"Typography Technician"
We've had a talk from the Swiss Typographer Bruno Maag, who went extensively into his personal career and his processes he undertakes when producing typography for a client. He is well known for his variety of client pieces and has successfully set up his own business Dalton Maag which works with clients worldwide. Example clients of his he gave within his lecture, but some examples include: Lush cosmetics, Amazon, Puma, Intel, Oxfam, Samsung, BMW, BT and Burberry.
Example work for LUSH Cosmetics company.
As someone who describes himself as a typography technician, Maag says he favours black and white elements rather than the colourful implications of other designs such as graphic and motion design. He implied that he is "not an artist, I am a designer" developing his thoughts that he designs for the money, for the client, and for the portfolio overall.
Sketchbook work Dalton Maag for Rio 2016
He spoke about the transition between physically producing typefaces for aspects such as New York Newspapers, to producing digital aspects for online merchandise as well as using digital formats to print onto products. He joked about the fact that his training was very different from the training that he gives his interns and new colleagues today, as when he started out in the business as working for Monotype in England, he had to draw a precise line all week till it was perfect, and if the measurements were off by 1mm physically, he'd have to try again for a new week, slowly and strictly training their precision. He described that such precision CAN be taught, and says that now for his own training scheme within his business of Dalton Maag, he trains his employees with physical as well as digital elements, to strictly inform them of the precision needed. They begin with calligraphy, which then evolves to painting typography and restricting the size of such font to 10pt to ensure the trainees are able to produce a font that will successfully be shrunk down or enlarged and still convey the same language and understanding to the reader.
Final Rio Olympics 2016 Typeface by Dalton Maag
He analysed the fact that you have to be able to understand that the client you could work for may not be a national format, they may need alternate designs to tackle alternate countries and civilisations. Maag gave an example of working on a piece where he produced an arabic variation of the font he produced, and brought it back to the client who enjoyed the font, but thought it was the wrong way round, however, it was the client who hadn't correctly facilitated the different culture and how they read right to left rather than left to right, so they had to redesign the whole campaign. He used this as an example to show that you need to be more precise and thoughtful within new nationalities, to make sure that the mood of the font isn't lost by school boy errors in design.
The mood is also something he described that I can fully understand, the fact is that they need a certain mood and font is how they do that in certain instances, and I feel this is something that can also be applied when producing Motion Design, because of the fact that you need to be thoughtful in the type you select in order for it to produce a certain mood or feeling that you want producing.
After coming up with a few ideas, I'm currently experimenting with the idea of moving fruit elements to music, the happiness and Natural elements that the company strive for will hopefully be captured in such an idea. I think the escapism that I had seen in the Twining's tea advert was highly influential for this idea, as it's the craftsmanship of producing something out of something else, and from this making it more fun.
I had the idea of slices of fruit that are some ingredients in the range, slowly dancing to music (or movement that suggests dance) and then getting more and more quick and energised, alternatively there is also the aspect of making flowers out of fruit, I felt this links to the growth and natural element of the product as well as the linking to women and the more feminine aspect of flowers. Another alternate version of this idea is to have a drop of the product fall onto a normal landscape of flowers, and they become fruity, more colourful flowers, perhaps the aspect of dried out flowers could be more effective to begin with to show the thirst beforehand and the benefits this drink would have once taken. Although I really like the idea of fruit flowers growing, I will need to experiment what technique will work best for this idea, such as 3D elements, 2D elements such as rotascoping, pixilation, stop motion etc. and many more. I intend to produce a series of experimental pieces on Photoshop and in my sketchbook as well as collages and storyboards to help evaluate the technique and see what works best.
After having decided and looked into other products on the market, I decided to go out and purchase a product from the Feel Good Drinks Co. Category for members of the public and classmates I asked to test and review the product, and others to simply look at the product packaging and fill in a survey. Survey
I produced a survey that I conducted with a variety of people, each from different age ranges, to try to understand what the packaging and overall appearance of the packaging was at first glance, and whether or not it stands out on the packaging.
Overview of survey (Questions and my evaluation of what people said generally)
Q1. Do you recognise this product or the Feel Good Drinks Company Brand?
