DESIGNING SYSTEMS
C STUDIO II SPRING 2018
4.5.18 | Mark-Making Exercise
In class, we began discussing different adjectives that we related to our topic. The adjectives/phrases that we came up with to go with health through eating were rewarding, healthy, fresh, less-accessible, expensive, and positive.
We created abstract pieces using expressive mark making techniques with a focus on visual variables and color.
4.9.18 | Considerations
Who are you designing for? Why?
Students at CMU, especially freshmen population (new students in college environment where there isn’t a lot of range of cost-efficient food to choose from).
What do you want to convey? Why?
We are interested in conveying messages that promote healthy eating. Especially in America, it is not common to be taught healthy habits through schooling, which has resulted in more counts of obesity than any other nation.
What do you want your audience to do? Why?
Eat healthier — for a long and sustainable amount of time, maintain healthy habits, understand what they are putting in their bodies.
What contexts do you think would be effective for your messaging? Why?
Places that may be effective for our messaging might be places associated with eating. We could have posters/etc. near grocery stores (or even Entropy) so that people have healthy eating in mind when shopping for food. Additionally, placing information about healthy eating near fast food restaurants might make people think twice about eating unhealthy.
What mediums do you think would be effective for your messaging? Why?
Physical signage- posters, stickers, etc and possibly a digital platform such as an app or website that students could look up healthy meals/recipes or monitor how much or little healthy food they are consuming. With the physical messages students can be reminded real-time as they shop or consume food and a digital platform would allow students to check these things on the go or off campus, so their healthy eating can extend beyond campus.
4.10.18 | In-class Discussion
In class, each group had a chance to present their ideas to the whole class. From these presentations, we were able to gain some general feedback from Stacie. Especially for our group, one of our key concept was figuring out a way to user’s sustain long-term interest for healthy habit rather than it being just a short-term diet. We pitched couple ideas about how we wanted to implement characters or symbols to visualize the progress of the users; however, while similar ideas are implemented throughout other apps and systems, Stacie suggested us to be mindful of the adverse effects, which can be often do more harm than good.
Some things to think about that was brought to attention:
- How can we take things further if the time allows? Target different audiences?
- Which medium do people interact with first? How do you leverage different mediums to work together?
- How are things phrased for specific audiences? How do we know they work? What would work for myself?
- How might we leverage audience in creating the contents?
Some of the ideas we had for the three pieces(poster, digital, hand-held):
- Easy-to-cook recipes people could refer to when cooking in dorm setting/homes without kitchens(?)
- (Grocery) Shopping list that account for a certain amount of budget
And more to come…
4.11 | Further Exploration and Research
We continued to play with mark-making and are now starting to think about visual variables and the written material that will go with our final products.
In doing research we picked up a copy of Cooking Light magazine to see their visual variable choices and noticed them using similar colors and words to ones we had identified.
Here are some links on ads & campaigns promoting healthy diet:
And some ads we found on the internet:
4.11.18 | Catch, Validation, Call to Action
As we were starting to work on identifying visual variables and trends with our adjectives/phrases, we began to consider different ways we could communicate our messages through words.
We began to consider our catch, validation, and call to action that we wanted our system to convey.
At first, it was hard to think of ways to promote healthy eating without sounding too cheesy. We tried to think more outside the box than the typical “healthy food/lifestyle propaganda”, and thought it might be interesting to incorporate fast food slogans to our message (as a way to intrigue people who may be turned off by cliche messages).
We also planned on using nutrition facts and statistics on the benefits of eating healthy so as to validate our claims. We were also considering including prices of healthy meals and options in order to expel the myth that eating healthy is too pricy.
4.12.18 | Defining Variables
On Thursday, we split up into our groups in order to discuss the next steps for our project. We began to hone in on the different areas and aspects we wanted to cover as well as how we would. This included brainstorming ideas for the visual variables we wanted to be included in our system as well as the mediums for each of the pieces as well.
