I need to design the packaging for three varieties of organic biscuits for children, featuring extinct animals.
Well, the first thing to do is go to the shops and research the market.
I went to my local Aldi and had a look around while doing my shopping. Being a sort of discount supermarket they didn’t have a huge selection, particularly not of recognisable branded products, but the closest I found was this shelf of organic products marketed for small children by Mamia.
Immediately you see the hallmarks of this kind of packaging, bright and pastel colouring, simple illustrations and bubbly sans-serif fonts.
There were a handful of other products in the biscuit section that featured illustrations where you can see similar patterns.
Well I was a bit dissatisfied with the results of my first adventure, so I took some more pictures at another supermarket.
So, how do I get my designs to stand out from the crowd? Well, as I mentioned earlier, I’m not very confident in my design skills. The packaging in stores already are nearly always very bright colours that are meant to stand out as much as possible, so it makes sense to take a similar approach. What I want to aim for with my designs is to keep things really simple and not confuse my designs with too many complicated elements.
Wanting to do some secondary research, I went to the library and had a look for any books on graphic design. There wasn’t much but I did find What is Graphic Design? by Quentin Newark. I didn’t really enjoy it to be honest. I think it fell into the trap where an artist believes that their particular area of work is the most important and transcendent of all other forms. One topic I was exposed to is how graphic design is intricately associated with capitalism and materialist, consumer culture. To quote Rudy VanderLans, “The problem with design is that it almost dare not open its eyes to what is really going on, to its complicity, and to its manifest failure to face up to its own responsibilities and argue that design might be anything other than a servant of commercial interests.” The book talks about the connection between graphic design and advertising, with some designers claiming there is simply no difference between the two.
Well, now I was having a little bit of trouble with the exercise. As an artist I’m interested in making things that are subversive or even transgressive. Art interests me when it challenges corporate interests, when it’s combative or political. I’m reminded of recent controversies where corporations appropriate progressive voices for their own purposes, to generate profit. It seems to me that product advertising is either inane at best, or actively destructive to progressive causes at worst. A later chapter in the book talks about packaging: “One might think that this was a field best suited to graphic experimentation, given the compelling need to stand out; however, packaging tends to be one of the most conservative areas of design. […] packaging, with its severe limits on individual expression, is one of the few design disciplines that values continuity over bold new statements.”
My attempt at finding inspiration left me jaded.
Without any other ideas I started sketching what I thought might work for the assignment.
I settled on simple silhouettes of dinosaurs eating the biscuits. Without much else to go on and sort of wanting to ignore all of the research I did, I decided to go with my original goal, experiment with keeping things simple in my design choices.
I drew up the designs digitally.
I’m not unhappy with the designs. I think the chocolate chip one is the most successful in terms of colour choices and readability. I do like the font that I chose, I think it really makes the final design.
I think ironically this is probably the best pure design work I’ve done for the course so far. It’s not something that really interests me, but on considering it, it is useful to develop an understanding of how images are read, the value of simplicity and for want of a better word, graphicness.
For how to improve the designs, I think definitely making sure that colours contrast not just in hue, but also in value, demonstrated by how the pale blue and dark brown form the best combination.
For this exercise I came across some interesting questions on the ethics of graphic design and its relationship to Capital. The issue of artistic integrity and transactional art goes back centuries, and like many issues, they seem all the more exaggerated and present in contemporary society.
Thinking about issues like this, and where I as an artist fit into them is something important to consider in the future.
References
Newark, Q. (2007) What is graphic design? UK: Ivy Press.
Josh Robbins OCA Learning Log 