Most people didn't recognise the company brand or logo, and didn't know the product, however were surprised at this and liked the appearance of it from afar. Those that had seen the product before or recognised it hadn't actually bought it themselves, but worked in cafés or areas where the product was available to customers. How could the product be more appealing to this age range of people and why have they not bought it before? Most said it was because it looks expensive, so perhaps that's something I could try to approach, to show them that it may be a little more expensive, but because of the health benefits of it being better for you, it's worth paying a little bit extra in comparison to fizzy drinks and usual beverages.
As well as studying posters and adverts in my sketchbook of existing drinks, I have also studied some advertising campaigns online in reference to advertising via animation. Personally, I think one of the most effective ways of catching an eye of an audience of 18-35year olds is one animation as well as a series of gifs and posters. Although it's important to start listing ideas like I have in my sketchbook, I also would like to look into what is already out there and how to stand out and do something slightly different to what has already been done.
The way in which the product is advertised will also show who it is aimed for, and with it being quite restrictive as to the age range and the gender of the brief, it's important that people of that gender of female and between the age range of 18-35 feel like it is an advert that is aimed at them and not missing their needs entirely.
Mikey Please & Dan Oraji on set (Sourced from Parabella)
Twinings Tea
Using a stop motion Pixilation style animation with a model set and origami style animated birds made of tea papers, this playful add shows the benefits of drinking Twinings tea, the idea of escapism behind the drink is shown, something I think everyone likes to think of in terms of trying a product, you isolate yourself as just you and the drink, something I would like to also adopt in my
Parabella's Mikey Please and Dan Oraji produced the advertisement that is inspired by the Golden Era of musicals. The technique involved pointillism with inspiration to David Hockney and 3D models on layered planes, for more of a depth in the perspective. A time consuming process, the animators used 100,000 tea bags and 50 paper folding styles, and captured the female character frame by frame all in camera pixilation, adding to the quaint and quirky feel that you get from the combination of techniques such as the model and the contrast of the sets.
I love the overall finish to the piece as it's quirky and like I stated earlier, really adds to the form of escapism that the producers wanted to capture with the drinking of the tea. The colour palette also adds to the overall look of the piece, with it looking bright and cheerful when the tea had been drunk, also showing the benefits of drinking the tea. Although this is for a hot beverage rather than the aspect of a healthier sparkling fruit juice "Feel Good" I think it successfully shows the audience that drinking the tea produces happiness and benefits, things most people strive for, as well as adding an aspect of fun.
This way of advertising does appeal to me, however I will need a way to adopt the style and alter it in order to be less time consuming as I don't have much time to plan and produce the animation itself.
advertisement for Feel Good Drinks. Although this aspect of animation was a time consuming process and intricate work with the paper sets, I feel like a nice physical way of animating is also one that could work for me, perhaps making sets and enhancing how much of a raw and 'naked' product it is through the aspect of animation would really add to the meaning behind it. Twinings. Drink It All In from Andy Biddle on Vimeo. Twinings "Drink It All In" Making Of from Hornet on Vimeo.
Innocent Smoothies
As one of the leading smoothie suppliers, innocent are a company who have supplied an aspect of fun into the smoothies, in order to ensure that young people find the smoothies appealing. Although the 'Feel Good Drinks is more of a sparkling fruit juice drink, I think it's important to analyse how companies such as Innocent actually supply the information, and the benefits to the audience involved and how they convince people to buy their product over other beverages.
The idea behind using empowering words to feel like the drink is benefitting you is also a key thing to involve in the production of an advertisement.
Coca-cola As the leading soft drink in the UK, Coca-cola, has been around since 1886 and has particular values they've chosen to keep over the years, but still wanting to refresh their advertising campaigns with all new installations and different aspects of media to support it.
Through Coca-cola's merchandise, the label text originates from the original founder's handwriting, and therefore there are obviously certain aspects of it's heritage that they want in tact always keeping such text on their product labels and adverts.
The red and white aspect is also a recognisable feature overall, and although it's hard to compare the nature of 'Feel Good Drinks Company' to Coca-Cola, I think it's also just as important to recognise the choices people make over health drinks, which is most often Coke.
