Final Boards OUGD201

Posters Together

Poster Design

I figured a good way to advertise the new oil would be with a poster design. Although it isn't very adventurous in terms of print i feel in relevance it is a neccesity. The posters i will create should be able to be used as flyers aswel as advertisements for the oil.

I started with some thumb nail drawings

[ insert thumb nails ]

The design was then moved to the computer where i mocked up the layout and image.

The above shows the layout i will use throughout the posters i think it has room for enough information but also the style of the poster doesn't suffer from overloading it with type.

The above uses just one colour for the titles. I like the consistency but the use of colour would help the overall design link into the other printed outcomes.

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Tube Design

Colour and Label

So i wanted to keep a design for the tube simple and consistent throughout the design process but wanted people to be able to see which tube they needed quickly if they were in a rush... Referring back to my designs i wanted to have a tag or label on them to not only seal and make sure people don't buy tubes which have been open but let them see which type of oil they where buying... So i have decided to make some colour swatches to help me decide on which matches the words better

I wanted to try a sugar paper feel with these but they look really dull and not at all interesting

This style didn't communicate the words well enough in my opinion

I liked this selection and thought it was nice and eye catching but as a peer said it looks a bit childish and really doesn't communicate cars in anyway. 

This swatch looks really mechanical but i feel they suit the names just really well and still look modern and clean so i will use these.

Now that i have my chosen colour scheme i can decide on how to structure my tube layout and where to include colour and special print process.

Packaging Development

 So my logo had taken a leap in the right direction in my opinion and i was quite happy with it. But using a nice expensive print technique like spot varnish meant i wanted my actual product design to be worth it and stand out from the rest for sure. So i sat and broke down common problem people still face with oil and the changing of it to this day. I used the method of creating mind sheets to ensure i included as much information as possible. The problem which was brought up in a crit is that I'm writing too much and now showing my idea visually enough.

the above summarises the problems mainly being the male dominant market and mechanical friendly community of people who enjoy maintaining cars. Women also showed a big lack of understanding and interest in the oil products due to the packaging.

To fully understand my product i thought i had better properly talk about some of the problems when filling the car with oil and the issues people have told me about via the yahoo blog and answer threads. Following that i wrote about the issues i found with the common oil bottle and branding which is already out in the market.

The idea i had with this is to recreate the iPhone box to house the final product in so that it could be stacked and also have 5 sides to advertise and inform customers about the product with. The lower base would be smaller than the top and it would slide off revealing the contents. 

This is an example of a box i wanted to create using tools like die cutting and foam inside to secure the actual product and these could be stacked and customers could pick them up and use them

So thinking about a packaging more innovative i thought about actually needing a box or would a tube designed and brought together right be enough?... I created this design sheet to further think about it... The full tube is created on the left and then took apart for purpose of illustration. In the crit this was received really well and many of my classmates pushed me towards it saying it was a step in the right direction.

After the crit and deciding that i was to make the pods single i needed to think up of a way to showcase them for when they are being sold. I thought of creating a POS which the pods can be stood up in and the customer can just pick out the appropriate pod for their needs. This would let me create another item for print to help my project also.

So from the above i have decided to create packaging for a tube as the main point of advertising aswel as making sure the customer/user can quickly pick the product needed for them. I will tackle this with colour and designs which show consistency.

Logo Redesign

After a lot of positive feedback from my logo i still didn't like it and even though many asked me not to change it i felt it would help encourage my my work load as i was feeling very depressed about this project as it just wasn't going my way.

so i set out to redesign... i thought about what oil was... a liquid. and what i was proposing to do and make it into a solid... The idea of this logo took some thought and i played with creating solid black boxes and adding the liquid logo inside but nothing felt like the feel i wanted. 

i felt this looked too much like the british gas logo

a simplified attempt of my previous logo but it didn't quite work i can see the H but it doesn't communicate the message all that well..

This was a plat with the droplet going into a puddle i didn't like this

The square with the white droplet was one of my favourite but still didn't quite communicate what i wanted it to.

I moved on and decided to digitise the above to get a better feel for what i was dealing with...

From the above i decided that my favourite type of the logo would be made on the decision that i wanted the logo to be UV SPOT varnished to add a special feel and texture to it to further give the illusion of oil...

My final logo i choose was simple, bold, sexy and minimal but yet speaks the rich glossy silky and oily black stuff in one tear drop image.

The above is my chosen logo i would propose the outline be UV Varnished to allow for the special feel that lacks in a lot of the oil packaging already out there.

I printed and showed this to many of my class mates and they all approved of it and liked it even better when it was matched up with some appropriate type.

The above is an example of how the oil could be put together. The logo companied with "NEVIS"typeface i feel it gives it the perfect thick fresh type with the bold slick curves ... WINNER.