Introduce topic
Health through eating; cultivating a healthy diet in order to provide the body with essential nutrients in order to maintain or improve overall health
Define audience
Focus on low income college students at CMU
Amending for the myth that healthy eating is not accessible/affordable
College freshman; stuck on meal plan without that many healthy options available on campus
Start with CMU audience but create system in a way that it could be beneficial to people outside of the school
Explain goals
Have audience eat healthy for sustainable/long amount of time
Educate on not only how to eat healthy, but how to cook healthy
Time and money efficient matter
Bring consciousness to what people put in their bodies
Medium of piece, context of piece, why it’s appropriate (big)
Give a recipe, take a recipe
Shopping bag
Poster that promotes healthy eating
Comparison of fast food to healthy eating
Reclaiming/parodying fast food advertisements
Really beautiful/nicely photographed healthy food
Medium of piece, context of piece, why it’s appropriate (digital)
Videos
Really beautiful cooking healthy videos that make people want to eat healthy
Anti-fast food commercial (really gross depictions of typical burgers/fries/etc. and then cut to healthy food right before eating)
Taking apart fast food to talk about ingredients
Some sort of love story (through ingredients or through people)
Application mockup
Track your eating habits
Learn how to cook app
Personalized list of eating alternatives for people with dietary restrictions
Recipe recommendation based on ingredient search
Mail-to ingredients based on recipe videos
Shopping list with certain budgets (app)
Big mac ($3.99) = you can get bananas, apples, pasta, etc…
Unboxing video (of handheld subscription box)
Medium of piece, context of piece, why it’s appropriate (small)
Pick your own recipes (pop-up shops) in a box.
Monthly subscription box/letter/etc. (happy meal)
Monthly recipes with shopping list (boxed with keychains)
Boxed groceries sent to the users every week (select your recipe on the app?)
Reward for completing monthly challenges
Laser cut keychains, pins, stickers, etc.
Shopping list with certain budgets
Big mac ($3.99) = you can get bananas, apples, etc… (Big mac on the one side and then the shopping list on the other side)
Shopping list and recipe cards in a card box
Postcard with recipes on it
Introduce catches
“I’m lovin it” ; “i’m lovin this”, “my body’s lovin it”
“Have it your way” ; “make it your way”
“Think outside the bun” ; “think without a bun”
“It’s way better than fast food. It’s wendy’s” ; “it’s way better than fast food. It’s not fast food”
Eating healthy doesn’t happen in a drive through
Introduce call to action
Know what you eat
Get out of the drive through, get back in the kitchen
It’s time to get out of the drive through, get back in shape
Put the burger down, pick up a shopping cart
Introduce validation
“Diets” Don’t Work — a Lifestyle Change Is Necessary
Unprocessed Food Is Healthiest
For example, eating healthy can drastically reduce your chances of developing heart disease and cancer, the world’s leading killers
If you put in more calories than you burn, you will store them as new muscle or body fat. If you consume fewer calories than you burn every day, you will lose weight.
If you want to lose weight, you must create some form of calorie deficit. In contrast, if you are trying to gain weight and increase muscle mass, then you need to eat more than your body burns.
The proteins that you derive from lean meat and nuts improve your brain functions
You should aim to consume whole foods at least 80–90% of the time. The term “whole foods” generally describes natural, unprocessed foods containing only one ingredient.
A daily diet of health and nutritional food will give you a good heart.
Following an unhealthy diet increases the chances of heart disease, obesity and type 2 diabetes.
A $20.99 bucket of chicken to feed four people may seem like a bargain at first glance, but when you consider the fact that junk food may be highly addictive and perpetuate a vicious cycle of unhealthy eating habits, $20 suddenly turns into $150 billion worth of health-care bills, the amount Americans pay each year as a result of obesity-related diseases. The truth is, not only is eating healthy cheaper in the long run, but it’s often cheaper than fast food on a meal-to-meal basis. (Reader’s digest)
The smart people at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have crunched the numbers and it’s official: the healthiest diets cost just $1.50 more than unhealthy diets.
4.14.18 | Continued Variables
Propose color palette (and percentages)
Propose typefaces
Propose graphic form
End with a few sketches/examples of direction
4.14.18 | Finalized Ideas
Large
Medium: illustrative poster showcasing different end results of recipes and encouraging people to go to pop up shop to learn to cook
Context: near grocery stores/fast food restaurants or on campus eateries, bus stops or in buses
Why it’s appropriate: influences students & outside community directly as they are about to make decisions about eating
Digital
Medium: education video on nutritional benefits of miscellaneous ingredients as well as price points ending with an advertisement for pop up shop
Context: advertised on facebook/instagram/etc. where students may access them online
Why it’s appropriate: posting on facebook allows for quick accessibility; healthy ads often go for videography and photography—illustrative style will hopefully catch more students’ attention; having a lot of ingredients cycle through the screen will capture people’s attention for longer rather than focusing on less things
Small
Medium: shopping kit containing personalized recipe (based on dietary needs, financial limitations, etc.) and respective shopping list of ingredients given out through pop up shop on campus
Context: pop up shop on the cut by doherty (on sunny day)
Why it’s appropriate: having on paper recipes and shopping lists is easier to use in real time (as opposed to having to deal with an application or website), gives people methods of putting their newfound knowledge about healthy food to good use; campus gives accessibility to students
Catches
— It’s easy as 1, 2, 3!
