FMP - Jewellery Branding - Research

Starting FMP was very easy for me as I had loads of ideas that I wanted to get down on paper quickly. I started by creating a mood board of possibly logo designs, colours, images that inspired me and what products I wanted to create by the end of the project. I know that this may have been moving too quickly for the first week as I needed to consider what was my actual brand and what research I needed to help establish my creation. I knew I wanted to make a high end jewellery brand that used rare gemstones such as diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and rubies ect. The idea came about with the job that I have which is working in a high end jewellers. I wanted to create a brand that made high end dress jewellery, specifically rings as they are what interest me the most. Also a ring can have so much meaning and tell a story, just through its setting.

                                                

(Author's own photograph)

To help narrow down my ideas I wanted to have a specific theme to my brand and focus on one idea. I looked at things that reminded me of rings such as fairytale themes, nature through the design of flowers in rings and moved onto under the sea. I chose this as the colours could really be shown through the stones I wanted to use, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds ect. Also the designs of the ring setting could easily represent the brand through the product.

                                         

(Author's own photograph)

(Author's own photo)

I decided to research images that already existed with the theme and jewellery. A lot of spectacular jewellery appeared which worried me, however there is no specific brand out there that has the theme of just under the sea so I was confident that I could create a brand that just did this theme and was recognised for it.  The jewellery that I found didn't have the high end delicate feel to the jewellery that I want to portray. 

(Author's own photograph)

I then decided to go onto researching high end brands that already exist to see what brand values they have and how they portray themselves to an audience. This lead me onto FMP 2 and gave me a starting ground to narrow down my ideas of what I wanted to show.

Branding Research

I decided to look at branding guidelines to help me start me with what exactly I wanted to achieve, logo, brand identity, packaging, font, colour scheme ect. I chose some well known brands to look at and this helped me narrow down the ideas I already had about colour and shape. I found images on google which allowed me to establish the sort of brand that I wanted to be.

http://www.skype.com/en/legal/brand-guidelines/

http://media.creativebloq.futurecdn.net/sites/creativebloq.com/files/images/2013/03/britishrail.jpg

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/think_brick.jpg

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2013/11/20-inspiring-branding-guides/

I think the brand guidelines helped as it allows an audience to see all the elements needed to create that brand and shows what works and what isn't incorporated and hows the slightest change can redevelop the brand.

Paula Scher

http://www.aiga.org/medalist-paulascher/

I also then looked at Paula Scher as she is involved in a lot of brand identity. I looked at the works that she had created and saw how she incorporated that brand theme into all of the work that she did. For example colour, text, images all linked in so that the brand was identified. 

Weather

For the weather project this was the longest project that had been done so far. I started off with a lot of research and brainstorming as I didn't want to do something that was already existing and something that was obvious. I brainstormed things that interested me such as fashion, phone apps and photography. 

(Author's own photo)

I started off looking at phone apps as this is something that most people use on a day to day basis and it is useful to people. However a lot of these already exist so I found it hard to design something that was different and was going to catch peoples eyes. 

I sketched a few designs that held the main things needed for a phone app such as the date, time, weather, small description and icon. 

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Here i tried to design my own icons for my app so that everything was truly my design. This was difficult as a lot of my designs looked similar to something that already existed.

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RESEARCH

This is the research that I found of phone apps that already exsisited. The main things that stood out was the colours used, icons and the text. I then thought it would be good to create an app that was it the deisng of a clock, however I then realised that this would need to be changed hourly and would be too complicated for a simple phone app.

(Author's own photo)

I then moved onto a phone app that could show what clothes needed to be worn due to the weather of that day. I did 4 mock ups that showed clothes that could be worn in the summer, winter, spring and autumn. I think this would appeal to more women than men and men usually wear the same thing.

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Here i used photoshop to mock up my idea and see what it would look like. I added the date, the temperature and small description. The background colour links to the season of year. The middle section could have a variey of clothes that would be suitable to wear on that day.

