Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Packaging Design Scavenger Hunt

I, Alexandra Rosas, and Brittany Wise have teamed up for this scavenger hunt. This will be the post that has our items located within it.




 
This is our example for Best End Cap Display.
We decided on this end cap as the best end cap we'd seen because of both the visuals in use, and the referencing in both the original packaging and in the usage of the products. As something based off of Ariel, the mermaid, they used a red-headed model to tie it back to the original inspiration and to show the tested make-up and they also continued reference to the original inspirational material in both the packaging of the product and on the actual products.


This is our example for the Best Male Package Design.
We chose this one primarily based upon the very apparent male gender stereotyping within the packaging itself and because it wasn't flat in design with the same dark colors and smokey effects used in all the other designs. It used both interesting materials such as the industrial can, and an interesting design like the male form itself to draw the customer to it.


We decided on this product packaging for the Not Much Material Used category, as the only packaging on the actual plush doll was a small 2.5" tag with the brand logo, some small amount of product information and the price itself.


We decided on this product set as our example for product packaging that is Green/Sustainable.
According to the really nice sales associate at The Body Shop, the boxes for this gift set are made of 100% recycled materials, and the purchase of each of these sets has a portion donated to charity to educate children in third world countries. Additionally, the containers within the packaging themselves are also made of 30% recycled materials.


We decided on this as our example for Best Use of Typography
The name of the perfume is called "Boyfriend" and and imprinted lightly along the packaging of the box is a variety of male names with a small sheen to them when held in the light a certain way. It was thought to be clever because of the subtle use of male names all over the package in reference to the name of the product. The strong font choice also was clever with the subtle imprinting of the male names, like it's almost a secret as to how many boyfriends the product user has.


We decided on this example for Needing a Re-Design BADLY.
We agreed that the overall use of typography and imagery simply did not fit the name of the product, or the smell of the actual product. It looks as if it were something haphazardly thrown together instead of thought about seriously. 


We decided on this packaging design as our Unique Shape design.
While other products also fit into this category, we found this one interesting because of the actual way in which you open the product. Ramune is sealed at the top with a plastic cap and a glass ball. You use the additionally plastic cap on the top to actually pop the ball into the drink's container to get to the liquid. And when you drink it and flip it upside down, the glass ball falls to the bottom sealing the opening again (with varying degrees of success) in efforts to prevent spilling.


We picked our example for Best Female Packaging based upon many of the sample principles that we picked our Best Male Packaging. The very obvious reference the female body in the curves of the package body, and the reference to feminine sweet and sultry colors were two reasons it was chosen. There is also the reference to expensive precious metals like gold, which gender stereotypes associate with femininity and the use of delicate flowers.


We decided on this as our example for Best Use of Photography or Illustration.
The illustration effectively illustrates the name of the product and the idea of cherries being in the air. Something sweet, slightly tart and playful flowing about. The stokes are purposeful and fun, just like the body posing of the girl on the package and her dress.


  
The above is our example of a Packaging Series.
It is the most obvious examples of a packaging series as it directly references the brand in each of the products, and keeps their distinctions simple to color and numerological changes instead of trying to maintain a series using varying images placed in a similar fashion like some of the other examples about the store. The drawback of this series is that because it is so simple, it's not exactly the most visually appealing. Simplicity had its draw backs.





Monday, April 29, 2013

Postmodern Website - SLUTWalk; Screens






Ok, so for my Event for my Postmodern website, I did SLUTWalk (which I talked about in an earlier journal entry). My idea behind this was to create a site that captured the idea of the foundations behind SLUTWalk without directly explaining them. In doing that I made two pages.

The index is the "Victims" page. And on it is a representation of how ignorant people see victims of Rape or Sexual abuse. They call them "Sluts", claiming they did something to make this happen to them. To ignorant people, they all look the same, stripping them of their humanity in the process. What their race is doesn't matter to them and has no bearing, because all females who are apparently sexually assaulted in any degree did something to bring it on to themselves and any male who was sexually assaulted is some sort of weak, coward because they let that happen to themselves.

But in reality, race does matter and plays a role in Rape and Rape Culture. Despite best efforts, the racial community you come from also dictates how you're treated in regards to being sexually assaulted. Some treat victims and survivors worse than others.

Below, in small, hard-to-read text, is what the person truly is. The true identity of the person society ridicules and says disgusting things about. They belittle their self-worth and strip them of their dignity, making them feel small and voiceless.

And beneath the constructed figures are the issues they have to deal with as they walk along the road of life during the aftermath of their assault and beyond that. The issues we don't talk about are lighter in color, while the ones we talk about ad nauseum are darker. The larger the text, the larger the problem is.

