Packaging & Merchandising Design : Project 1

09/04/18 - 30/04/18 (Week 3-6)
Agustin Wijaya (0327453)
Packaging & Merchandising Design

Assignment 1 : Label Design




Lectures

Week 3

1. Packaging Design : The Insights




Week 4

2. Box Styles




3. Corrugated Box Styles




Week 6

4. Blister Packaging




Instructions

ASSIGNMENT 1: Label Design (20%)

The Brief

Design two NEW labels for an existing Justea Flavored Tea product. You may choose one of the flavors. Visit http://www.yeos.com.my/beverages/justea/ to select the flavor.

Project timeline

Week 3: Buy two bottle of the identical product AND BRING THEM TO EACH CLASS. Research two websites, two competitors’ flavored ice tea or two stores’ ice tea flavored drink display on shelves. On your design brief:

- Record your observations from the web sites, each store’s display
- Yeo’s Mision, Vision and Values
- What makes Justea unique?

Week 4: Bring in 10 of sketches of your concept and suggest new material for the packaging.

Week 5: Make actual 3 dimensional comps that take into consideration each side of the product to finalize your design

Week 6: Submit your assignment. You have to professionally photograph the final product as evidence for TDS website.

Objective:

1. To develop students sensitivity to typography, grid and layout.
2. To develop students understanding of the hierarchy of information.
3. To develop students ability to communicate visually.

LEARNING OUTCOME:

Learning outcome of the exercise is about convincing a consumer to buy into an idea. You will be also introduced to the concept of the target audience and will asked to consider a relevant target audience for their product when coming up with their ideas.

Progressions

Week 3

Following the module outline (under the 'instructions'), this week is the week we are supposed to analyse Justea and its competitors, which is compiled in the design brief attached below. The analysis are based on the secondary information I got online and primary data I got based on my own case study.

Based on the researches and own observation done, we were to identify our target audience and come up with 10 sketches of the label design. Reflected towards my research and own experience, I found out that children would be the best target audience because children tend to drink such sweet drinks like Justea compared to the other age groups. The styling I’m going for is vector illustration as it would best attract children. Also, I find that Justea is unique due to its illustration approach in their label design.

Week 4

As I've identified my target audience, the next step is to sketch it to explore the label design ideation. I came up with references that lead to my 10 sets of sketches.

References









Sketches

Sir Shamsul liked the idea sketch of having the little tiny characters of lemon and green tea interacting with the board that written Justea and the drink information (highlighted in yellow on the sketches), said that it’s perfect for the target audience and would catches the target audience’s attention. He asked me to try on the other sketches that I personally find has the potential as well. With that, I brought 2 sketches of mine into the further step, digitalising it.

Week 5

Executed the 2 sketches, I showed the progression focusing more on the visuals to Sir. Shamsul.

I asked my friends to my little brother who is the target audience and majority of them said that the third one works better - Sir Shamsul said that too. He told me to proceed to the particular design, said it looks fun. Yet, he mentioned that I need to try out different colours on the background as it looks blend together with the illustrations.

Week 6

I came up with three different colour backgrounds and experimented with the 'flowy' pattern to make it look less empty and fun.

Sir. Shamsul told me that the 'flowy pattern' is not really necessary and might affect the legibility. He commented that the colour brown is not blended well with the other colours. He also said that the colour choices doesn't really portray fun and contrast to one another.

Not only colours, Mr Shamsul told the class to reflect the label design size of the actual Justea's label size for the submission. I then reduced the amount of column as more exploration of colours was done.

I changed the background into a more vibrant colour and tried out different colours for the cup, as well as the justea+bubble chat colour. Mr Shamsul  finds that the top two colours now looks okay. I then choose one and anmended it.

The submission comes with a mockup of the bottle alongside the background that suits the theme of the label. Below are the progression on how it's done.

Submissions

Justea Label Design

Bottle Mockup

Feedback

Week 3

General Feedback : Identifying target audience will make the ideation easier and more direct, so it's important to identify who are you targeting to.

Specific Feedback : Approach of wanting to have the 'tea' will be risky due to the low intensity of the tea itself, unless it's assigned for milk which has a more solid colour.

Week 4

Specific Feedback : Sketches number 3 perfect for the target audience. It has that tiny character that would catches the target audience attention. But it's up to you if you think otherwise. 

Week 5

Specific Feedback : Proceed with this chosen design. Looks fun but try different colors for the background. It looks blend together with the elements in front. Good work Agustin

Week 6

General Feedback : Do bear in mind that label design submission should reflect the Justea label design size itself. Also, The bottle up submission should be accompanied with background of your theme. It will bring more fun. 

Specific Feedback (1st colour exploration): The colour brown doesn't really blend at all. And it doesn't really look contrasting and fun.

Specific Feedback (2nd colour exploration): The colors on the label design that has green tea mug in blue looks okay. This blue is better

Specific Feedback (Bottle Mockup): No problem with the background.

Reflection

Exposed to label design, I found out that the most important thing when designing it is to have a proper measurement so it won't slack off when printed to the actual bottle. It was another reminder to myself that identifying target audience is very important - in a sense that the design become more purposeful and has a clearer direction. Last thing to keep in mind is to experiment colours as much as I could - this is probably the hardest stage I had within the project. All in all, this project has given me a wider exposure on designing a label design. It was short yet a fun one!

Books

Packaging the Brand by Gavin Ambrose and Paul Harris

This book will go through how packagings are designed in order to reflect a certain brand. The book provides case studies to even examples on student works. Through this book, I've learned that :

- To create truly effective packaged brands, designers need to consider how both packaging and the brand can be dovetailed together in a way that mutually ad effectively serves both the packaging and brand goals of the product.

- Packaging design in one of the key elements of a marketing strategy for a product as it is the visual face that will be promoted, recognised and sought out by the customer.

- Successful packaging design requires consideration of two main factors in this context : audience and sector.

- Packaging and branding has to connect with the particular aspirations and expectation of the target market. Designers have to take into account the precise region in which a package will be used and be aware of both opportunities and limitations that local norms may present.