Looking at briefs on YCN for returning to Uni on Monday, and the briefing on Tuesday- generating a few ideas and distinguishing the sort of projects I would and wouldn't like to embark upon for various reasons- along with initial concepts and idea developments. Was really delighted to see so many great options with great potential for artistic and design freedom. Below, are the three selected which I think would be great to work on- with reasoning and initial concepts, and, also the brief that I wouldn't "touch with a bargepole", again, with reasoning behind my choice.
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YES
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Again, lots of great potential for this brief- perhaps even more open that Graze's! Again, I really admire the happy, optimistic, positive message that the company communicates which fits in with my "added sweetener" ethos of design- creating positive, happy and upbeat designs (inspired by my favourite drinks company, and Feel Good's rival, Innocent... but now may not be the time to talk about them...).
Lots of potential here to span a multitude of medias and outcomes in both print and digital, and with a target audience including my own age, it would be easy to develop market analysis to gain an understanding of what others want and look for in the Feel Good products.
A really exciting brief, definite consideration will be made for this one.
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NO
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YES
Make the graze brand more distinctive and desirable
Background
In short, www.graze.com sends healthy snacks by post, hence our tagline nature delivered... We started graze in 2008 as a way of offering office workers a tasty (and nutritious) alternative to those 3pm temptations like crisps and biscuits. Think of us as providing ‘pleasurable health’; we create really tasty, exciting recipes using natural, wholesome ingredients. It’s a win win situation.
How graze works
Grazers choose their favourite food from our range of 100 nutritious snacks, we handpick them a box and pop it in the post, first class, straight to their door. Bam. Better snacking is as simple as that. To really get graze you need to try a box so, if you’re not already a grazer, go to graze.com/YCN and use the code YCNFREE to tryone free graze box and another half price. We’re seriously proud of our graze box but 3 years on we think it could be even better. That’s where you come in.
The creative challenge
Part A:
The graze box is the embodiment of the graze brand; it’s charming, natural, honest, and premium, but we think it can work even harder and bring more excitement to the food inside and to the brand as a whole. So part A of your challenge is to refresh our graze box. All the surfaces can be changed but the structure (size, shape and the way it’s put together) can’t.
The graze box is the embodiment of the graze brand; it’s charming, natural, honest, and premium, but we think it can work even harder and bring more excitement to the food inside and to the brand as a whole. So part A of your challenge is to refresh our graze box. All the surfaces can be changed but the structure (size, shape and the way it’s put together) can’t.
Part B:
We like our logo, it says friendly and has charm but we’d love it to be more distinctive and unique. So, part B is to redesign our logo. Make graze stand out from the crowd and better communicate what we are all about.
We like our logo, it says friendly and has charm but we’d love it to be more distinctive and unique. So, part B is to redesign our logo. Make graze stand out from the crowd and better communicate what we are all about.
Part C:
Part C is a bit different... We want to see how these new elements would work in a direct mail marketing campaign. We see it as a really interesting medium and we’re looking for a creative solution that will stand out from ‘junk mail’ and make people leap onto the internet to sign up.
Part C is a bit different... We want to see how these new elements would work in a direct mail marketing campaign. We see it as a really interesting medium and we’re looking for a creative solution that will stand out from ‘junk mail’ and make people leap onto the internet to sign up.
Target audience
The average grazer is female, 25-45 and works in an office, but we have grazers both male and female and of all ages, so be careful not to exclude anyone. Also remember that boxes get sent to people’s homes as well as places of work.
Creative considerations
Part A:
Grazers appreciate the subtleness of the graze box, especially in the work environment where personal mail may be frowned upon. So a musical, neon, sequined box might not be the best solution. The textured brown board has been a key part of the graze brand from the start. We love the natural rough texture and the effect of printing on the surface. If you think you have a better solution however, and brilliant reasons to back it up, go for it. We care for the environment just as much as we care for our grazers, so please bare this in mind. Every graze box goes on a journey through the post so when it arrives it shouldn’t look dirty or unappealing. We want people to jump for joy and shout ‘huzzah!’ (and other such exclamations) when their box turns up in their post. Use the box as a way of highlighting the tastiness and healthiness of the food contained; the box and food should work together in delicious harmony.
