So, a final reflection on the work I have done this year. Even though this project has given me a number of stressful occasions I can honestly say it has been one of the most enjoyable projects I have undergone. Having taken part in a D&AD brief which introduced me to the unfamiliar world of packaging design, I gained new respect for how beautiful the discipline was. Before D&AD I was quite content with producing a campaign that raised awareness about people with phobias. But having surrounded myself with packaging with the Pitch & Sync brief it was difficult not to fall in love with creating hand-crafted containers which were both conceptual and beautiful. When returning to my EMP
I immediately changed my idea and decided to go with producing conceptual packaging that would help people overcome their fears.
I immediately changed my idea and decided to go with producing conceptual packaging that would help people overcome their fears.
After the initial research phase I had to immediately delve into thinking up initial ideas. I remember struggling to do this as I am an extremely indecisive person. I really had to dig deep to try and figure out what I wanted to gain from this experience. I realised that I just wanted to help people and somehow give back to the community. That’s when the idea of helping cure fears came about. I did a lot of research on different types of phobias. At first I thought it would be interesting to look at weird phobias which were edging towards the funny side. But I then realised that not many people would have these uncommon phobias and if they did it would probably be a very serious case for them, thus making my job difficult because I would have had to have been very sensitive about the subject. Having had a tutorial about my matter I decided that keeping to more common phobias was the way to go (even though I couldn’t imagine in my head how it would be interesting at the time).
I began seeking help with common phobias by setting up a survey, collecting the results and analysing them. I found that a lot of people associated phobias as something negative. Only one person wrote that they used their phobia as a strength and explained that facing it only help shape her into a better person. This answer really stood out to me and inspired me to try to make a phobia seem like a positive, to encourage people not to run away from it but face it with some
help (from me!).
help (from me!).
This was a real turning point for me as it made me see my project in a new light. Before this, I thought I had really hit a brick wall and there was no turning back. From here on I began thinking of companies I could collaborate with to promote and use my comfort boxes. After narrowing my fears down to just 3 (fear of flying, fear of the dark and fear of needles) I began thinking of ways I could link the 3 to make a collection of boxes which would appeal to a wider market. I considered a number of outcomes but it became apparent that fear of flying just wouldn’t fit in with the other 2. I decided that it was more ideal to put my efforts into the 2 other fears and do a really good job rather than make 3 mediocre boxes.
I started coming up with ideas for branding my new comfort box concept.
I immediately knew that, because I was dealing with children and my box was meant to comfort them; I had to include a bear someway or another. I began drawing logos incorporating the shape of a bear. The logo started off looking very 2 dimensional, I soon realised that this didn’t go well with my 3D packaging design. I used mixed media to try and get that realistic 3D feel but it wasn’t until I made furry ears that things started to really take shape. Not only did I scan in the ears and use them in my logo for my posters and leaflets, I also sewed them onto my packaging lid so they acted like the ears of the box (the logo bled off the box net, linking it to the sewn on ears to look like an actual bear). This was quite time consuming but I am very pleased with the result and I don’t think my box would ever be the same without the charming, cute ears. It makes the user experience a lot more pleasant too, being able to touch and feel the soft box will surely calm a child down, and if not, at least intrigue them.
Creating the posters at the beginning proved to be quite a tough task because I was neither motivated or had the correct branding to work with in order to produce believable and well designed pieces of work. I knew I had to really get the branding perfect first. This was on some level difficult because I did go through a phase of constantly wanting to produce boxes, so I knew I had that under my belt (because I knew this would take the longest out of all the jobs I had set myself).
I remember thinking that everything I produced at the time was going to be my final idea; especially with the packaging design. This was very naïve of me and I should have known (from experiencing the D&AD brief) that my first packaging mock-up would be far from the finished product. But with every mock-up I did I was able to improve the design and make an even better version next time so every stage counted even if it was just a small dimensional tweak.
Overall I have enjoyed this brief greatly and I wouldn’t change much about it except giving myself more time to further develop my Personalised Comfort Box (produce objects to go inside the box to help distract children during vaccinations) and experiment with more materials to produce the boxes to a better professional standard. I have learnt quite a lot from this experience and I hope to be able to work on more packaging projects in the future to improve my knowledge of the subject.