Packaging Task

The above shows an example of the outcomes i could consider when making my items. The bottle design still looks good and i can imagine it working really well on a bottle packaging along with the others being used for info graphics...

Problems I'm facing is that i feel they just look so boring... i don't like how the only thing on show is the logo... This is only early in the development and my idea is still moving on but id like to say i had a bit more of a stable idea.. hopefully the crits will help out..

Inspiration you were missed !

I had my process tutorial with Lorenzo this morning and what a breathe of fresh air it was. We had a good chat about how this project can be really fun and not so serious. So...

I sat and decided i need to move on from thinking oil has to be a liquid... why does it need to be presented in a  bottle.. why should it stick to conventions. So we thought about tablets, being able to drop a pill into the engine and be done with it sounds much better than standing over the engine pouring a huge 3 litre bottle of the black devils fluid all over the engine bay...

What if i designed for the future?... what if i designed for the entire range of cars, from classic to high performance?... the answer is a brand which does all this... but first i needed to think up what i would be creating..

What is already there which holds liquid but in a different format. A quick think left me with the ideas of printer cartridges. glue sticks. washer tablets, gravy jelly tablets. The packaging could still be boxed but for example a black glue stick could be packaged in a smarties style tube... something not seen with motor oil ever !...

Mind map:

So I've listed some decent ideas for what it could be and I'm defiantly going to create a range of the same product. If i can come to terms with which form i want it to take for example a tablet. I can create different packaging but use the same insides to save time.

I decided to draw up the ideas of packaging quickly i came up with some funny ideas about the printer cartridge lots of people liked it however i really enjoyed drawing up the glue stick idea..

So what are the problems with oil as it is now?
Its quite a male orientated game i feel. The size of these oil drums and engine bay know how can leave some females with less knowledge of the car leaving it completely...

Pouring the oil can sometimes end up all over the engine leaving the bay smoking up and being a mess.
The codes are all quite confusing with different types for diesel,petrol,classic,sports,performance.
Its always the same boring bottle with the black liquid...

The above has given me enough ammunition to try tackle this in a really innovative way... Im going to design something which feels fun, easy and affordable. A range of oils for all the types yet in a much easier format. The glue stick could easily be packaged in a tube and dropped into the oil tank.

So where do i go?

I have come to the conclusion that I'm lost... i haven't a clue where to start at the moment. It appears everyone else is mid way nearing the finish line and I'm running in circles... so I'm going to list a check list of what i have done so far...

• Mind Maps
• What is good
• Initial Ideas
• Ways to advise people on topping up motor oil.
• Environmental 
• Packaging
• Pencil Drawings of logos
• 150 logos
• chosen logo
• Logo Development
• trial and error of logo
• chosen final
• Practise Packaging
• Nets created to form certain packaging.
• realised the bottle packaging would be the most relevant and useable.
• Ideas to follow on from initials
• How am i going to get this out in the public
• How will i make my produce look attractive enough to make people want to use it?

Action Plan...

1. I need to structure my work a bit more and blog up to date pieces and research.
2. Create a sheet showing logo, chosen colours, reasoning, designs, sketches.
3. Produce a final idea of what i will defiantly produce and propose.
4. Create the items.

Deadline: Returning from Reading week i want to be at stage 3 of my action plan.

Packaging Task.

After producing the above i felt the bottle container looked the best, however i received mainly comments on how the logo was good and with my designs being about motor oil i felt the bottle container one would be the one id develop more than the others.

I wish i had read more into the brief however i thought we just had to produce the nets and then just place our logos onto them to see if they worked. Whereas others where really creative and they all looked really good.

The nets i used looked like this:

[insert other images]

Logo Development

We were given a task to produce 150 logos. We had to only use words which were used in conjunction to our chosen 'good'... i set about using A4 paper to fold up into four A6 divides.. The first few sheets came easily throwing any idea i had down. the problem came when i reached around page 15 and the idea began to just look rubbish and i felt i was just drawing them for the sake of trying to make sure i had 150 for the sake of a crit... I understand that it was bound to become harder when the designs got tired and used but i feel 150 was a bit excessive. I managed to think up of a logo which i was really happy with around page 10 and i had a lot of backups ready to fall on...

[INSERT IMAGES OF A6 LOGOS]

After showing them to friends they decided my idea for a logo named 'shift' was the best bet using the idea of two arrows one going up and one down to create negative space to form the letter H.

[INSERT SKETCHES OF LOGO ]

I then moved onto developing them on illustrator... I tried alternative typefaces but i felt Helvetica gave it the bold and chunky yet legibility i was looking for.

I feel the above shows that the design works with not just one typeface yet the others apart from the first show a bit more space than id like to and when showing people they couldn't all straight away tell the arrows were to create negative space.

My inspiration for this came from the FedEx design.