(Author's own photo)

(Author's own photo)

I then moved onto photography as i enjoyed this in my constructed photo project. I chose a scene that I could compare and contrast the same scene in different ways. I used my car. I experimented what the view was into my car and outside my car in the rain as this was the weather at the time.

My contact sheets.

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RESEARCH

These artists linked to the style of my work that I had created.

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I chose david hockney to experiment with my photos to see what effect his work would have on my photos and to see if the outcome was any different to the audience and to see if the message was different.

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I used photoshop to create this effect however i don't think it worked very well as there was a lot of detail in my photos and the jigsaw effect just takes away the effect.

(Author's own photo)

(Author's own photo)

(Author's own photo)

Photoshop was used to enhance my photos colours and effect of the rain on the glass.

(Author's own photo)

My 3 final images show the view from my car on the inside and outside. I like how they are not 100% clear the audience what is meant to be seen in the photo, however the weather is also portrayed but not in an obvious way.

(Author's own photo)

(Author's own photo)

(Author's own photo)

Overall I think this project went well and that I explored a range of ideas and developed my thoughts to come to a strong final image.

Constructed photo

For my constructed photo I wanted to create something that was mysterious to the audience. I firstly chose to look at speed as this is something that is hard to capture in photography. I took a simple idea to start such a jar with my dripping wax onto it. I chose wax as as it hardens it would create a pattern that would be different in each frame.

This was my contact sheet of photos taken from the shoot.

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This was my final image. I was mysterious as its not clear to the audience what happened before or after this frame. I link the unclearness to the audience communicated information of uncertainty.

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Here I then experimented with a different object and running water. I used an apple to show the a natural product with the man made water that is needed for it to grow. Here the communication of information is the apple growing. Again the running water let the frame be mysterious as you don't know what happened before or after.

This is my contact sheet of my shoot.

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I used photoshop to crop and adjust the contrast and brightness of some of my images so that they were over exaggerated in the colour to show the unnatural effect of them.

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My photos I have chosen 3 as they all show the water falling at different points.

I chose not to use these as my final images as I felt they didn't really represent much information to the audience.

(Author's own photo)

(Author's own photo)

(Author's own photo)

RESEARCH

Here the artist related to the photography that I was trying out. I decided to use skulls as this was a constructed photo as the skull had to be photoshopped in. However the message that comes across to the audience is manipulated as there are different layers that are shown in my images and again a mysterious message is there as you can't see the models face, just the skull that is present.

(Author's own photo)

My contact sheet from my shoot.

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Here my photoshopped print screens showing how I got the skull onto my image and how I desaturated my image to make the image more classic.

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My final three images.

(Author's own photo)

(Author's own photo)

(Author's own photo)

Overall I enjoyed this project as i hadn't really used photography much in my work however I think these used graphic elements as if i had more time i could have drawn on the skull in illustrator and creates different textures that could have been used in advertising or illustration.

Alphabetype

This was one of the projects that we had a short amount of time to do. We had to create a font that used a word that wasn't visible in the font. Such as cake, eggs, wood, tools, metal, crack, shoes ect.

I initially did quick sketches of ideas that came to my head that related to the word. I thought this was good as I could see whether the letter was visible in the design and whether it would be suitable in the whole Alphabet.

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I used different colours as well as the alphabet could be used in different colours and I also tried to create different sizes so I could see whether they would work on different scales.

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Here I expanded the ideas that I though would work well as a whole Alphabet.  I chose black as this is the main colour that would be used to create the text.

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RESEARCH

Here I researched typography artists that had used a style to create their text. I chose Alex Trochut and Evelin Kasikov as they had used shaped or items to create their text that linked to the brief of the alphabetype. 

(Author's own photo)

(Author's own photo)

This was my final design and font that I chose. I represents the word 'crack' as the letter is broken up as if the letter has been cracked. The cracked pieces make up the whole letter. I experimented with different coloured backgrounds so that I could see what worked best.

(Author's own photo)

(Author's own photo)

(Author's own photo)

I think the white background worked best. I also think this would work best at a bigger scale as then the detail is more visible and not lost. I think this wouldn't work too small as the letter could look messy.

(Author's own photo)