Zen Quek Illustration and Visual Media Over the past few months, I have taken on a surprising number of collaborative projects, all of which have allowed me to explore new ways of working. Most notably, working with the Good Gifts pop up shop team has taught me a great deal about branding and enterprise. Prior to this project, I had very little exposure to design for branding except during my thesis research. In my research, I looked at case studies of successful packaging design that well reflect the brand narrative of sustainable companies. Examples of these are Oatly and Botanicascent, both of which imbue their brand identities into purposeful packaging designs. Oatly’s packaging design for instance, is straight-forward while also playful, educating consumers about their product’s health and environmental benefits in a cheeky way. The packaging’s simple design elements also communicate the “clean” nature of Oatly’s oat-based food products. Botanicascent, another brand that has a sustainability focus, likewise communicates their brand attributes through thoughtful and inventive packaging. Their soap packaging is reversible and uses one-colour printing, making it cost-effective and resourceful while retaining a certain design flair. These case studies are excellent examples of how design for branding functions as an intermediary, communicating brand narrative and philosophy to consumers. While helping to organise the Good Gifts pop up shop with other DPS peers, I got a chance to dabble in some branding and art direction. The team first came up with a branding moodboard as a general guideline for our subsequent designs. Since one of the key selling points of our shop was sustainability and up-cycling, we made sure to communicate that through a more earthy, crafty and “hand-made” aesthetic. Above are some of the promotional flyers and posters that I designed, utilising craft paper textures, handwritten type and the brand’s earthy colour scheme to reflect our brand personality. We also made sure to incorporate up-cycling into our design process, using the patterns of old print scraps from LCC’s screen printing workspace in our poster design (as seen below). Beyond the 2D marketing material, we also made sure to extend our brand aesthetic into the shop’s spatial design. Kornelija, our spatial designer, helped create decor using recyclable materials, such as cardboard fir trees and display shelves. Additionally, we used craft paper as a makeshift “tablecloth”, writing pricing and product descriptions on top, as well as wooden store signs made using up-cycled wood from the 3D workshop (courtesy of Audrey, our team leader). It is interesting to see how cohesive the spatial design looks with our promotional materials. The pops of colours from the display products, against a neutral backdrop, mirror the graphic design of our poster (brightly coloured pattern against a craft paper background). Despite the short amount of time to put this pop up together, I think we still managed to deliver a visual aesthetic that aptly captures our brand attributes. As this was my first proper foray into branding, it was a valuable experience in creating a consistent visual style that could be applied across various disciplines.
Aside from collaborative design, managing the more administrative aspects of this enterprise also meant collaborating with multiple other stakeholders involved in this pop up (tutors, student designers, external mentors etc). We were fortunate to have had a chance to consult Sinead Koehler, founder of the Crafty Fox Market. Through our meeting with her, we gained deeper insight into the immense prep work involved in setting up a pop up shop, some of which we had not even considered. While we did not have the time to establish a very elaborate business model, we did what we could to run the pop up fairly smoothly, which included keeping the inventory/stock list updated, and setting up a temporary online shop for any card payments (supervised by Tatiana, a fellow DPS alumnus). Having these systems in place proved to be absolutely vital, especially since I was in charge of handling the finances post-pop up, which meant setting aside a fixed percentage of our sales for charity and then paying our student designers accordingly. Admittedly, this process was not smooth-sailing, but I definitely learnt a lot from overcoming these obstacles. For one thing, having the time to set up a reliable system for inventory tracking and our own payment system (instead of relying on a third-party website) will put us in a better position to not only run an enterprise better, but to be more accountable to our sellers and clients. I am excited to be able to apply this new knowledge to future projects, and will be keen to dabble in branding or art direction again. Image References Oatly packaging (2020) [Screenshot] Available at: https://thedieline.com/blog/2014/9/23/oatly? Designing Cultures Studio (2013) Botanicascent Reversible Packaging Design. Available at: https://www.designingculturesstudio.com/botanicascent1
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