Another famous event of advertising in relation to Coke is the famous aspect of the Christmas adverts, many people I know claim "It's not Christmas till we see the Christmas Coca-cola advert" showing that Coke has carefully become an important part of festivities and modern day society, it is very much a drink that many people have grown up with, and therefore holds a good place in people's minds when choosing a drink to buy.
However, although the aspect of Coke being a popular drink arises, there is the fact that the health benefits of drinking alternatives could outweigh such drinks, although a popular drink with now lighter alternatives such as 'Diet Coke' and 'Coke Zero', the general pubic are aware that this soft drink is not good for them, and therefore if convinced, could buy a healthier drink such as 'Feel Good' instead of the usual Coke.
Supermarket Research
In order to find out more information about the product, I have gone onto Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda's sites as well as visiting their stores in order to see the product in person and see where it stands on the shelves. I wanted to see where the stores positioned the drinks on the shelves, and found that my initial thoughts of thinking that the drink would be stored with the health drinks such as innocent etc, were wrong and that the Feel Good Drinks were actually positioned with the popular fruit juice J20, Schloer and Appletiser. Additionally, it allowed me to gather price information, and which store supplied the wider range of Feel Good Drinks and I found it impossible to find the drinks in Tesco stores, whereas most widely available in Asda. Applying this research to finding out who buys the product and why and when will help provide further information about how I could draw in the target audience of 18-35 year olds. I found the drinks that were readily available in each store, here's what I have found overall. Asda General Offer 3 for £2.00 on Non Alcoholic Feel Good Cans
Strawberry Daiquiri Non Alcoholic 250ml-£1.29
Cocktail Mojito Non Alcoholic 250ml- £1.29
Sparkling Cranberry & Lime- £2.00
Sparkling Orange & Passionfruit- £2.00
Sparkling Apple & Peach- £2.00
Sparkling Raspberry & Passionfruit- £2.00
Sparkling Cloudy Lemon Juice- £2.00
Main competitors seemed to be J20 box sets, Appletiser box sets and Appletiser bottles.
Screenshot Taken from Tesco site http://www.tesco.com
Tesco
I visited 2 separate Tesco stores in the Manchester area and wasn't able to find any trace of the product, and when I searched online there was no products available and the site stated that Tesco no longer supply Feel Good Drinks. Perhaps it's a regional audience so isn't able to supply to this area, but either way unfortunately no research could be carried out for the product. Perhaps I could contact the actual company through the email address on their website, to clarify a few things about the consumers and the actual bottle design, as the bottle design seems to have changed from the original shape, meaning I'd need to clarify which bottle needs to feature within the advertisement.
Sainsbury's
Sainsbury's don't have the same sort of range in their stores, there's not a wide range available, and the drinks themselves are currently on sale at a reduced price. Here's what's available:
Sparkling Cranberry & Lime 750ml - £1.50
Sparkling Raspberry & Passionfruit 750ml- £1.50
Similarly to Asda, Sainsbury's seem to stock the drinks within the Sparkling drinks category, so I plan on researching further into the direct competition such as J20 and Schloer who are also leading fruit juice categories.
To conclude from this research, I have learnt that there are alternate competitors I need to research into as they will directly influence the audience and we need to convince the audience to choose this product instead. Maybe I should look into what these competing brands do to sell their product, and how they describe their benefits on their product.
Competing Brands
Appletiser
Screenshots taken from Appletiser website http://appletiser.co.za
The range on offer:
Appletiser Sparkling Apple juice 750ml glass bottle, 275ml glass bottle, 330ml Can, 350ml plastic bottle and 1.25l Plastic bottle.
Red Grapetiser Sparkling red grape juice 750ml glass bottle, 275ml glass bottle, 330ml Can, 350ml plastic bottle and 1.25l Plastic bottle.
Grapetiser Sparkling white grape juice 750ml glass bottle, 275ml glass bottle, 330ml Can, 350ml plastic bottle and 1.25l Plastic bottle.
Peartiser Sparkling Pear, 1.25l Plastic Bottle
However out of the range that Appletiser has on offer, I've found that the original sparkling apple juice is the most popular and therefore I've looked into what they have stated on their packaging in order to sell their product. Their slogan "Deliciously Good For Me" I think successfully invites the attention of the audience and the way it uses "me" adds a personal edge to the advertising, and like the audience is invited into buying the product. A friendlier approach to getting them to buy the product and feel good about themselves.
