After, looking at different companies and shops, I decided I wanted to create a fancy dress boutique. I researched names and came up with ‘A Little Bit of Everything’, or ‘ALBOE’, this became the starting point of my project. I had to design a logo, packaging and a swing tag, and began with creating a logo. I researched the logos for different shops including clothes shops, boutiques and fancy dress shops, collecting my favourite logos, and taking a closer look into the logos for the ‘OBEY’ Giant clothing company and ‘Puma’, a sports clothing and footwear company. The work of designer Raja Sandhu stood out to me when I was researching logos. His logos are cool and skilful,
Looking at logos really highlighted how simplicity is quite often the most effective. After a series of trails and experiments I created a few logos for ALBOE. I think my hand-drawn logos worked better than the ones created on the computer such as the Neon logos, or the cross stitch logo. I made two logos because each can be used in different circumstances. Logo 2 can be used on the shop front, whilst logo 1 can be used on packaging or other items. I wanted my logos to stand out and be quite fun. I think I did achieve this, especially with logo 1 where most letters have a character if its own. Although, I think it would have been better if there were more characters, so each letter was a different little character. Logo 2 was inspired by the Toys ‘R’ Us logo. I like the company’s logo and the cartoon typeface it was done in. It was also useful to research into the Toys ‘R’ Us logo as the toy retailer is aimed at young children, so it proved helpful for me when experimenting on how to create a fun logo design. Although, my shop is not aimed only at young children, my shop is a fancy dress shop, and fancy dress does bring out the child in most adults. That is why I think a fun logo is better when trying to target my specific audience.
The ALBOE character was inspired by other company characters I discovered whilst researching. Companies such as Toys ‘R’ Us, McDonald’s, Monopoly, Chewits and KFC all have their own company mascots or characters which often appeared on packaging and in promotions and commercials. I saw having a company character as effective especially to a younger consumer, but equally as my fancy dress boutique is quite fun and playful, the older person is likely to like it as well. Researching into company characters helped me to decide that this ALBOE character was the best. I dressed this character in mismatched fancy dress clothes, so the relationship between the company and the character can be seen.
I then went on to researching packaging. I wanted a simple design although, Carlo Giovani’s packaging designs did really stand out to me as quite quirky and fun for young people. I made a simple box net with side parts (a top and a bottom), so it was able to open and close. I wanted something fairly simple, so I could make the surface design colourful and bold. I created a net in Adobe Illustrator, I made the net quite large, as it was a box for holding fancy dress items such as marks, crowns and clothes, and so it needed to be fairly big. I went on to research different surface designs. I really like Jess Giambroni’s surface designs on coffee cups. She sketched faces on the cups, which gave each face an individual character. I liked this and when on the sketching my own surface designs, as well as creating various other surface designs, such as collages, and design made from bubble wrap and bleached and dyed fabric. I scanned my surface design experiments into the computer which allowed me to further my experiments on Adobe Photoshop where I collaged and then edited my already hand-made designs. I think they worked well, and some then become the inside surface design of my packaging, and some other become the bottom side of the box outside surface design. Clark Goolsby’s ‘Vertical Hold’ inspired the final outcome of the surface design for the bottom side of the box. I really liked his piece and after experiments, I saw this design would suit my blog a lot. I edited the vertical stripe collage I created in Photoshop, and also used it for the trousers of the ALBOE character, as well as for the net design.
For the top side of the box I was inspired by the McDonald’s ‘Happy Meal’ box, where children are able to cut out card items from the box and play with them. I decided to make a dressing up game on the box, where users can cut out clothing items belonging to the ALBOE character and dress it up. I thought this would be appropriate to the shop theme, as it is a fancy dress shop. It also enhances the idea of fun through the packaging. I created the ALBOE clothes and designed them using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. I made each garment different from another, and gave the users choice by creating more than one type of item. I also incorporated some of my hand-made designs into the clothing, an example is that one of the trousers have my collages in them, which I had edited using live trace, then merged together with the trousers. I think the box surface design would have been better if it was already cut, and users only needed to pop it out, such as the McDonald’s ‘Happy Meal’ designs. I think if there was a way clothing was interchangeable once it was already on the ALBOE character, it would have been better. This would have allowed users to change the clothes of the character and use it over a longer period of time. With more time, I would go on to trail different ways of making the clothes inter-chargeable and creating a pop-out design. Despite this I think the packaging outcome was a success. This was an effective design as it was able to target my desire consumer of both children and older people who wanted to have a bit of fun.
My final net design was quite simple, and I wanted it to be this way. After researching how other swing tags look, I saw having a simple surface design for the swing tag is best. I liked the oval shape, so decided to use this and then a blue background colour, boarder with red so it can appeal to any gender or age. The swing tag has been done in two parts, because the ALBOE character is detachable, so that users can take it apart from the information swing tag and use it to dress up with the clothes attached to the box. I like this idea of a two part swing tag, offering users something different. The design of the swing tag is fairly simple because through research I saw swing tags are often quite simple. The swing tag has the main ALBOE logo on the back, then the cartoon logo I created on the front. I wanted to write ALBOE in various ways so is looking more appealing and less repetitive. I think this is an effective logo, because it gives the information needed including the instructions on how to use the ABLOE character, and the clothes attached to the box. The ALBOE character is also present on the swing tag, so it becomes a recognisable character for users.
Overall this was a successful project, as I was able to meet the brief of creating a shop idea, logo, swing tag and packaging. I aimed for the items I created to target an audience of both children, but also adults. I believe fancy dress brings out the child within someone; so having a fun and more childish design can appeal to both adults and children. I wanted the packaging and logo to look playful, and I think I achieved this. Although, with more time I would allow for the clothes on the box, to be more easily detachable, I think the idea was good.
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