Packaging - Aleksander Mukomelov

Aleksander Mukomelov have designed this 'bath bomb' plug that is aimed at men (hoping to make them take a bath) but i think the packaging is a nice example of packaging appealing to men. Not that it relates to bombs but very simple layout and type. 

Iv noticed that there isn't a lot of colour involved when designing for men, this might be a bit of a challenge for me as i see no reason that men wouldn't like colour. This seems to be aimed at a more sophisticated man.

Packaging - Adam Flissinger

A range of meat rubs by Adam Flissinger that offers flavourers for cooking with. Even though these are aimed at anyone with an interest in cooking i can see these really appealing to men. The packaging lends itself to appeak to men as its firstly a metal tin and a simple design as its normally women who tend to go for the fussy over the top products, but im not stereotyping. 

I like the brands name of Adam, even though this is the maker, i think this also appeals to men, having a mans name on the front of the packaging. It initially made me think of Adam and Eve and thinking they used it to be Ironic with the 1st man ever, the real man that was Adam. 

However i don't want to get all religious with my packaging but its an observation that i going to think about how to appeal to a male audience. 

Mandless - Candles

These are recycled beer bottles that have been made into candles aimed at men. They are quite a successfully product and i like the way they are up cycling a bottle, also using existing brands to relate to men.

However this is playing on mens stereotypes that all men love beer and i want to stay away from design like this. But is nice to see whats out there already and what is working/not working.

Paul Smith Man - Packaging

Paul Smith is well know for doing its wide range of products for men, and men seem to love it, it seems that Paul smith could sell men anything if they put his signature colour strip on it.

These specific packaging are more relevant to me at the moment as he has packaged candles, and men are buying them. 

When i first set out to package candles for men, i thought it was near impossible to get men buying candles but worth a challenge.   So it was nice to see the likes of Paul Smith selling them with his purely typographic packaging. 

Whittards Packaging

This beautiful tea packaging was design for Whittards by Acrobat, and i think they are wonderful. 

The first thing that it brilliant about this packaging is the 3D element to it, the fact that the front design on the boxes has depth to it. It frames the 'B' counter images well from the shadows of the 'B' and so its no longer a flat image. 

The icons designed are well thought out, the synchronised icon of a tea cup throughout them all and then a symbol above for each range of tea.

Aslo a really nice range of colours used, they enhance the different feelings that these teas are giving, very uplifting and happy fresh colours. Again i notice with this packaging, they have used white stock and only 2 colour process, one of which is black, and they have made this look high end. 

Publication Layout -fffffound

This is a great idea of how to make a publication more interactive and interesting, having fold out pages and postcards bind into the book. Playing with the format of a publication can really enhance a design, but i think it has to be relevant and a must. There is not point in adding all these folds and different paper stocks just for the sake of padding it out.

Thinking of the InteRail brief that i am doing at the moment, this could a great way to merge the three leaflets that i am re designing.

Pista Kralovic - Packaging

This packaging from Kralovic instantly caught my eye as its quite unique for a CD packaging design. I really like the fold of this, how the packaging/cover holds the CD and also folds into a poster. It all works really well together.

I'm experimenting with different folds of leaflets and how to make a set of leaflets work together and this packaging has made me think that I could enclose them into each other, rather than separate leaflets. Something to experiment with anyway.

TOT-a-lot, Twins rule

I LOVE BEING A TWIN
This is the first range i have ever seen that is dedicated to twins. They design products for a set of twins and packaged ironic sayings with very simple type driven design. The boxes are cheaply made with one colour on recycled card and the boxes are then up cycled to be used as draws for the twins clothes ect. Each box has customised names on of the twins so each one is specifically made.

These boxes are purely type, no image, no special finishes, no bold colours. I want my work to be as affective with just the use of type. I sometimes feel that designs are missing something when just using type but this is a successful way of showing it can work, really really well.

Packaging/Print - Villbu

This is some gorgeous packaging by a collaborative of students from Norway. The brand is called Villbu and its a range of meat that they have designed the packaging for. 

The first think i love about these designs is the shape of the boxes, very rarely do people use these sort of shapes for packaging as they tend to be more difficult nets to design and they don't tend to fit together well. But i think its quite brave to do it as with an ordinary square/rectangle box these designs wouldn't have been nearly as exciting.

Another think that i really like about these designs is the fact that its a one colour process on white stock, Its sometimes very hard to make a one colour print on white stock look as professional and well thought out as these. A cheap process but made to look more top end, as you are more likely to see these in Waitroese that Asda. The typeface suits the packaging and holds the piece together, keeping it a long think typeface has helped keep all the information together. 

This is the reason that i have chose this to be relevant to my own practice, most of my breifs are a one/two colour process, produced on a budget and so this designs has showed me something on how to make this process look more high end rather than budget.

However i'm not quite sure if the who packaging is suitable to the product, the meant. I'm not sure if this was a given brief for the students or a self initiated one but the design doesn't lend itself to a meat product as its very clean and crisp and delicate looking. It could work well with something like chocolate.

Astronomy - publication

This is a small publication that Anthony brought back from his summer in Berlin. I couldn't read the content or see who it was design by but i really like the format of it. The hidden text/title underneath the cover is intriguing and dose make you want to look in it, however im not keen on the two different stocks used for the front, it has made the colours come out different and i think it would have worked better if they had been the same.

The InteRail pack

So over the summer i used InteRail to travel around Europe, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Its a very organised company but their printed material for their customers is poorly designed. All three books are different size width and lengths and they don't work together. 2 are portrait and the last is landscape.  There is no reason why these cant work together.

The leaflets are designed with a bold red and a bright green which i personally don't like and think it makes it look cheap. I want to make these documents look more of a set and look stylised for its travellers.

The three printed leaflets you get once you have bought your ticket are:
1. A map of Europe. This has all the train lines on and was actually very useful but its a bit overwhelming. We wanted to be writing on it and drawing our travel routes on it but its so full of colour and big red lines anyway that it did help if we drew on it.

2. A Travel Guide. This is a book on the pass and how to use it and useful numbers and sites for each country. The book is a mish mash of colours and is a bland layout that doesn't consider the body copy very well as it cuts of sentences of half way thorough to place an image!

3. InteRail Pass. This holds the pass itself and a survey form to send back to the InteRail company after travelling.

Tom Bourne

These book covers by Tom Bourne are based around the planets in our solar system and there is one for each of them. Very simple image using the texture of each planet as the back ground image. One thing i really like about these covers is that the white circle shape changes size to represent each planet more accurately. It would have been easy to use one generic white circle but it shows that he has thought about the design. 

However the overall design doesn't work for me, i think it has become to simplistic and the contrast between some of the photos and the vector images don't work together.

Astronomy - Glen Simonov

These designs by Glen Simonov were designed for April's Global Astronomy Month, they include solar events throughout the year within our solar system.

Very simple designs and little colour that work well in showing the information in a visually pleasing way.  I would really like to see something like this with a more crafted approach as most of the visuals iv seen based on space have been vector. So If I'm going to aim my project at kids aged 8-12 then i think this will be a more successful way to involve them.