The main competing bottle would be the 750ml Appletiser as this is the size of the Feel Good Sparkling Juice too, here's the list of prices of the product in stores some of which sell Feel Good Drinks:
Tesco- Appletiser Sparkling Apple Juice 750ml- £2.49
Asda- Appletiser Sparkling Apple Juice 750ml- £2.50
Sainsbury's- Appletiser Sparkling Apple Juice 750ml-£2.50
Waitrose- Appletiser Sparkling Apple Juice 750ml- £2.49
Ocado- Appletiser Sparkling Apple Juice 750ml- £2.49
From this you can see that generally, the Appletiser is around 50p more than the Feel Good Drinks Co. 750ml Sparkling drinks whilst also boasting of the 100% Fruit Juice quality.
I've noticed a lot of Appletiser's online prescence is more within installations with models and celebrities such as Eliza DooLittle, who poses with installations of Appletiser bottles as part of their advertising campaigns and posters.
As well as this, wanting to target a younger audience and boost sales of the smaller bottles of Appletiser, January 2015, Appletiser launched a limited edition App called APPletiser
where it encouraged the audience to buy more Appletiser bottles as you could then scan the bottles and romantic characters would pair up etc. It became a success and boosted sales at nearly 48%, I agree that to try to aim the product at a teenage or younger age range, your online presence, apps, Youtube, Social Media etc is vital as the internet and devices such as Smart Phones are used internationally.
In addition to the app video there are also campaign posters to lure the audience into buying more products, also I think that ensuring the audience know it's limited edition made people want to buy the product now instead. Schloer
Through the supermarket research that I had carried out, I learnt that there are certain areas of the market that competitors aim for, for Schloer, one of the popular Sparkling Soft Drinks with fruit juice, is that they aim to appeal to people who perhaps need an alternative to alcoholic beverages, such as designated drivers on Christmas day, pregnant people and new Mums and people who are taking part of events where they abstain from alcohol such as 'Dry
January' They describe themselves as "the Soft Beverage for Adults" making the idea of soft drinks more sophisticated and appealing to other alternatives.
The range on offer:
Schloer Red Grape 275ml, 75cl glass bottles "Rich & Fruity"
Schloer White Grape 275ml, 75cl glass bottles "Fabulously Fresh"
Schloer Apple & White Grape, 275ml, 75cl, glass bottles "Aromatic & Delicious"
Schloer White Grape & Elderflower, 275ml, 75cl, glass bottles
Bartle Bogle Hegarty
BBH for short, this studio is an agency based on marketing and advertising, an area of the industry I am interested in. "When the world zigs, zag"
Mentos gay pride poster for social media.
Being an international studio, BBH also has connections to Los Angeles, Mumbai, Shanghai, New York, Singapore and Stockholm, so withholds a variety of styles and medias. They have produced mostly advertising and commercial work, work that would definitely appeal to me in the industry, examples of which are work for companies such as KFC, St John Ambulance, Mento's and Barclay's. They also produce a range of influential poster designs for different causes, the example being a Mento's poster designed to coincide with the 'Pride' march in London as well as to support the debate on whether or not same sex marriage should be legalised in the USA.
They also produced an advertisement for the Barclay's coding programme for children and their parents to learn how to code better. The piece includes a bit of humour as well as the animated coded dinosaur that was created for the programme itself. I think the way they show the diversity of the ages using the programme shows that it is one that wants to be appealing to both ages, as Barclay's wanted the aspect of coding to be something that isn't as scary to most parents now that it has become part of the curriculum for children of 5 years old to begin learning.
I think one of their more successful campaigns was their St John's Ambulance baby campaign, where they asked BBH to produce a safety awareness video for parents with babies to stop them choking and to save them when they are, using miscellaneous objects such as pen lids, dolls, and jelly babies, BBH paired together aspects of fun characters but an important set of instructions in order to help prevent deaths of babies via choking.
As well as the video to spread awareness for the parents, they also paired up with the idea of having a book about a pen losing its lid and being choked on, showing how it's the little things that a baby can easily choke on and put in their mouthes.
