the poster now, it might have looked better with block colour on the central pockets to separate them from the backdrop and add a bit more to the design.

Hypothetically, I named my website archeurope.co.uk for the purpose of including it in the adverts.  Likewise with the title, I would change this to something better with more thought and development.

With more time and facilities, I could have used other print finishes for this brief that fall within my £30 budget, such as lamination.  This would work particularly well for the photo cards on main poster and smaller business cards / flyers which would increase their value and offer protection for those that will be handled a lot.

OUGD504 (Brief 04): Augmented Design - Mock Prints

To test out the actual size of the final products I printed out the components to see if any changes needed to be made before sending to print digitally. 

By printing the above out I noticed that when folded into A6 format the shape doesn't line up with the photograph behind and shows a bit of the white area around the photo.

By making these mock versions of the final design I was able to pick up on a few factors I wouldn't have been aware of without printing.

I scaled the nets and images down from the actual size I'd measured out, (for mock up purposes), however when I was able to hold the mock ups I realised that they were a much better suited size for the purpose; any bigger would be too large for the audience to interact with. The smaller size creates a better user experience.

Some other points I gathered from this was I need to make the cut outs at the side larger in height so it's large enough to fit a thumb in comfortably enough to pull the photo card out.