OUGD505: Design boards for all projects.

OUGD505.
DESIGN BOARDS.
STUDIO BRIEFS 1,2 & 3.

STUDIO BRIEF 1: YANKEE CANDLE - RESEARCH PUBLICATION.

STUDIO BRIEF 2 : YANKEE CANDLE - PACKAGING AND PROMOTION.

STUDIO BRIEF 3 : THE FORTUNE ALTERNATIVE MOVIE POSTER.

OUGD505: Yankee candle/ Studio brief 2 - Evaluation.

YANKEE CANDLE. 
STUDIO BRIEF 2.
EVALUATION.

I was very happy with the end set of products I produced for this project and felt that they showed great attention to detail and quality, and also showed how far that a response to a brief could be taken to receive the best possible outcome. I felt that with this project I definitely improved my skills in patience and craft, after having to cut, fold and glue 32 different sections to complete the boxes alone. Not only this, the hand done paintings and decision to add extra details via foiling came at a longer project time, and required more patience, than any other purely digital project to digital print I had worked on. 

I do however think that there were some issues with craft, however for the most part I felt that these 'mistakes' were out of my hands and mainly occurred naturally just because the boxes were being constructed by hand. Mistakes such as these were mainly at the gluing stages. All the nets shapes and sizes were the same, and cut rigidly on the guides printed, however at the gluing stage it was more trusting instinct where the right places were to glue, how much glue to use and so this altered from box to box, which is why I think some were more successful than others.  

In order to improve the packaging I would have liked to have printed onto a thinker stock, not only would this have added and even more high-end feel to the product, it would also have made the packaging much more durable, as I felt the boxes were quite weak to be holding jars. However I knew that mount board was not an option due to the previous project where I had tried to construct a box and it didn't work. I could have improved my stock selection by looking outside college at an online stockist, however due to the number of deadlines and my decision to paint and foil the packaging, I was left with hardly anytime to print, and therefore this is something I would have definitely considered had there been a longer timeframe to complete the project. I would have also made the box created for the tea lights slightly smaller. You will be able to see from opening the Memories of joy box which houses a set of tea lights that there is quite a lot of wiggle room for the tea lights to fall over. Although these would be sat on a shelf in store, they also would have to be distributed via trucks and therefore might displace an unstack during commute. This could be easily adjusted by decreasing the size of the panels for the box.  

In terms of things that went well, I am very pleased with the outcome of the foiling. Foiling details onto the boxes was one of the last things that I had to do in terms of designing and was therefore something I had to squeeze into one afternoon. Due to the small timeframe, I didn't have much time for practice, however, being fairly confident with foiling I got stuck in. I wasn't expecting the outcome to go so well as every piece of foiling that I did went right. It can be seen that there are some imperfections on the boxes, however this was down to the fact I was using old wooden screens which had holes in, these were the only ones available at the time and so I tried to correct this by covering up most of the holes with tape. I feel that foiling has become one of my strongest production skills and is something I will continue to capitalise on.

I was also happy with the outcome of each of the paintings, I have not painted since my art A level 3 years ago and so I thought that this would be quite a challenge. However it was something that I really enjoyed doing, and although the pieces took 3 days to complete, it was great to take a break from digital work and do what I used to do best. I was worried that I would lose the painted effect and that they wouldn't come out as well when transferred to being digital, however I felt that after playing around with the brightness of a couple in photoshop, the application for physical to digital came out really well. 

I thought that the stickers I produced alongside the packaging to be placed on the jars inside really helped the collection to become more whole and well rounded, I took inspiration from the sticker designs seen currently in the circulation of Yankee candle's which is why I think they were, when combined a successful addition, using a matt sticker overlaid by a clear vinyl sticker to get the glossy finish seen on regular Yankee candles.  

Another aspect of the project that I felt helped the collection of pieces really look like part of the Yankee candle brand was the promotional work. Through using a specific selection of colours, familiar fonts already used in the Yankee candle brand and photography over illustrations, I really thought that the promotional work helped to put the packaging collection into context. 