I think the nice plastic look to the objects is beautiful with the textures, and although I myself don't see Cinema4d or 3d itself being an area of strength for me, I think it's something I could look into and be interested in such campaigns as advertising things for informative purposes rather than more commercial work.
We've been given time over Christmas to look through some live briefs shown on two competition sites, selecting a couple to present to the class.
Here are the couple that personally I was interested in. I have copied and pasted the Brief so I can annotate my thoughts on it so far.
Feel Good Drinks
Spread positivity, and put Feel Good onto the radar of young women.
Background
Nichols plc has recently purchased the Feel Good brand.
Launched in 2001, Feel Good Drinks is a premium range of 100% natural still and sparkling drinks for adults sold in over 20,000 outlets across 15 different countries.
The brand ethos is all about Feeling Good — 100% Natural ingredients with no added nasties, giving 1 of your 5 a day with no added sugar. No added anything!
Feel Good has been marketed in the past but only had Facebook activity since summer 2014.
We want you to show us how we can spread the word about Feel Good and get more people feeling good.
Looking into the background of Feel Good, you can see they are a reasonably new company, so able to be flexible with their advertising campaign. I think to successfully provide further insight into the current market that the drinks are involved in, I should look at some existing health drinks for Market Research, and see what they have approached in their advertising campaigns.
The Challenge
We want you to re-engage 18-35 year old females with the Feel Good brand, and are very open minded as to how you go about doing it.
We want you to spread Feel Goodness, driving awareness and inspiring people to engage with the brand and buy the product.
We want to remind and reassure the target audience that Feel Good is relevant for them, that it’s simple and honest and that it delivers against their needs of wanting healthier cleaner drinks.
This is a deliberately very open brief, and you are free to demonstrate your creative thinking in any medium or combination of media you see fit.
We are open to ideas for new campaigns such as press adds, PR, Packaging, social media, sampling, on-pack promotions, in-store engagement; concepts for grabbing people on the streets or fresh thoughts for how our bottles and packs look.
We want you to think about the moments, formats and contexts in which we can most successfully engage with our target audience.
How can we spread positivity and connect with this audience in fresh and memorable ways?
I like the fact that it is an age range I can familiarise with, and I know that in order to find research to get more information on what actually appeals to 18-35year olds a survey would be an effective idea to include.
Range of refreshing good, honest, great tasting drinks:
• 750ml Sparkling fruit juice
• 275ml Still & Sparkling Fruit Juice
• 400ml Still Fruit Juice Drink
Available in Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys, Spar and cafes, parks, deli’s and restaurants across the country.
Target Audience
18-35 yr old millennials.
• United by attitude rather than age, sex, money or geography
• Healthy but not obsessive eg. they go to the gym but they will enjoy that slice of cake
• Want quality at a fair price
• Lead busy lives and use technology to save time and communicate
• Sociable, Ambitious, Adventurous
• Must talk regularly to them, they care and can help
• Marketing savvy..... keep it real!
• They are socially conscious
• Work hard – play hard ethos
• When would they drink FG? At lunch in 275ml or 400ml format and then in the evening with their meal instead of alcohol (750ml larger bottle poured into glass)
What does our consumer think?
"I do not want to compromise. I want tasty healthy, natural drinks that have no added sugar that make me feel good."
I’m making a positive choice without compromise.
What do they Think/Feel/Do now?
They may have some recognition of the FG brand but no top of mind awareness and they are not aware of the brands relevance for them.
They are cynical about what is in drinks. Unsure about what has extra sugars in following sensational journalism on proposed healthy options having addition sugar added.
They balance between calorie intake (diet cokes fanatics) and looking for clean labels and healthier products.
Core Communication
100% Natural
FG doesn’t compromise. Never any added sugar, (1 of your 5 a Day), 100% Natural Ingredients. No artificial colours, flavours, preservatives – so you can feel good every day.
Brand Positioning and Tone of Voice
Honest. Big Fruit. Fun Fruity. Upbeat. Modern. Not worthy. Not Preachy. Good Honest Fun.
Market Context
The soft drinks category is highly competitive and heavily promoted. The areas in growth are healthier ones such as water and flavoured water.