Grazers appreciate the subtleness of the graze box, especially in the work environment where personal mail may be frowned upon. So a musical, neon, sequined box might not be the best solution. The textured brown board has been a key part of the graze brand from the start. We love the natural rough texture and the effect of printing on the surface. If you think you have a better solution however, and brilliant reasons to back it up, go for it. We care for the environment just as much as we care for our grazers, so please bare this in mind. Every graze box goes on a journey through the post so when it arrives it shouldn’t look dirty or unappealing. We want people to jump for joy and shout ‘huzzah!’ (and other such exclamations) when their box turns up in their post. Use the box as a way of highlighting the tastiness and healthiness of the food contained; the box and food should work together in delicious harmony.
Remember to allow space for the address and postage paid stamp. A paper serviette is included in every box. Consider this another canvas to work on.
Part B:
The word graze often causes confusion – people spell it greys and grays. Could the logo help with this in any way? Our tagline ‘nature delivered’ plays a key role in explaining what we do, so we’d prefer it if this was included in some way. graze is a modern digital business: Our boxes are ordered from our website but all our products are sourced from nature. How can you portray the two elements ‘online’ and ‘nature’ within the logo?
The word graze often causes confusion – people spell it greys and grays. Could the logo help with this in any way? Our tagline ‘nature delivered’ plays a key role in explaining what we do, so we’d prefer it if this was included in some way. graze is a modern digital business: Our boxes are ordered from our website but all our products are sourced from nature. How can you portray the two elements ‘online’ and ‘nature’ within the logo?
The logo should be versatile; it appears on almost everything we produce. Don’t forget the .com (dot com).
Part C:
Visually there are no limitations. Be innovative, explore materials, experiment with layout. Do everything you can to make sure that whoever’s doormat this lands on, it screams ‘Read me!’ (Though perhaps not literally, that might be a bit scary). In terms of content, you must make sure you explain what graze is, what graze does and what graze has to offer. How you do this is up to you. We currently run a promotion alongside the majority of our marketing, which allows new customers to try a box for free. Consider how a promotion may work within this particular media.
Visually there are no limitations. Be innovative, explore materials, experiment with layout. Do everything you can to make sure that whoever’s doormat this lands on, it screams ‘Read me!’ (Though perhaps not literally, that might be a bit scary). In terms of content, you must make sure you explain what graze is, what graze does and what graze has to offer. How you do this is up to you. We currently run a promotion alongside the majority of our marketing, which allows new customers to try a box for free. Consider how a promotion may work within this particular media.
Deliverables, Artwork and Additional Information
For guidance on how to submit your work please adhere to the main deliverables information in the Student Awards section of the YCN website. Any additional supporting information referenced in the brief can be found in the supporting project pack.
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To me, this really sounds like the perfect brief! Well- rounded, versatile, creatively open, and, working in the food industry, a sector that I have particular interest in working within, or for, one day. Plus, as a graze customer in the past (with my parents still devoted grazers) it's a company that I'm familiar with, with an ethos I understand, respect and relate to in my own aspirations for my design practice.
A few initial ideas are to keep the same environmental basis- perhaps working with vegetable inks and dyes in the printing process to add to the natural qualities, with a more innovative and playful packaging design- perhaps using bite marks as tabs or holes (as levers) in the box- easy to keep consistency in terms of design and a memorable, and playful die cut- would enhance the "talking point" factor without distracting too greatly from the message that is being communicated by the company.
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Get fruity, make people smile and kick start your career
Howdy
If you’re looking for an easy peasy pull-things-together-the-night-before type brief, then move along now. If however, you’re up for having some fun and producing creative work that’s so good your granny will weep, then this is for you. Why all the effort? Well apart from the chance of getting a commendation for your work, why not have a look back through our previous national campaigns? You’ll see that if a student’s idea knocks our socks off, we’ll go ahead and work with them to make it happen. Yep, we’re talking actual, nationwide campaigns. We should probably point out, we’re a small company and don’t have bags of spare cash, so if your work gets picked you won’t end up with your own private yacht. But you would end up with a stand-out CV and something interesting to tweet about for a change. And if you think we’re telling porkies? – just ask Debbie Hulme, a previous YCN entrant who saw her Feel Good Drinks idea on E4.
Background
In 2002 three guys who worked together at Coke decided to leave the rat race and form their own soft drinks company. They wanted to make healthy drinks that actually tasted good, create a brand that people liked and a business that made coming to work fun, even on Mondays.
Feel Good Drinks make 3 different ranges of delicious drinks in lots of fruity flavours including: Orange + Mango, Apple + Blueberry and Cranberry + Lime – we like to leave the boring flavours to everyone else. Every Feel Good Drink is packed full of 100% natural ingredients and absolutely no nasty stuff like artificial chemicals or spoonfuls of added sugar. (We wouldn’t want to drink that stuff, so we don’t expect you to either.)