One aspect that let down the promotional work was the photoshopping of the posters. I felt that I did well to match the original photos I had taken to the background as this was easy. However, photoshop is not my strong point and so, the images of the boxes, still have some of the imperfections on done whilst crafting and constructing. I would have liked to somehow remove or erase these. My photoshop skills are something I would like to work on over summer so I do not have these problems in year 3.

OUGD505: Yankee candle - Constructing packaging.

YANKEE CANDLE.

PACKAGING CONSTRUCTION. 

Today I spent the full day constructing all 8 boxes in my collection.

To construct the boxes I had to cut out all 16 body sections, and all 16 lid sections from the a2 sheets they were printed on. I had to cut these carefully as my boxes were made to slot together, If I didn't cut the boxes properly, there was a chance that they would not slot together properly. Once I had managed to cut all of these out I started construction with the inside layer of the body of the box seen below.

I scored all of the lines on the net, to make the unique hexagon shape form. 

I then glued the tabs of this net together to form the hexagon box which would make up the inside layer (shown in blue) on the CAD diagram. 

I then moved on to construct the inside layer of the lid, scoring the lines again, folding with a bone folder and gluing the small tabs together. 

This would sometimes require crocodile clips to hold in place as the tabs were so small. 

Now that the inside layer was done I moved onto the outside. Here I had to measure out and draw the lines where the card would need to be scored. For help with measurements I referred by to my development and CAD diagrams. 

I measured 53mm wide sections for the small pillar boxes, and 55mm panels for the tea light boxes. 

Once I had drawn these out I scored the lines, and folded the sections with a bone folder.

I then, again, glued the tabs together completing the outside layer of the box. 

I then slipped the inside layer into this, which due to my precise measurements fitted in snug, as I had wanted. 

The last part of the box I had to construct was the outside layer of the lid, which I cut, folded and glued into place. 

I was then able to again, slot the outside layer in inside layer together in a snug fit. 

With both the body and lid section now completed I was able to slot the two sections together as wanted. 

I then repeated the process with the remaining 7 boxes. 

All of the 8 boxes cut, folded and glued together. 

OUGD505: Yankee candle - Packaging extra details.

YANKEE CANDLE.
PACKAGING / EXTRA DETAILS.


Although I was very happy with the printed nets of my boxes, and how the paintings transferred to being digital images, I had an idea that would take the project further. My new idea was to add some extra details to the packaging via foiling. Foiling is a material I would only use on a premium brand, which is exactly what Yankee candle is. 

The idea would be to take the packaging nets, and pick small features and accentuate these, and also add new features to the packaging via the technique of foiling. I also thought that picking and adding small features and fashioning them in an illustrative way would help to sell the candle range to the lower end of Yankee candles age bracket such as the 20's. I had also talked about the range of Yankee candle's being something that someone may give a worn out family member or friend as a gift, and therefore adding the foil details would make the package appear more special and present like. 

The idea came to me when looking at my night sky piece, and imagining how much more exclusive the packaging would look if it still used the same night sky painting texture, however if there were some kind of foiled stars on top.

I tried drawing some foiled stars over the top of the net on illustrator to see how this design would work out:

I really liked how the inclusion of these details not only made the box appear more gift like, but also helped them to appear more in tune with a modern market, as painting is very traditional. I applied the same design to the net, however this time in a pale grey, as in connection with the heavy blues/purple tones on the box, I thought this would match the best. 

The next net I designed foil details for was Memories of Joy. The memories of joy box features a flowery field and spring sky. My idea for this box was to add some foil flowers to the field and add some small birds into the sky.

When considering colours I did think that again silver would work, with the colder tones of the sky, however I wanted to pick a colour that would slightly contrast this. I had worked with a very nice champayne/ cream coloured foil before, that I thought would be a nice subtle contrast. This would also bring the yellow tones of the flower bed up into the sky.

