User Satisfaction

I know I mentioned it a couple of posts ago, but I really like to think about how a product will be used, not just how it looks. In this case I found the book The Natural Pharmacy, hard to use, over sized and unnecessarily confusing. To deal with these problems I changed the book to a pocket guide format, and reconfigured how the text and imagery were organized. I chose this book because I thought the topic was interesting but also because I had the illustration style below in mind, I hope you like it!

Do-Gooder

It may seem like I love every project I post, but I really did enjoy this one. Create-A-Thon was a mandatory project that involved my classmates and I volunteering (I like to think that we all wanted to take part whether we had to or not) our design skills to help local charities. The head of my department along with a number of individuals from the KW design community organized us into teams and acted as creative directors throughout the twenty-four hour design blitz. To ease a bit of the stress we worked in teams that had been established at the start of the semester, allowing us to fall into our usual roles.

Three of my classmates and I were assigned to work with a designer from Two Blonde Chicks on print materials for the newly amalgamated Big Brother Big Sisters of Waterloo Region. The materials they had at the time were aesthetically outdated but also bore the logos of their old organizations. I am very proud of the work my team did and hope that the materials were successful in helping to attract new volunteers and raise funds for the charity.

 

A Day in My Life

Writing about the Chicken Project reminded me of another open ended project I did in my final year at Conestoga. Week/Day was a project that asked my classmates and I to visually communicate what a typical week or day in our life was like. I do not remember how I came up with the idea, but I decided to create an impossibly long string of photos that I collaged together to show my path from my house to my classroom at school and back. I knew I would need to do all of the photos at once which caused me to be late for class, but I was, and continue to be, really happy with how it turned out in the end.

Once I had the photos together in one long strip I realized that my idea of printing a book was too difficult (though I would still love an enormous print with an accordion fold). To solve the printing problem I decided not to print at all. With the help of a couple classmates and countless internet tutorials I used After Effects and Flash to put the project together in a video format. My website will expire and soon this will be my sole online presence, but for the time being you can check out the project here. Below there are also a few screen shots of different parts of my day.

Surprise!

One of the most open ended projects I've done to date is the Chicken Project. I remember with terror the day my prof passed out he asssignment, I was used to an 8.5 by 11 sheet filled with instructions, restrictions and deadlines but this piece only had a couple of sentences and a due date. I say terror because I find restrictions comforting, they give me parameters to work within and help me to find a starting place. All the brief said was; Get the chicken across the road. Creatively.

I started this project with a notebook beside my bed, on my desk or wherever I happened to be. I came up with a number of different concepts, and went through rough phases with a couple before I got serious about this concept. As you can see in the photos below the project is a parody of the iconic KFC packaging. I searched on the internet for resources but was disatisfied with my research until I had the real thing, a nice bag of sides and a big 'ol bucket of KFC. The illustration worked nicely on the package and when I cut the idea of making a promo poster, I decided to expand on the illustration and create a booklet that taught chickens how to escape in either the bucket or the bag.

I entered the project in the first Design Edge award competition and was thrilled when I won. I could hardly believe that a project that at first seemed so daunting had turned out so well. I hope you agree!

 

An Exercise in Decluttering

As part of my final year at Conestoga I came up with a thesis project. I, along with 90% of my classmates, decided to do a re-branding exercise. I chose to focus on Green Earth, a chain of stores in South-Western Ontario that drove me crazy every time I went in. They had great products and lots of selection but their stores were too full and made the shopping experience hectic. Part of the plan I laid out included streamlining their product offering and creating zones to make it easier to find what you were looking for. While that isn't generally part of a designer's role, I find that when I am working on projects I want the final solution to be effective not just aesthetically pleasing.

My final submission included a complete package for Green Earth (for school only) including a streamlined logo that better suited their products, a branding guidelines booklet, a full stationery set, a new website, simplified bags and receipts, as well as signage to help define different areas in the store.

Below are a few photos of the different elements.

Third Year Games

While homework is always homework, my profs tried to make it fun by choosing projects that gave us a vast number of options for execution. For the project below our illustration professor challenged us to redesign an existing board game with new illustrations and packaging. The focus was on the illustrations but once I started working on the package I realized that the game also needed separate containers for each players pieces (try out the game and you will understand why). Below are images of my redesigned package and added containers.

 

 

Creative Earners

The RGD conducts bi-annual surveys on the salaries and billing practices of the communication design industry, today the 2012/2013 survey was published. Prior to publishing their complete findings Design Edge magazine published a quick overview of the salary averages for 8 of the most popular positions in the industry. I found the information published in Design Edge frustrating, how many years does a junior designer have versus an intermediate or senior designer. I am curious (more accurately nosy) person and wanted to see where I sat compared to other designers in the GTA. Thankfully the survey published today (available here) included significantly more information and had great break downs on the number of freelancers, solo proprietors and full time employees currently in the industry. I also enjoyed the information they collected about overtime and benefits creatives are provided. Things have changed significantly in this regard for many other industries, but from what I understand creatives have been on the hook for overtime and their retirment savings for a long time. This was reinforced with the survey concluding that 71% of creatives are not compensated for overtime and generally speaking less than 30% have emlpoyers who contribute to their retirement.

 If you are looking for a designer or are a designer yourself this is a great resource. It will help you ensure you are being fairly compensated and give you a better understanding of the different roles creatives play in the industry.