Feel Good Drinks make 3 different ranges of delicious drinks in lots of fruity flavours including: Orange + Mango, Apple + Blueberry and Cranberry + Lime – we like to leave the boring flavours to everyone else. Every Feel Good Drink is packed full of 100% natural ingredients and absolutely no nasty stuff like artificial chemicals or spoonfuls of added sugar. (We wouldn’t want to drink that stuff, so we don’t expect you to either.)
The company now sells one Feel Good Drink every 2 seconds, but we’d like to sell more, and that’s where you come in.
The challenge
One word. Awareness.
We know that when someone tries one of our drinks, they’ll give it a big thumbs up. The trouble is, not enough people know who we are. So we’re looking for creative ideas that will dramatically raise awareness of our drinks, and just how darn tasty they are. We need you to think big - we want to see ideas that stop people in their tracks and make them feel instantaneously good, so good that they will grin from ear to ear. Below are two briefs. Let your creative taste buds be tickled and take your pick (of course if you’re feeling very industrious, we won’t stop you doing both...)
Brief 1
Make us famous.
Create a campaign that communicates 3 simple things: our brand name, what our drinks look like and that our drinks are choc-full of natural, tasty, fruitiness. And do all this in a way that is unique, memorable and makes people laugh.
Brief 2
Fruit not sugar.
We asked some people if they like their soft drinks to have lots of added sugar in them and they said no. No surprises there, then. Of course, we don’t add any sugar to our drinks – nada de nada, niente
di niente, absolutely zilch.
di niente, absolutely zilch.
You might be surprised to hear though, that some of our competitors do add sugar to their ‘healthy’ drinks - and lots of it too. The ASA has banned both Vitamin Water and This Water from using misleading ads, which was in part due to the amount of sugar they heap in their drinks. They found that one bottle of This Water could contain up to 42g, that’s 8.5 teaspoons. A bottle of Vitamin Water was found to contain 23g, so just the 5 teaspoons then.
We know you can make great tasting natural juice drinks without adding sugar – we do it everyday. We think that when someone chooses a healthy drink they don’t want or expect it to have heaps of sugar in it. We want you to come up with an idea that tells people the facts, so they can make an informed choice next time they’re at the chiller. Can you communicate this in a fun and feel good way?
Creative Requirements
Often the best ideas have the potential to work across all manner of channels. Do consider all types of new and traditional media, including on-pack and even point of sale if you want to. You may also have noticed that we’re big fans of digital, spending time with our Facebook and Twitter families and spreading our message virally. The idea is to spread the word, so talking to consumers directly can’t be a bad idea. Feel free to incorporate the Feel Good Drinks logo and images of our bottles into your work where appropriate. For this work, we’d like you to focus on our small bottle still and sparkling juice drinks. Images of these can be found in the brief’s project pack.
Target Audience
16-34 year old adults who are happy to pay a little bit more for a healthy, tasty soft drink that isn’t full of junk. They are an up-beat, look-on-the-brightside, sociable bunch, who like to work hard but always find time for some feel good fun and games.
Tone of voice
PMA people - you can’t call yourself Feel Good Drinks and be miserable! The message should always be friendly, fun, and just a little bit cheeky. Please don’t get all serious on us now. It’s about talking to people on their level, making a connection and making them smile.
Additional Information
No cutting corners! Read all about us at our site and stay up to date with what we’re doing by becoming aFacebook fan or a Twitter follower.
And remember, Drink Good...Feel Good!
Deliverables, Artwork and Additional Information
For guidance on how to submit your work please adhere to the main deliverables information in the Student Awards section of the YCN website. Any additional supporting information referenced in the brief can be found in the supporting project pack.
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Again, lots of great potential for this brief- perhaps even more open that Graze's! Again, I really admire the happy, optimistic, positive message that the company communicates which fits in with my "added sweetener" ethos of design- creating positive, happy and upbeat designs (inspired by my favourite drinks company, and Feel Good's rival, Innocent... but now may not be the time to talk about them...).
Lots of potential here to span a multitude of medias and outcomes in both print and digital, and with a target audience including my own age, it would be easy to develop market analysis to gain an understanding of what others want and look for in the Feel Good products.
A really exciting brief, definite consideration will be made for this one.
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Create a piece of communication that promotes Triumph’s bra fitting service
Background
Our future has a history...
The company that began in 1886 as a small-scale venture, manufacturing corsets in a barn, is today the world’s most international lingerie business and a global iconic leader in alluring lingerie and shapewear. From the birth of the original bras to today’s cutting-edge microfibers and organic cotton, Triumph has led the way in pioneering new designs, materials and technologies including the moulded cup, elasticated straps, laser cut briefs and body-heat ‘memory foam’ shaping. There’s no question that women’s demands have changed a lot over the years, but one thing has remained the same: the ongoing demand for perfect fit, be it for optimal support or ultimate seduction. Research indicates that as many as 70% of women are wearing the wrong size bra. Consumers often don’t realise they are wearing the wrong size bra as they don’t know what to look for, and think that one size fits all across all brands. Triumph has fitting consultants in-store to help educate consumers on finding their perfect fit and reveal a shape to love. During the fitting consultation consumers are made aware of the benefits of a good fitting bra, and are encouraged to have regular fittings.
The benefits of having a fitting are:
- Improves your overall body shape
- Confidence boost – improves your outerwear look
- Comfort factor – all day comfort...
- Great support for your bust
The Triumph brand has a presence in a number of different distribution outlets. These include:
- Major department stores nationwide: Debenhams, John Lewis, House of Fraser etc…
- Specialist lingerie independent stores nationwide
- Online e-tailers who stock the Triumph collections online: Figleaves, ASOS, Flowerbags etc…
- Triumph retail stores; 5 locations – Basingstoke, Cambridge, Walton on Thames, Exeter, Cheltenham and 2 clearance stores – Swindon designer outlet village and Clarks outlet village, Somerset.
The creative challenge
The challenge is to create a piece of communication that highlights the importance of getting properly fitted for a bra. Most importantly the communication must work in a Point of Sale context, and you must demonstrate how your idea would come to life in-store.
Typical POS elements we produce for a standard promotional kit include:
• A4/A3 tent cards – perfect for placing on tops of stands in store and on till/display counters.
• Product swing tickets/garment stickers – for display over the neck of the lingerie hanger. The stickers would stick to the actual garment.
• Floor free standing display option – typically we have used lifesize strut cards/toblerones to promote the message. This element can also provide the retailer with a window solution if they have allocated one for the promotional message (varies between different retailers).
• Promotional flyers – A5 size to hand out in departments or in store.
• Product swing tickets/garment stickers – for display over the neck of the lingerie hanger. The stickers would stick to the actual garment.
• Floor free standing display option – typically we have used lifesize strut cards/toblerones to promote the message. This element can also provide the retailer with a window solution if they have allocated one for the promotional message (varies between different retailers).
• Promotional flyers – A5 size to hand out in departments or in store.
Your creative concept must be able to scale to contexts beyond Point of Sale and we would also like to see how you think it can come to life elsewhere. For example, you might want to consider how things scale online or how advertising local to stores would work. How you approach bringing your idea to life more broadly is entirely up to you.
We are very open to new innovative ideas, so long as the fitting message is conveyed in an approach that will appeal to the target audience.
We would like customers to instantly recognise Triumph as the first choice for fitting. We already have an active training schedule in place for new and existing staff, so can be confident that the fitting is of a high standard across the board – this should be reflected in your communication.
We would like customers to instantly recognise Triumph as the first choice for fitting. We already have an active training schedule in place for new and existing staff, so can be confident that the fitting is of a high standard across the board – this should be reflected in your communication.
Historically Triumph have used model photography to convey the fitting message, however you are welcome to explore how we can move on from this, and look at other methods such as illustration.
Copy Requirements
In the project pack you will find a couple of previous examples of our fitting communication, so feel free to use the copy from this. Alternatively if as part of your concept you think of a ‘fitting’ strapline, or alternative wording which sits well within your concept then please do use this.
Creative Considerations
Triumph is a global brand and we have guidelines in place for logo usage that you will need to adhere to. Details can be found in the brief’s project pack.
The execution of the campaign in-store needs to be simple but impactful, as consumers will be shopping in a busy environment and often don’t have time to stop.
When communicating with our target audience you should: engage, show emotion and understand their lifestyle.
Target audience
Our aim is to attract ‘Style Seekers’ women aged between 25-50 years.
Style seekers have:
- A high interest in fashion and beauty and are inspired by window shopping, in-store campaigns and advertising which highlights fashion trends etc…
- The bra completes an outfit and is always purchased with outerwear in mind.
