Project Evaluation – Lastminute.com/Neg 2
To produce advertisement for ambient media was an interesting subject to me and an area that I felt I would benefit from exploring. The lastminute.com project at D&AD provided an opportunity to design something within everyday use and had a target audience of young people and working professionals which I myself fall into so what would I like to see was again something that made me choose this project as I could add an aspect of vibrancy to this project
My ideas began by looking into where people stop and wait in a normal day and hopefully throw some design their way. Park benches, airplane seats, fuel stations, check-outs and cash machines all came to mind. A few areas that I began to develop ideas for were conveyor belts in supermarkets (everyone has to wait in line at some point), Turnstiles for trains/the tube (particularly in London very busy area and people will scan tickets and look down to do so) and Pedestrian crossings (people have to push the button and wait before crossing). I felt that these areas affect all types of people but interestingly young adults and working professionals would use for example the Tube and trains maybe due to living in a city for work and therefore would be walking around the city rather than driving so maybe the pedestrian crossing would be useful and most definitely the target audience would be popping into shops for essential items and bits and bobs.
I decided to go with supermarkets and conveyor belts as out of all my ideas this one would see most of the lastminute.com target audience visiting and then waiting in line to pay.
Above was one of a selection of images I took at Sainsbury’s in Oswestry and these formed the basis of what I thought would be interesting: separator blocks or next customer blocks. As the image shows they are usually just one shape (triangle) and are functional if not very interesting. In Google Sketchup I looked at different shapes that could be associated with ‘getting away’ and thought that I could build upon the original shape by adding a nose, wings and a tail to make a plane, then on the sides remove the windows etc and detail of a plane and add some design not to dissimilar to the style/size of ads at the moment. I was happy with the 3D model and it was sturdy apart from maybe the wings but then these could be used smaller than normal and closer to the main body so they don’t snap off.
In terms of design my reasoning behind ad was colourful and vibrant to attract the eye while getting information across. At the outset I put too much information on – over time I took more and more copy out so what was being said was obvious and clear. At this point I was also looking into QR codes, the reason behind this was I wanted some interactivity with the blocks and the good thing about QR codes was the instant link up to a website via the use of a mobile phone. People who are spontaneous will forget a message yet with QR codes people can instantly logon to a website and sign-up or add to mailing list or just get a price etc and this would be more effective in terms of getting the most out of the target audience. As people will be looking down on the blocks I needed to put the QR code on an area that was facing up which would help in terms of taking a photo of the code and not irritating the user by making a difficult angle for them.
The actual conveyor belt was interesting aswell and after placing a photoshoped 3D model on a source photo (similar to the picture above) I noticed that maybe the plane could be sat on a runway adding a little more playfulness to the concept.
It was at this point that I began considering other ideas for shapes and after using a place for travel I had a discussion with a visitor to my blog about festivals from around the world. I could really visualise this working and I looked at many different festivals on YouTube. In terms of supermarkets and food I narrowed down some possibles that would suit the theme of being in a supermarket such as Spanish tomato throwing, British cheese rolling and the Munich Beer Festival. I decided to keep the plane idea as a direct link to travel and ‘jetting away’ and chose the tomato and cheese based festivals as this would be fun for all ages and shelved the beer idea as it may promote drinking to younger audiences.
I focused on the tomato model first, mocking it up in card so that I could get a feel for how it would stand up. Based on the model I developed the ‘feet’ of the tomato by producing a ‘splat’ effect. This worked twofold in my opinion as it was functional but also added an element of play as I had in mind that the conveyor belt would be someones face being hit by tomatoes – emphasizing the main thrust of the festival. After my initial model I was able to get the help of Mike Frodsham who illustrated a tomato for me so that I could base my designs around it. This was definitely a positive move as my model and designs were now unique and also playful.
Following on from this I was able to refine my Photoshop skills by adding the QR codes to the splat area and a small amount of copy. I eventually decided that the black lines of the QR code on a red background would make taking a picture and scan of it using a mobile phone difficult to decifer so I later on I changed the black lines to white on this tomato model. What was left after this was getting the conveyor belt images looking correct, at first I used copyrighted images to set the scene and this gave me an idea of what images I would need to capture. After this I went out and look to take a good image on location for the cheese rolling hill and then mocked up someone getting hit with tomatoes – focusing on the face. I chose the face as this would show more expression in terms of having fun or being shocked. Either way the aim was to engender a bit of fun when placing the splat-tomato block down.
The cheese block idea could well have been similar to the circle-based tomato design as the cheese in reality would be round to get down the hill. Yet I thought for functionality and stability a segment of a round block of cheese would be better, so I balanced functionality in this case, plus I would have struggled to get the ‘feet’ on the cheese circle and to do so may have lost the instant recognition of cheese. A segment of cheese is widely used and recognised.
Overall I feel I have learned a lot in terms of placing design within everyday items. Design needs to be balanced with functionality and needs to fit within the systems we take for granted each day, so for example the conveyor belt wouldn’t be changed in functionality but adapted with a new look and playful interactivity. So its fine tuning really and the finer and more slick the better. The more wild and outrageous would attract the eye but may impact on functionality and become more look than use – the balance needs to be addressed in ambient media and I have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of this project.
Personally I feel I have improved with 3D design and expanded my skills away from just using Photoshop. I have been able to work with illustrators and produce something unique that is aimed at a target audience. I have also had a chance to be playful and to push boundaries in terms of advertising and interactivity.
