OUGD503: Studio Brief 2 : Bear Cereal collaboration - Bear final pieces

BEAR CEREAL.

FINAL PIECES.

Final box designs for the front and backs of all three boxes we designed. 

- J for jellyfish. 

- C for chameleon.

- B for bear. 

Below are some photos I took of the cut out letters in context. The photographs show that the letters are functional and work well with the stands. It can also be seen that the letters make great interactive room decorations and are a good size for children. 

Yankee candle presentation - Publication/ concept for brief 2.

OUGD505: Yankee candle - Construction of box and evaluation.

Yankee candle. 
Construction of box. 

Unfortunately the original box that I printed on mount board did not work well, the material choice to use mount board was not great as mount board is not a very flexible material and so when I tried to create the bends in the book box I designed the hinges snapped and the box began to fall apart. 

Therefore I had to think of a new way to engineer the box to create easy hinges and bends. The way in which I thought to do this was to create my book like box, as you would a normal book. 

To bind a book cover, you have to take 3 pieces of grey board (front cover, spine and back cover) and wrap this in bookram that has a border, so that when wrapped around the grey board it over laps onto the other side. 

A piece of paper slightly smaller than the original piece is stuck onto the reverse side (inside) of the book cover to cover up the overlaps. I will do this in plain red card to match the aesthetic of the book. 

I will then create the box inside the book cover that will hold the actual publication. Previously on the old net I tried to attach it to the rest of the box to the book cover, however this was not really practical. Therefore I will create the box separately and stick this to the inside of the book.

Today I worked on finalising the design of my project so that I could move on to studio brief 2. I reprinted my box so that I could remake it using the method/process as described above. 

When constructing the new box I had:
- New front cover printed on flexible card.
- grey board cut for front cover, back cover and spine. 
- red card cut down to stick over the inside. 
- logo to stick on inside cover. 
- cut out of box net to stick on inside panel of back cover. 

Unfortunately I did not take pictures of the new process constructing the newly engineered box, as I was too into making sure that this box went right after the last one went wrong to stop and take pictures in between. 

To begin the process of constructing the box I took the three pieces of cut out grey board and masking taped them together to create a hinge, to make sure the box would open and close easily. once this was done I 
cut out the new front cover that would wrap around the 3 pieces of grey board to size. I then scored on the correct lines so that it would bend round the grey board.

I applied this to the grey board using PVA glue as this would allow me to manoeuvre the cover into place without drying instantly. Once I had the cover stuck to the front sides of the grey board, I used a bone folder to help press the cover into the hinges of the spine for a smooth finish. With this in place, I glued the sections of the front cover that were bigger than the grey board over the other side onto the inside cover of the grey board. 

After leaving this to dry I then covered the inside covers (front back and spine) in the piece of red card I had cut down. This would make the box look a lot tidier and cover up the overlapping paper from the front cover. 

Once dry I then glued into place the logo which I had printed out separately, so that the inside covers/area would have some reference to the back and the front of the box. 

The last step I did was scoring, folding and gluing the box net together which would hold the book itself. Once I had glued this together, I stuck it down to the inside panel of the back cover, using a stronger glue so that it would not fall away. 


Old product in comparison to new product:

FINAL PIECE:

Evaluation.

I am much happier with the overall finish of this box in comparison to the first, the improvement in my craft skills and the craft of the box is so easily viewable when looking at the difference between the two in photos. This has helped me realise how important stock is to a project, as well as important elements to consider such as Engineering of a product at the beginning of a project to make sure it will definitely work, and the details it will take to do so. I am very pleased with the end product as it has the exact aesthetic I was looking for when I first designed the packaging, although it is not glossy like many of the other previous Yankee candle book products, I don't think this affects its likeliness to the rest of the brand as its quality and design is what makes it adhere to the Yankee candle brand. I also like how the new box formation rings true to the idea of traditional books which Is what I based the box design upon, I created the box via binding 3 pieces of grey board together in a book formation, this refers to traditional book design much more than the previous design made solely of one piece of mount board. To further this idea I would have liked to print not only the cover of the box, but the cover of the book on fabric as I believe this would have brought an even more tactile and authentic experience to the book and box.  

OUGD505: Yankee candle research publication : Bind and wax melt.

YANKEE CANDLE PUBLICATION.
BIND AND WAX MELT.

As I had previously stated I wanted to Make the book look very traditional, to match the traditional aesthetic of the yankee candle brand. I had looked into the traditional bind of books (a case bind) However I then reconsidered how this would work as my front and back pages are printed on mount board. In order to produce a case bind, one must create a skeleton for the book which is then covered in bookram to create hinges between each piece of board. I wanted to leave my book uncovered with the pieces of board showing (As I had digitally printed them) and so I had to think of a way that I could bind the book, without compromising the classic aesthetic I was trying hard to achieve. 

I asked some other students if they had ever printed onto mount board, and used these as the front and back cover when binding a book. One student informed me of a simple bind he had done. 

Taking the mount board (top) place two pieces of inner paper on the inside face of each page. Place all the content pages (cut out seperately - no folds) inbetween the pieces of mountboard in inner paper. glue up the spine, getting as much inbetween the spine of each page as possible, then glue a piece of mesh down the spine to secure. 

I took all of my book pieces down to vernon street and began working on the bind. I cut inner pages from red paper to match the rest of the book aesthetic. Red is a strong colour used throughout the yankee candle brand taking pride of place in their logo, candles, and packaging. 

