Studio Brief 2 - Production Considerations

Limitations

The limitation I had with this brief was the communication between me as the design and the client. Another limitation was the turn around time and producing effective mock ups. The communication between designer and client was very hard for other people but for me It was very effective and worth while. With most people the client didn't reply back to any feedback suggestions about their branding, therefore they had to change the logo based on their opinions and thoughts and not necessary based on the company's thoughts and feedback, which if they had would of been extremely valuable to the designer.

For me, my client gave me effective feedback about he's logo and he's thoughts and opinions and didn't hold back about what things he wanted changing and adapting. This feedback allowed me to implement design decisions based on that feedback and in return would create a new logo that the client would be pleased with. And this feedback only helped me more and more down the line as the client wasn't afraid about giving he's thoughts on the newer adaptions of the logo.

Screen or Print

Choosing whether or not the branding I had created needed to be produced in print or digitally, I had to research into the company and see what they did and what they represented and from that decide whether or not I had to produce my designs based around print or digital. The company that I chose was a technology company and off that bases, I knew that my designed had to be digital and it led to designing the branding for an online presence. I avoided designing stuff like vinyl stickers and packaging as this wasn't necessary to the brand.

Software Choices

It was important to chose the correct software to design certain parts of the branding within. The logo needed to be designed within Illustrator due to it's vector attributes, which is most effective to use on logos. Logos created within Illustrator can be blown up at any size and will not pixelated and that is due to the software being a vector and not bitmap like you would get in Photoshop. The business cards I created where made in Indesign due to Indesign being more accustomed to type and layout. Mock ups would be created In Photoshop as Photoshop can adapt and wrap objects which is needed to mock your design up onto a profession looking business card or setting.

Disregarding the effective choice of software can be a bad impression on the client and would make you look unprofessional and as if you don't know what you're actually doing.


Effectiveness of size

As I didn't know a lot about the company I wasn't to sure about how big or small I needed to make the designs. Knowing the size that you'll be working at will enable you to plan your design within in the sketching process. I created a website but wasn't so sure about how big they wanted it to be or how many pages, therefore I looked at their current website and based my design off that. My whole thought process was more on what the target audience would like to see and that's how I based most of the branding collateral by. The posters, business cards and logo was all sizes bigger then normal as if the client came back to me and said he wanted this certain size then i can effectively scale the designs down without losing quality then having to scale up and the designs becoming pixelated.

Mockups

Due to how much time we had on the brief it was hard to get our finished designs onto real products. Most of the brief is spent in the development stage and that is what takes up a lot of the time. Therefore, I didn't have time to mock my design up onto an actual t-shirt or to code my website or recreate it into wordpress. I had to then mockup the designs within Photoshop using existing mock ups from Graphic Burger or other sources.

Also another restriction to the mock ups was the cost. I didn't have enough of a budget to start buying t-shirts, which is also another big factor when it comes to mocking up designs, also if it's a mock up then if you go and print your design on a t-shirt when client still might want to make changes, so it can be an expensive way and sometimes isn't the best route to go down unless your design has been finalised by the client. It's acceptable in industry to mock up your designs within Photoshop as it still gives the client an accurate representation of what the finished product will look like but just not a physical representation, which is obviously better to hold and to feel but due to time and money these factors sometimes aren't possible.

Materials

Choosing the right materials is important to communicate to the client how your designs feel physically and how they relate to the target audience. Mocking up the Hardshell logo onto the T-shirt I had to figure out what material and colour the t-shirt had to be. It's important for the decisions to be based around the target audience and what the company represents. As Hardshell labs is about helping desert Tortoises this meant that the company was all about being environment friendly and nature lovers. It was important for me to communicate that into materials, so my decision was to have the t-shirt in green to represent the nature side of the company and the material of the t-shirt to be Eco friendly, which wouldn't damage the environment.

Other then the materials representing the companies ethos and what they stand for, it creates a positive images for their target audience to know what they stand for and that will strengthen their images and create a positive and trustworthy experience with their customers.