Angles

I really like the angles produced in these pieces of print. I think it allows the user to engage a little more with the product but the simple colour scheme allows the attention to remain firmly on the content.

I have been researching different business card designs in order to inspire my designs for the inpress business card; I want or business card to be minimal yet look professional in it's appearance.

FSC

As I am thinking about producing greeting cards, I have looked at the FSC specification to see the paper classifications and what a greeting card has to incorporate in order to be FSC classified. 

RSA:: Research

From my trip to the library to research into sustainable design, I came across this book concerned with sustainable print design

Book Cover Design

I popped into Waterstones book shop today to look at book cover designs and layout. I made the conscious decision not to look specifically at design books, but at books in general as I thought it's not only the books with design content that look effective.

I found some really thoughtful design which use print processes and experiment with type, layout and colour. I particularly liked the portrait book with landscape type. The use of different stock surfaces on the fashion publication also inspired me greatly, I think the close contrast of these stocks allows you to appreciate what one has to offer in comparison to the other (the matte bookrum against the gloss coated stock)

This has offered me inspiration for my sustainability brief as well as the Penguin book cover brief, which I am hoping to tackle as an additional brief.

Sustainable Design

This article in the Guardian inspired me to consider what sustainable design is and how I can creative a piece of innovative sustainable design that will inspire others to design in this way.

Define::Eco-friendly

It seems being eco-friendly is just one factor that creates a sustainable piece of design.

I think it has been helpful to clear this up, as I now have a clearer understanding of sustainability, I can now work on my RSA brief with more focus and clarity to tackle the brief and answer it efficiently.

Define::Sustinability

I want to just clarify, for myself, the different between sustainable and eco-friendly design....

Sustainable design is therefore not just concerned with the environment but social and economical factors too. So as I found out before, it is about creating a cycle and not just a well produced/considered end product.

Genertion Press

 Generation Press pride themselves on being able to produce sustainable design through their printing processes as well as creating design to a very high standard which appeals to designers. This is a huge inspiration to the design that I want to produce in order to inspire others to create sustainable design.

Celery:: Green Graphic Design

http://issuu.com/briand/docs/green_graphic_design_dougherty/23

This is not the full book, but in just reading this it has made me realise how I can already begin to design sustainably with the resources I have. So, I am very excited to get on with this brief.

RSA:: Sustainability

As I am in the initial stages of the design process for my, I am researching into what sustainable design is in its most general form and then what sustainable graphic design is. I have found so many resources that I am going to archive them here and come back to them to inform my designs later....

A good general overview of sustainability and the principles.

Applied to Graphic Design

...from just a few minutes of researching I have come across this wealth of information. I soon need to begin to refine the information I am looking at, so that it soley relates to my practice and is able to fully inform my design decisions.

Library:: Packaging Research

I thought I needed a little more context to inform my work, so I took a trip to the library in search of finding packaging designs and various folds for packaging I could then apply to the record sleeve design to package my tees.

CD Sleevle

The use of colour and geometric shapes within this design really interests me, it is different to what you usually find (in terms of the shape) and the colour being present on the inside of the sleeve allows the product to remain fresh looking on the outside.

Blind Emboss.

When we considered blind embossing our business cards, we wondered what the effect of the blind embossing would have on the reverse side (where the contact information would be presented). The following demonstrates how this process can be executed to a professional level.

Minimal Design.

I have come across these designs for business cards. I like the use of minimal type and a bold colour, this is the the design direction I want to take my clothing line Stumm.

Name Check

To check that my proposed brand name would fit in with the context in which I am going to propose it be place (within other retail stores) I have had a little look at the brand names some of them already stock...

...I think my brand name would work well in context with these brand names, they are mostly quite urban sounding, fun and playful.

I think my brand name makes sense with how I am wanting it to work; there are some very quirky names out there so I do not think mine will be a problem.

Primary Research:: Record Sleeves

Today, I popped into a charity shop to take a look at the record sleeves they had for sale. I found a couple which inspired me toward my own project....

I think the stitching on this sleeve could work really well seen as I am joining music and fashion; this would work a lot better than using a simple glue. I could also make the stitching correspond to the colour of the tee seen through the central window. 

I thought the simplicity of the type could work well if I applied to this design to my logo and tee packaging.

Tee Design Inspiration

Due to me having a considered concept for my tee range, I want to keep the logo design and application simple. Therefore, I am thinking of making it work along the lines of how American Apparel have work theres, very stripped back and simplistic; it is to the point and delivers the necessary message through a typographic focus.

How to fold a tee

I wanted to check how to professionally fold a tee, as this is the way I want my tees to packaged in order to fit into the record sleeve packaging design.

Record sleeve templates

I have found these record sleeve/jacket templates which I can play around with and adapt to fit and package my folded tee.

Record sleeve of the month

This record sleeve was featured on Creative Review. I had been considering how tee would fit into a standard record sleeve due to the thickness of a folded tee, but the design of this has enabled me to consider altering the design of the record sleeve to suit my purpose; tshirt packaging.

Tee Shirt Packaging

I have look a little a packaging but I thought i'd look a little more specifically into t-shirt packaging itself....

I think some of these design ideas are very creative, however, I still like my idea of the record sleeve, this is just giving me some ideas of finishing touches.

Blind Embossing

We had discussed on Friday, the possibility of blind embossing our logo into the front of our business card, and even book a laser cutting slot on Wednesday to allow us to experiment with this. I have had a little look into various blind embossing and how to go about producing this result without spending a lot of money in doing so.

At first I was not sure about blind embossing ou Inpress business cards as the company name is one of the most important pieces of information being communicated and the effect of blind embossing does not necessarily heighten the hierarchical position. Nevertheless, since seeing these blind embossed designs I have decided that it would look effective, especially if we then had the reverse side coloured one of the four colours.

Just had a little look and it seems you can pick up a blind embossing machine along with a customized plate for around £25/30. I think this is a reasonable price and a good investment for Inpress if we are going to be using it on all our business cards and branding material.

Record Sleeves

As I am thinking about packaging my tees in record sleeve style packaging, I want to look into what record sleeves are currently available/have been produced....

This has given me a little thought as to how I can utilise the colour within my tee designs alongside the format of record sleeves.

T-shirt development

Rather than coming up with a completely unrelated concept to the branding and identity of my tshirt range, I want there to be some kind of concept behind it. As a result, I have research into the tshirt to see what I can come up with.

 
From this, I then produced a brainstorm and highlighted key work which I thought I could then play upon.

http://kirstyfruindp.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/tee-packaging-designs.html

I want to continue to play on these keywords I have highlighted and the innovative product packaging to produce products of intrigue.

More packaging ideas

I continued to browse the packaging after my last post and proceeded to become further inspired by these pieces of packaging. I want to design a piece of innovative packaging design to make my products stand alone from the others on the high street currently.

Lovely Package

I have browsed the fashion section of lovely package a found these pieces of packaging which have really inspired me, they are all innovative and do not follow the conventions of the standard packaging. I can visualize how these could work with tee design packaging (some do already) and want to take these forward to my own designs.

Nooka Watches

Nooka have played on the shape and suppleness of their new line of watches. They have positioned the watches in the yoghurt pots to demonstrate their flexible nature; using the packaging to help promote the product's attributes is something I can look at playing on with my tee range.