I prepared these designs to put them on a foiling screen:

Next I moved onto the beach design for the slow down candle. This was the one I was most excited about as it allowed me to be more experimental with the small details. I picked out bits such as ripples in the waves, the spray from the sea hitting the sand, and also added a couple of shells onto the sand. Due to the heavy use of blue I also thought that these details would look best if completed in silver.

The last box to add foil details onto was the Kindled spirit candle, on which a sunrise was pictured. As this was the most plain and least detailed out of the four paintings I had to be careful with what I chose to do. I decided to re-use of the simple motifs which I used on the memories of joy box, the symbols of birds gliding in the sky. 

I thought that gold would be the best colour of foil to use for this combination, as the box solely relied on colours with warm tones. I felt that a colour such as copper would get lost within all the shades of orange and red, and therefore gold seemed like my best bit. 

I prepared the artwork for the Slow down (beach) candle and Kindled spirit (Sunrise) candle, ready for exposing onto a screen. 

The process:

I created the foil details via the screen process, in which I exposed the above patterns onto a mesh screen and pushed flock glue the screen with a squeegee. I then applied the colour foil which I had recommended previously for each box, to the glue and placed this into a heat press for 12 seconds and left the foil to cool before peeling it away. 

  

OUGD505: Yankee candle - Label design.

YANKEE CANDLE. 

LABEL DESIGN. 

I also wanted to create some labels that could be put onto the small pillar jars. Candles made at Yankee candle, bot only sometimes reference the flavour of the candle on the outside box, but also on a clear label placed on the outside of the jar. 

I realised that although these stickers are clear vinyl stickers, they still have the bright white colour within the sticker that I would not be able to emulate on a vinyl sticker as I cannot print white ink. Therefore It was suggested that I should print my stickers in two layers, printing the centre piece (Image and frgrance/ name of candle) on which paper as a matter sticker, then apply the vinyl sticker with the Yankee candle aromatherapy logo over the top, This way I will be able to keep the shiny feel of the labels, which is prominent on current Yankee candle jars.

In terms of design, I wanted to create a mix between the labels seen on traditional Yankee candle jars such as above, and blend this with the labels I created for the boxes. 

Before I began designing, I took the measurements of the sticker on my small pillar candle so that I would be able to create my stickers exactly in line with the already in circuit/use Yankee candle branding. 

Measurements: 

Clear vinyl sticker - height = 55mm - width = 70mm

Matte white sticker - height = 38mm - width = 60mm

 I started by creating the bottom layer that would be printed as a matte sticker on white paper. It is a normal thing for Yankee Candle to use a photograph of the ingredients/fragrances inside the candle. However I am not able to collect and buy all of the scents used in the candles I have designed for and therefore I will be taking a different approach.  

Instead I will be placing this photograph, with a small image of the landscape/sky I created for each candle, Yankee candle have done this previously in candles such as pink sands and black coconut.

The idea I have is to take the image of my painting, and underneath this place the coloured strip seen on the boxes I designed for each of the candles, such as the lilac strip seen on the Memories of Joy candle seen below.

I started with the Slow Down candle. First I cropped down the image of the painting of the beach I had done so that It would fir onto the label, and not only this, that the most prominent parts of the image were included, some sand, some water and some sky. 

I then placed the name of the candle underneath the image as seen on all other Yankee Candle jars. 

I then placed another box around this in the size of the vinyl sticker as a Boundary as to how big I could go with the Yankee candle Aromatherapy spa logo. Unfortunately I am not able to do the logo in white as seen above on the black coconut candle - which would work better on Darker candles as you would not be able to see the black, however I am not able to find the facilities to print stickers with white ink, and so for reference I will print all the stickers with the logo on black. 

Which I then placed inside the box.

I will continue to do this with the other three fragrances in the collection. 

I have separated the vinyl and matte sticker designs so that they can be printed separately.