— Learn, Cook, Eat
— It’s time for Breakfast!
— It’s time for Lunch!
— It’s time for Dinner!
Calls to action
— Cook your own food
— Know what you eat
— Time spent cooking = time well spent
Validations
— Various nutrition facts about specific ingredients that will be featured in our recipes
— Avocado has the highest protein content of all fruit
— Most fruits are naturally low in fat, sodium, and calories.
— None have cholesterol
— The proteins that you derive from lean meat and nuts improve your brain functions
Sketches
4.17.18 | Presentation
4.17.18 | In-class Critique
Allissa
I really like the idea of the pop-up shop, how were you planning on creating personalized recipes (or is there a set recipe per each “category” of dietary needs/ financial limitations etc) You have a lot of emphasis on “making time for cooking” but from personal experience/ observation, but for some students (especially those who live off-campus or have classes/activities throughout the whole day) this is difficult/ physically impossible. Is there any way to address students who might want to cook for themselves but have similar limitations?
Stephanie
Reasoning for you choice of audience and goals are clear. For the large scale piece, I wonder how you guys are going to make the recipies and end results of different recipies clear and interesting to look at since I feel like a lot of people ignore these kinds of healthy advertisements/infographics despite and don’t really stop of look at these. I really your idea of the shopping kit since it phsycailly carries out your intensions and provide students the chance to get a different experience while shopping groceries. Some of the colors you picked don’t feel that appetizing to me/don’t make me think of healthy food.
Carolyn
Video is a fun, interesting way to inform people. I’m curious to see which ingredients you guys decide to add in. I like how you guys considered paper recipes since people will be cooking and might not want to use a digital app. However, it might run into the problem of longevity and finding recipes that match what they already have (since that is part of what you guys have going on). The colors, graphic forms, and type definitely feel sophisicated (reminds me of Chobani) and would attract a lot of interest.
Rachel
I’m not sure if by “low income college students” you mean students who come from a low income background or just college students in general who tend not to have full time jobs? but either way that phrasing / idea is kind of problematic because it seems like you haven’t thought it through that much and most college students are supported by their parents so wouldn’t really be considered low income…. Also i think a general problem is that if you want to target freshmen, an emphasis on different places on campus where healthy options are available would be really important, but if you are focusing on recipes / grocery shopping / cooking, you will be excluding most freshmen who eat at dining halls. How are you going to make eating healthy seem desirable / fun / exciting and not just a chore? I like your color palette and I think justification for it makes sense. I also think your type choice makes sense and throughout your slides I really liked how the highlighting of the text with yellow / green looked, so maybe you could consider using that in your actual design.
Maddie
I like the handheld piece idea a lot! Having a recipe to follow and buy groceries for is really important to planning out meals!
maybe you could do something with the handheld piece and a recipe box! Helping students create their own healthy recipe box at home
Like your call to actions, they’re concise, but also really good info
Like your concept behind the color palette
really interesting and refreshing!
love the graphic form!!
Chloe
I really like the mediums you guys are using to advertise the message. It will be important to find a way to initiate student to cook or build healthy eating habits and emphasize on why it is not a waste of time and money. Also it will be nice to consist different categories of recipes that are approachable for various students groups with financial shortage and students short in time for cooking. I definitely think that you guys should find ways to promote building healthy eating habits for students who lives on campus, who do not have flexible access to kitchen. And keep in mind that eating habits are usually built in earlier years than later.
Amber
Such a good catch on the handheld piece regarding people not wanting to touch their phones while cooking. Great use of a physical print piece. How would the recipe boxes be distributed?
Serina
Ahhhh! The shopping list sounds really cute and having recipes with an entire shopping list connected to it. It seems like it would be a pretty cool way to get people to think about healthy eating. Have you thought about putting them in reusable shoppers so that they can also be reminded every time they use it when going grocery shopping? I think it would also push that healthy factor/environmental factor which I often think goes hand in hand with healthy eating.
Robert
Overarching goals were articulated well and I believe many people can quickly on board. I think the message of the print piece work well with appealing to audiences — just always keep in mind that the voice of your content needs to be introductory and inviting. Cooking can be a vulnerable space. The pop-up and the physical piece are spatially disconnected — is the poster just an advertisement for the more-involved pop-up shop? What do the people who don’t go to the pop up shop get from the poster? A big part of the pop-up shop is its community-building aspect. You guys should take advantage of this! Cooking is an activity that welcomes mistakes and trial-and-error, so it humanizes people and acts as a great entry point for casual socialization. I work with nutritional and food sciences and its relationship to body awareness and fitness — if you guys would like, I’d be more than happy to have a conversation about this topic.
