New Brief Alert!!!!!!!!!

We have a new brief, which is about brand factors. This brief consists of analysing a given brand, the brand my partner and I had to analyze is Lidl (oh what joy!). First of all we had to deconstruct the brand from culture (heritage) to projection of customers.

From our brand analysis we came up with a brief of, “How do Lidl keep their new demographic of customers they have acquired through the recession?”. We know that a number of new customers who shop at Lidl may have not of shopped there before the current financial climate.

What is the big idea, I hear you cry?

Well the big idea is to design an online community, where people can share information about Lidl’s products, recipes, recommendations, review products. In store you will given a hand held device that you log onto using a fob with a barcode, it will then show w welcome message from the manager and show you the staff who are working, this will hopefully give Lidl a more friendly atmosphere and make the customer feel special.

After the welcome screen you can access a list of products that you purchased on you last visit and tell you if those products are available, as Lidl don’t always have the same products from week to week. There would also be a map of the store location those products to help the customer a easier shopping experience.

That is an overview of our idea, should be a really good once we design what the screen will look like mean while here are some pics of the prototype…

The Blog Remains The Same

Hello…

A new year, a new decade and I still can’t keep up to date with my blog. Before I said that I would have some news on my website… I have no news due to work commitments over Christmas.

I managed to take a few exhibitions over the festival period. First of all I went to The Design Museum to see the Dieter Rams exhibition, Less and More – The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams. I was really impressed with whole exhibition, it gave me a really good idea of how product design can be so simple yet effective. Even the graphics for the exhibition was excellent, Bibliotheque’s graphics fitted so well with what was exhibited. One thing I thought I would never say is that the best item there and what I got really excited about was a door handle, the way it fitted the hand was just so impressive.

I was also impressed with a little section at the end that showcased a few designers influenced by Dieter Rams. Joe Doucet designed some really nice stuff for Braun, especially a toaster. Sam Hecht, is another designer I really like, I really like his travel alarm clock called Jetlag.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Term is over…

Over the next month or so I will be attending a few exhibitions, which have been recommended to me by my tutor.

I also will be attempting to design my website, hopefully getting that up and running in the January if time permits.

I will post my progress as and when…

The Results are in…

I was given my mark for the radio project. I have to say after a shakey start to the project I turned it round and got a decent mark. The finished radio and all my photos, presentation boards came out well and I was really happy with what I submitted. The idea of the manual was well received (thanks to an outside source for that), not so much from fellow student because they thought I was being a bit too clever.

I am really pleased with the outcome of the project, I felt good I would get a good mark, like a C+ or B, but I got an A. Only two other people got an A out 28 people so I couldn’t of done much more.

Hopefully it will continue to the next 2 and half years, below is what I submitted, enjoy…

The stu-stu-studio…

One of the most productive skill / technique that I learnt was how to create professional photos of our products at home. It is an easy and inexpensive way of getting great photos.

All you need to do is get a large box and cut holes in the top and the sides. Cover those holes with tracing paper to diffuse the light. Then put a piece of white paper in the back, tape at the top and leave loose to create a curve. Then all you need is a lamp and darken room, I was told that natural light is better but I found that a lamp gives just as good results.

It also depends on the settings on your camera or you do a little photoshop trickery.

Project No.2

I was handed the brief, I read it and I thought this could be quite interesting. The brief was to design a radio out of card (300 gsm). The project also includes learning the skills we will need to fulfill the brief.

I started off by gathering boxes and wrapping them in white paper to hide the details of the boxes so I can draw them and to get the shadows of the boxes. I then picked a box and took it apart and measured the net.

I then got a random net that someone else drew to draw on SoildWorks, the one I got was completely wrong and just made it up. SolidWorks is a program that most agencies use, you can draw 2d images such as nets and also it is a 3d program.

The next step was to draw the components that was ordered from a website. We also had a workshop in typography, which was fun but a bit of waste of time to be honest.

The final results to come…