I grouped all of these pieces together in order into a stack, and cut two pieces of grey board to put either side of the stack to protect the front and back cover being damaged by the press. Once all the pages were flush against the spine, I secured the mass of pages into the press

Using my finger I applied two layers of PVA glue to the spine for extra hold, attempting to get glue in between each of the pages so that none of them would come loose and fall out. 

After leaving the glue to thoroughly set for 20 minutes, I cut a piece of mesh to fit the spine. This will secure all the pages in place, and give them something to stick to. I could have left the bind at this point, however a mesh bind is not a detail that you would find on a Yankee candle product. Therefore, I cut a piece of red bookram, so that it would overlap the spine by 0.5 mm on each side, and cover up the mesh, leaving the bind look much more clean, and more so in tune with the brand.  

Next I began making the Wax melt which I would be placing on top of the book where the red ribbons cross. The design I came up with was simple as shown previously. 

I made the design on illustrator for an easy export into Ethos the laser cutting software. I set up the wax melt so that It would raster certain parts and cut out around the edges to create the circle imprint.

I raster cut the detailing of the design so that the wax would press into the crevices, I went over this 3 times on the laser cut to insure that they were deep. I also cut out 4 plain circles to stick on the black of the plate to make a cylinder like handle.  I hot glue gunned this to the plate for extra security and left it to dry. 

Next I drew around the plate onto a piece of red paper, this is so that when I melted the wax, I knew where to drip the wax, and how big a puddle of wax I would need to fit the size of the plate.

At this point I lit the wicked wax stick and began melting the wax into a large 'puddle' against the paper.Once the puddle was large enough and of a similar thickness throughout I created a moisture barrier on the seal by covering the plate in water. I had read in some instructions that I needed to let the plate sink into the wax for around 10 seconds until the wax cooled. 

However when I pulled the plate away, I realised that I hadn't let the wax cool for long enough and therefore it didn't work. I realised in the instructions I had read that the wax seal being made was much smaller, and therefore for my design I would have to increase the cooling time. 

For the next attempt I followed exactly the same routine however I held the seal down for much longer, in hopes that when I pulled up the plate the wax would be cool enough. The second attempt worked better than the first however It still did not work. I think that this was due to the fact I was only rubbing water onto the plate to create a barrier between the wax and the wooden plate. As I didn't have much melting wax left, this would be my final attempt, and so I decided to substitute water for oil in the hopes this would create more of a barrier. 

Lifting the wooden plate up I realised that my final attempt was much more successful than the first. The wording on the wax melt was fully readable in comparison to the first two attempts. Unfortunately It didn't have as great a shape or shine usually seen in wax melts, however I was more happy to have a readable melt than a more aesthetically pleasing shape. 

Happy with the third design I glued this to the front of the book, completing the parcel like aesthetic I was looking for. 

OUGD505: Yankee candle research publication - Traditional aesthetic/ details.

I had previously spoken about wanting my book to take on a traditional aesthetic as Yankee candle is a very traditional brand. Therefore I looked into details of traditional books. There were two fine points in particular I found which I thought would help to push my book into that of the Traditional aesthetic and the Yankee candle brand, these are shown in images below:

Ornamental letters usually found at the start of each chapter in a book. 

Source

Source

Source

These ornamental letters were found in very old books dating back as far as the celtic era. Now when used in a modern sense, they are reminiscent of tradition and when looked at automatically take people back to a previous era. 

However I didn't want to go too historic with the design, as there was a chance that is could pull the piece from looking traditional to overly archaic. 

Therefore I looked for some design in which people had applied these details in a more modern sensibility, grounding the design in the current era, whilst still being reminiscent of the past. 

The two examples above draw upon the details of old ornamental type however firmly foot themselves within the modern world of design. The second piece of design is one that particularly inspired me for my book details. The design is a wedding invitation that was prescribed to have a story book theme. The design of the Ornamental letter looks somewhat modern due to its balance between ornamentation and minimalism. The letter combines both outline and fill shapes, however these are not clouded by any half toned, hand drawn style illustrations.  

I decided to use the ornamental letters as a consistent running theme throughout the titles of my book. Taking the first letter of each title and drawing it inspired by the above styles and completing the rest of the title in Yankee candles serif font 'Book Antiqua'. 

Not only did I want these letters to be adorned with detail, I wanted them to also be reflective of the heart of Yankee candle, the candles themselves. 

I sketched up ideas, using an extra bold version of the book antiqua font as a base, and adorning it with line, and white fill decorations, the main motif with a nod to candles. Below is the sort of Idea I came up with. I also experimented with doing the letters with both a white fill or black fill but found that the white tended to look too cluttered which Is what I wanted to stay away from. 

The figures which I needed to produce in the ornamental style were T,Y,H, F, 1 and 4, However once I felt comfortable with the first 4 I had drawn, shown above, I worked on them digitally. 

Inspired by the design of the invitations, I decided to take my page designs further by adding a slightly decorative border to each page. I again sketched up a design using only fill and outline elements, combining simple shapes and another candle motif. Once I scanned the design in as shown below I worked to create it digitally in illustrator. 

However I felt that this section of design could be changed to be more in tune with the Yankee candle brand and so I played around with the melting candle motif in the bottom corner, and interchanged it with the minimalist yankee candle logo, used across a range of their design. 

Below is how the border and titles appear when combines together: