Post Crit design time...

The brief had been a bit of a struggle until a couple of days before the deadline. Luckily thanks to a productive day in the mac suites we ironed out our design direction, bit the bullet and got down to some design decisions. 

Up until that point we had both designed scenes for our window displays which looked completely different. Both were good, and we didn't want to compromise either design so the challenge then was to somehow tie these two designs together. Leigh, rather fantastically managed to take the first step and successfully managed to put our two styles together.

 

 

 

 

 Although mine and Leigh's character designs were very different, I think in the setting we designed around them they worked. We toyed around with the tone of the main window scene. Essentially it's a modern Mary Poppins inspired city scape, and although it's modern we felt the colours of the sepia-ish one worked better as an autumnal window display.

The way the scene sort of melted the two styles together was good, but there was something missing. We decided the type needed to be more of a focal point than anything else, so we popped in a textured banner, which would be hanging in the real window display. I suggested a patterned back drop for the scene, which fits with the clash of Georgian and contemporary themes. Although the print is bigger than I would have liked, I think a smaller print would work better.

 Another thing we didn't feel great about was the type and the layout of the buildings. We decided fairly early on to take the plunge and go for the sepia toned version. From then we worked on the type, opting for a handwritten feel to the type, I think it works better as an overall shape in the banner. The old type felt too constricted by not having a curve. We also flipped the buildings and made them a bit bigger, before they were just sort of flating around at the bottom. I think the it looks better a bit bigger, less empty space. With the addition of Leigh's lovely little chimney sweeps and a few more building silhouettes we were ready to go! One board down, two to go.

The second board was the window mock up, which we decided Leigh would do and I would place the images onto the boards, adding an annotation of some sort and placing the logo. It was at this part of the brief I realised that without Leigh I wouldn't have been able to do it on my own because making the boards really highlighted both of our strengths and weaknesses. Anyway, this was our mocked up window. I really like it, the only thing I would change is in the longer section of the window is to have some kind of drop - down character or type because without something like the smaller window has it looks a bit lost. Maybe thats just me though. Two down one to go.

 Finally, probably the least enjoyable part of it all for me was the in-store merchandise mock ups. I didn't enjoy it because I couldn't do a lot of it. Well, I could but Leigh's would always have been better. I'm pleased this brief gave me little reminders of what I'm not good at and the skills I need to develop, so hopefully I can go back and touch up those skills ready for the third year.

 We knew what merchandise we wanted to mock up. We had found some edible black soot sherbet on a sweet website and decided that would be quite funny and it would fit in with the chimney sweep theme. We also wanted themed brown paper bags and keyrings. Personally I probably would have done more for the in store range but as a team our focus was somewhere else so we didn't get around to it but it's something I would like to sort out before the submission deadline.

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Post Crit:

Our crit feedback was really really useful. 

There were only two main points we went away with and those were:

- Clarify concept

- Pin point a specific type of British Humor (e.g. Doctor Who)

After the crit we had a bit of a separation period, I think we'd spent the week getting all into what we were doing so we couln't see things from the outside. It was like we'd spent a week decorating a really big pretty box and we got so into it we ended up inside the box and couldn't get out. Does that make sense? Hmm, haha I don't know but for a few days after the crit I think we felt a bit lost by it all. 

We knew what we had to do next but didn't really get around to it as quick as maybe we should have done! 

Finally we've come to the realisation that we need to totally re-think where we were coming from in terms of design direction.

So here's a new:

Brief: Create a autumn/winter window display for Ted Baker. Must be scaleable, British and eye catching. Running with an alternative autumnal theme. 

 
Concept: A British autumn is not just dead leaves.

 
Theme: Windy London, Edwardian Era, Sky-scrapers, Movement, Mary Poppins, Bowler hats, kitsch.

We are now going to be looking at a Mary Poppins inspired window display and in-store merchandise.