There’s currently a backlash on sugar in the category and products that claim to be healthy but really have additional sugars added in. Feel Good has no sugar added except the naturally occurring sugar in the fruit.
Tesco have recently removed high sugar drinks from kids category.
Gap
Create a social media campaign which educates 25-35 year olds about the benefits of Gap denim.
Who We Are
Founded in 1969, Gap is an iconic brand deeply rooted in its rich denim heritage. Our founders Doris and Don Fisher opened the first Gap store on Ocean Avenue in San Francisco for one simple reason. Don couldn’t find a pair of jeans that fit. They never expected to transform retail but they did.
American optimism is our attitude. Casual, elevated style is our aesthetic. We believe that style comes from the individual - So you can wear Gap the way you want to.
Our roots epitomise American culture and denim-loving music muses. We believe in the beauty and power of evolution, staying true to our core while creating for what is next. We like to think of ourselves as the ‘denim experts’, continually evolving our styles, fits, technology and fabrications to offer our customers only the best.
Our Customers
Gap customers are true individuals who want to take inspiration from the world all around them to continually evolve their own confident, effortless style. They want to trust that Gap will provide the best style essentials, designed with care, along with on-brand products that delight and surprise.
Gap customers want to connect to a confident point of view, drawing them in to a bigger bolder world that unleashes new possibilities. The Gap customer want to be part of an inclusive and boundary-less world that takes inspiration from authentic and diverse ideas, cultures and beliefs.
Your Creative Challenge
Your challenge is to create a social media campaign, which educates 25-35 year olds about the benefits of Gap denim.
There are four aspects to the Gap denim collection which make it great. Fabric and technology evolution, our commitment to social responsibility, a variety of on-trend fits and washes and our rich denim heritage.
Think about how you would visually communicate to the consumer that for these reasons, Gap is the ultimate denim destination.
Your campaign should be communicated through eye catching visual content which could be utilised across all Gap social media platforms, speaking directly to our customer. The campaign will launch in September 2016, our favourite time of year to celebrate Gap denim.
Inspiration
Immerse yourself in the world of Gap. Look at our social media platforms, visit our stores and research our history online. We encourage you study our denim offer and speak to our store associates – they would love to brainstorm with you. Take note of our tone of voice online and in-stores, we are reinventing how we speak to our customers and we want you to be on board.
Considerations, mandatories & deliverables
While you are being challenged to bring your campaign to life via social media, there are some important points to consider:
• The social marketing campaign must feature your own photography, graphics, illustrations, animations or short form videos.
• Must use the Gap logo – cannot be changed or altered.
• Your campaign language should adopt and inject the Gap tone of voice.
• Only 20% or less of the graphic can contain text (including logos and slogans) – This is a Facebook rule, not ours! Facebook recommend reviewing their 20% text policy and/or checking your graphics with the grid tool. Deliverables & Additional Information
In the accompanying Project Pack at the YCN website you will find:
• Gap logo guidelines
• Gap history
For guidance on how to submit your work, please adhere to the main Deliverables information which can be found at the YCN website.
Any additional information referenced in the brief can be found in the supporting Project Pack at the YCN website.
In order to conclude on the work I've done for this project, I think I successfully experimented with new methods that I hadn't necessarily worked with before, that allowed me to capture a vintage and historical atmosphere that the story told enhanced. Although I am impressed with the overall finished product as an aspect of experimentation, there are obvious improvements that need to be made.
Transitioning- I feel that although a lot of my time went into the Photoshop elements and the collage intricate puppets, I needed to have spent more time on carefully ensuring all the elements ran smoothly. An example is in the pilot scene in the cockpit, the pilots seem to be moving rather jerkily so aspects such as Ease In etc. could've allowed a smoother outcome and overall made it look better as a whole.
Movements- I think as I've said the movements could've been less jerky, but maybe other more complex movements could also be added to the piece. I also think it's important to point out the fact that the moving of the collage pieces isn't really very obvious in terms of noticing it in the opening, which is disappointing with the intricacies that are involved in doing this part of the project.
The hesitation in some areas is a bit too long and so I'd like to shorten some of the areas to increase the effectiveness of the piece.