- Tend to buy sets and shop in department stores, online and specialised lingerie boutiques.
- Usually have a large lingerie wardrobe and shop on a regular basis.
Deliverables, Artwork and Additional Information
For guidance on how to submit your work please adhere to the main deliverables information in the Student Awards section of the YCN website. Any additional supporting information referenced in the brief can be found in the supporting project pack.
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Again, another great brief with great creative potential. For a very long time (don't ask me why, because I don't even really know myself) I have been fascinated with brassiere fashion design, and have frequently considered embarking on the subject matter for a design project (lots of "nearly" and "maybe" times)- so this would be a wonderful opportunity to fulfil that interest! Certainly a lot more restrictive in terms of product outcomes that the company (Triumph) are looking for, this could be both a positive and a negative influence in terms of creativity within the designs- also reasonably restricted by the photographic medium that is most commonly used by the brand.
Again, definite consideration- but at this time, most likely, running in third place.
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NO
Design the kind of content you’d like to receive via your mobile device’s inbox
Background
Blyk provide mobile media services to audiences around the world, both through our own brand and through mobile network brands we partner with.
We seek to engage mobile phone users through highly interactive and rich messaging. Our promise to our members is about value and relevance - offers, rewards, competitions, news and content from brands you love.
We seek to engage mobile phone users through highly interactive and rich messaging. Our promise to our members is about value and relevance - offers, rewards, competitions, news and content from brands you love.
Messages are sent to your mobile inbox via SMS and MMS. MMS messages can contain imagery, animation, video, audio and copy. Interactivity is diverse: users can reply, click through to mobile internet links, click-to-call.
Blyk’s media is conversational in nature. We use dialogue as a way of allowing the user to engage in an experience tailored to their responses.
For instance, we can ask users questions via SMS:
- Excited about the London 2012 Olympics? Reply free - 1) Bring it on, 2) Switch it off.
- What is your dream job?
The creative challenge
Sharing great content is fundamental to our business.
The mobile inbox is a privileged space and offers our partner brands enormous opportunity to reach, engage with and foster conversations with targeted audiences. However, the price of a welcome entry into the inbox is high – the gap between valued messages and perceived spam is small for most and tiny for some.
Key to the success of our partners engaging with their target audiences will be aligning themselves with the right kind of relevant and engaging content.
This brief sets out to invite suggestions for new content - the kinds of things that you’d find valuable to have brought to you by mobile messaging and accessible via your handset.
Great things, great conversations, great experiences can begin with a message. This message might tell you something, might ask you something, might offer you something, might provide a link to take you somewhere, might invite you somewhere.
This content might be valuable because it is interesting, informative, enriching, inspiring, entertaining - or for any other reason besides. It might start and end on your phone, jump to your friends’ phones, or take you somewhere so that it develops a whole new life.
It also brings the opportunity for you to take part in a two-way conversation with a brand. What if you could have a different conversation with the same brand - depending on the day of the week, for instance, or even your mood that day? Or what about the brand’s mood that day? This brief invites you to consider the impact of content made for personal worlds – starting with a conversation in your mobile’s inbox.
Creative Requirements
The challenge is to design some content that you think would be valuable to receive via your handset.
How you demonstrate your idea is entirely up to you. You can express it visually, in writing or indeed any other way that you think best brings it to life.
Your idea might be aligned with a commercial brand, or it could be great content purely for the sake of audience engagement.
We’d like to see the user’s experience - the messages that would appear on your phone and understand the content that it would relate to, or that would accompany it.
Deliverables, Artwork and Additional Information
For guidance on how to submit your work please adhere to the main deliverables information in the Student Awards section of the YCN website. Any additional supporting information referenced in the brief can be found in the supporting project pack.
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"The gap between valued messages and perceived spam is small for most and tiny for some"- I am one of these people. To me, however much I would like to be interested and engaged with it, mobile technology isn't really something that gets me excited or engaged. Far more in tune (and in aspiration to create) with printed work, whilst this is by no means a bad brief, it really just doesn't align with my personal tastes and interests- and is not something I would actively engage with myself.
"The gap between valued messages and perceived spam is small for most and tiny for some"- I am one of these people. To me, however much I would like to be interested and engaged with it, mobile technology isn't really something that gets me excited or engaged. Far more in tune (and in aspiration to create) with printed work, whilst this is by no means a bad brief, it really just doesn't align with my personal tastes and interests- and is not something I would actively engage with myself.
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