The second, linked page, is a page representing what Rape Culture is. It's the background noise of many men and women's lives telling them that the things that happened to them are their fault. That they deserved it. That is should have been up to them to make sure they weren't assaulted, when the reality of the situation is that it isn't their fault. It's the fault of their assailant. It's the fault of the assailants parents, and the fault of society. Because in the end, they failed you and produced someone hideous who hurt you.

So, yeah. That's the explanation for this.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Motion Graphic - UPDATE; Music

The music I want to use for my Motion Graphic. I have the soundtrack and the beginning of the score has an additional musical element that's kind of thunderous and foreboding. And then goes into something pretty.

It's called "Merry-Go-Round of Life":


Friday, April 19, 2013

HW - Find Type Game & Digital Type Resource

So for homework I was fashioned with the task of finding 1 Type Game, and 1 Digital Typography Resource.

For my game, I located an App on the iTunes store called Fontify. It doesn't exactly teach you anything, but you get to use letters to draw pictures and I thought it was cool. There's 18 different fonts to choose from, and it's for free, which is also awesome. It's basically a time killer.



My Digital Type Resource is a little on the simple side, but I'm hoping it suffices. I wasn't exactly sure what type (HAHAHAHAHA) or resource we were supposed to be looking for, so I guessed that it was an "anything goes" sort of scenario. I found a link to 25 Awesome Typography Tutorials, which primarily focuses on techniques for typography and lettering in a digital capacity as a stand alone art form.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Motion Graphic - Update; Font Ideas


Looked up an article for some of the best free-to-use font websites out there that weren't DaFont or FontSquirrel as I know of them both. Came back with this link here, so hopefully I can find a nice selection on each to work with and play with.

So far I've only gone through DaFont for some fonts that may go along with my ideation for this motion graphic project. Here's what I've got:






 The first 3 (Revolution, Headline and Telegrafico) are options the "announcement" portion of the motion graphic. I wanted it to mimic some sort of serious headline or movie debut type thing.

The next 2 (Cleanvertising and Santana) are fonts that would probably work with my personal typeface. They're san-serifs and clean. I'd have to see them next to my actual font, because one may work better over the other.

And the last (Hiruko) is something that just speaks to me as a person. It looks like it could work with my typeface and reminds me of Hello Kitty, which I'm all about. If I really like it, I might tweak the feel of the motion graphic just to use it. Who knows.

I'll look on a few of the other websites to see if there are other typefaces that spark my fancy later on and add them on the blog by the end of the week.

Post-Modernist Site - SLUT Walk; Research, Ideation, Images


So we have to create a post-modernist website for some sort of event (sporting, awareness raising, etc.). It has to be two pages, a home page and a linked secondary page. I decided to do mine on SLUT Walk. A protest movement that started in Toronto, Canada in 2011 after a Toronto police officer said that to prevent rape that women should "avoid dressing like sluts".

Basically the idea behind the walk and subsequent movement is the fact that what women/men/transpeople/genderqueers wear are not invitations to be raped and have absolutely no bearing on whether or not they are raped. That the term "slut" is a misogynistic invention intending on discrediting women based upon their appearance and give credence to the idea that someone is "asking for it" by their dress.

The walks generally consist of women/men/transpeople/genderqueers dressed in provocative dress, with things like "SLUT" or "No Means No" written on their exposed skin, holding signs that say things like "Not asking for it!" or "My little black dress doesn't mean yes!". There are also rape survivors who take part, many known for wearing the clothes (or clothes similar to what they we wearing) when their raped occurred with signs saying things like "This is what I wore when I was raped. Was I asking for it?"

SLUT Walk doesn't have a definitive site as it's new and every changing, but they have various FB pages for the different walks around the US and world. Here are some pictures from various SLUT Walks:







Monday, April 15, 2013

Motion Graphic - Idea

So, I finally pinned something down for my motion graphic do at the end of the semester for the class. I'm going to create a motion graphic invitational/announcement to my graduation for next year. Yes, it's a year early but I can always edit it to include more up-to-date content as I draw closer to what I consider my ultimate goal and most important developmental milestone: Graduation.

I'm thinking of a relatively theatrical type of motion graphic, one that expresses my personality to the fullest. I kind of want a movie-announcer type feel to the intro, to show how big of a thing this is for me. And then have it delve into examples of my work over the years and the progress I made as a person with some really pretty instrumental music. I am super big on instrumental music.

I have a lot of instrumental music in my library, so maybe I can find an editing program and edit it to a length I want to use. I don't think this is going to be something that is maybe longer than a minute or two.

I need to get nice pictures or screens of all of my work over the years I've been in school. And maybe some progression pictures of myself to go along with it. and now I need to find fonts and storyboard what I want it to say.