IKEA Placement - Week 1 / 2

Well technically it's week 2, but last week I was just meeting the team and having a look around. This week I had to have a proper employee induction with other new starters. This gave me the chance to learn about the history behind IKEA and the companies values and commitments. We also took part in some team building exercises, which were a bit strange but good fun.

"IKEA has a strong and well-developed graphic language. It is the role of graphic design to safeguard this, and use our well-established communication concepts to help customers navigate easily around the store. Graphic designers are responsible for all the store’s communications needs –explaining how to shop, advertising the restaurant etc."

D&AD Live Brief

As part of my alternative techniques module, I will be completing a live brief from the D&AD New Blood Awards 2014. This will give me the opportunity to learn more about competition work and how this differs from everyday client briefs.

The brief I have chosen is from The National Trust: Reconnect our relationship with nature and beauty. I have chosen an advertising brief as this is something I am unfamiliar with and will allow me to build and develop alternative techniques within design.

I've written a SWOT analysis for this module:
Strengths: I am good at adapting my research to fit the clients requirements, so looking into competition briefs will be something new to learn about.
Weaknesses: Advertising is an aspect of design I am unfamiliar with so I will need to work hard to understand the techniques and skills behind this.
Opportunities: Working on a D&AD competition brief gives me the opportunity to collaborate with other creative to produce a final outcome. This will give me the experience of working as part of a team, sharing thoughts and ideas and skills to create a strong outcome for the brief.
Threats: Time. Because I will be working as part a team, we will be limited in the amount of time spent together (due to work commitments, etc)
 

BOX Apparel Live Brief - Final Design

When I was developing my final design, I wanted to recap 'what makes effective packaging design' to make sure I was on the right track:

• Protect the product -sturdy box protects the contents
• Communicate with the target audience - friendly tone of voice communicates with the consumer
• Promote the brand - BOX branding is consistent throughout packaging using the brand colours and logo
• Be functional for the consumer - standard box which is easy to open
• Be visually attractive - packaging is eye-catching and trendy with a bold design and bold colours

 

Things to consider:

• Identity - is my packaging promoting the brand? - bold design has a strong identity for the BOX brand with consistent use of colour and type as well as icongraphics used on the BOX website
• Protect - will the products be protected by the packaging during transit? - material I will be using is thick stock and sturdy.
• Audience - is my packaging specified towards my target audience? Is it engaging? Does it communicate? - modern and trendy design which I think targets young males. Bold and masculine that the target audience will find attractive. Strong BOX branding
• Materials - what materials will I use for this packaging to be cost effective, yet on point with the brand voice and stylish? - part of the brief was to reflect the brands key values ‘ low cost, value for money, good quality and well designed’. The design (including the outer sleeve) is trendy and quality. The material I will use is mount board which is thick stock and cheap to supply.

On my order form I included a discount code as an incentive to bring back repeated custom.

Final order form designs

 

Final packaging net design

3D visual

IKEA Placement

I had my interview for the graphics communication internship with IKEA this week and . . . I got it! I'm so pleased and think this will be a great platform to get some industry experience working as part of an in-house design team for, let's face it, a HUGE company that's well known all across the globe.

I'll be starting in the new year, working one day a week until May 2014. From the internship I'm hoping to get a better understanding of the industry (which will hopefully give me an indication of where I want to be in the future) and produce some quality work that I can add to my portfolio. I can't wait to get started and hopefully learn a lot from the team.

Inspiration - Eiko Ojala

I came across graphic designer and illustrator, Eiko Ojala and was instantly drawn to his experimental design work. Within his work, Eiko studies the forms of shapes and works closely with light and shadow. His illustrations are minimal and well-advised.

 

 

Design Bent

I found a really cool design website which has copious amounts of inspiration, tutorials AND free downloads, take a look: http://designbent.com/

Definitely going to be my tool kit for second year!

Inspiration - Jessica Durrant

Today I came across freelance illustrator, Jessica Durrant, who specialises in fashion, travel and lifestyle illustration. I was intrigued by her work so I 'gave her a google' and found her blog. She'd answered some of her fans questions and I loved her answer to 'What inspires you?'

"Well I think the question is, what doesn’t inspire me? haha. Seriously though, I try to keep an open mind to whatever may hit me as inspiration. I love music, it puts visuals into my imagination. So often when I am creating…I am listening to music. I am also inspired by other artists-really when I see other peoples work…it just makes me want to create. I am inspired by people, nature, fashion, architecture, Japanese illustration, traveling and my life itself.  Creating art is like writing in your journal. My life has been changing a lot recently and some of my artwork has reflected lots of different emotions that I feel."

Her work has been featured in publications worldwide, including;  Target, One Kings Lane, QVC.com, Glamour.com, Westfield Malls, Country Living Magazine, Rue Magazine, UK's Livingetc Magazine, Matchbook Magazine, 30 Days of Fashion & Beauty New Zealand, The Little Green Notebook, ELLE Brazil, The Glamourai, IN London magazine, SHOP til you drop magazine Australia.

I love how she incorporates landscape into her fashion illustrations, it seems to add a 'haunted' feel to beautiful and elegant watercolour illustrations.