Jacob
Yeet! This presentation is gorgeous! I dig the color scheme, it is definitely working with the type. For the catch, maybe you could push the self sufficiency of cooking for yourself. I also dont eat the same thing everyday, and dont complain when the food I make is meh… because I made it. I take pride in it. When I eat “meh” culinart food I get upset and blame the man.
Chris
Reasoning behind your visual vocabulary are really thoughtful and compelling — you made it a point to not make it a typical ‘wellness’ ad and it works well. I like the accessibility aspect that you’re putting a lot of weight behind, it applies really well to your audience! The pop-up idea sounds really engaging as well, I’m excited to see how it develops!
Juliana
I really liked your idea about the context of your print piece and how having the posters in places where people actually make food-related decisions can incite change in the moment. I liked the idea of a short informational video on facebook because I think a lot of people in your audience are used to watching that kind of video on facebook and predisposed to the medium. I think the typeface you chose matches the color scheme well and I think the pairing of those more sophisticated elements with hand drawn illustrations will create a feel that is still unique and engaging.
Helen
I think your idea of having educational videos on ingredient combinations is creative and would be really effective. I wonder if you could include something about how to choose healthy options from on campus options since it’s part of the meal plan that the freshmen have to pay for. It’s difficult to have something that looks sophisticated, fresh, AND muted, but I think your color palette does a great job of capturing all 3. Hand drawn graphic forms also are very appropriate.
Jae
I like how you are focusing both on the healthy and affordable. I like how your three pieces have similar contents, being consistent. At first I was not sure why you are focusing only on cooking healthy, but not buying healthy options (that are premade), but then after knowing that your call to action is to have audience to cook, I saw why.
Will
I like how you’re advertising on social media. I think it’s an effective way of getting your message out. Colors palette might make the feel of the food seem “old” and unappetizing. Maybe try and incorporate some more fresh and energetic colors? There is a reason why the meta is to use brighter colors for food advertising.
Liam
I like your goal to promote healthy eatin anda healthier lifestyle. Targeting low income students make sense and is there a way to specifically target that demographic than students with a differnet amount of income. I think the handheld piece is a good idea, especially if it is connected to your digital and physical proposal. Im glad yall are aware of time and i think including this in your catch would be a good idea. I like your color palette but it feels kind of like im watching the masters golf tournament. Not a bad thing, I think it can work for sure but how can you incorporate this with food or other elements to make it work?
Sherry
I think you really identify the goal well to target the concept that eating healthy can be costly. I think a break down of ingrident and nutritions values really helps peole visualize what they are putting into their money. I love the shopping list idea. The popup shop just gives out the shopping kit? Will there be real ingrident? I am a little confused on how it works. Nice color palatte and font choice (though a little chobani-ish)
Mason
I fully support the visual style youve created an impressive amount of work has already gone into this and it does a good job of following trends to make me feel like its good advice (similar look ro Trader joes and Whole Foods as well as a lot of the new food rebradning that has been happening recently I worry about focusing on freshaman becasue yes they most liekly have the worst habbits but there is reason for that (is it really possible to help them find the time money or physical means to really change their eating?) there are a lot of upperclassman who decide to engage in the mealplan even though they have the money time and kitchens to support their own food
Audrey
I think it’s great to utilise common social media apps like instagram and face book to spread out the medium. I link the shopping bag, would reccomend looking into packaging design so that the recipes in the bag are organized while at the same time easy to take out, and won’t get crumpled when you put food in the shopping bag.
Stacie
Although I appreciate your clear definition of your audience, I don’t think you need to limit it to low income college students as I think many students struggle with having enough money to eat healthy foods. You have a lot of fantastic goals! You may find it beneficial to list them hierarchically, as it may be difficult to accomplish all of these extensively. It’s great to hear of the places that you want to show posters. I can imagine the bus stops being particularly effective. You talk about the videos covering lots of ground, which is great. I’m guessing that these will be short, sweet, concise, exciting? These could set the stage for a very compelling system. Are you thinking of actually making the pop-up shop? I think it would be great experience for you. In all cases, I simply encourage you to think about what is feasible and effective, given the amount of time you have. In other words, could each piece strive to accomplish a little less and do it well? I find all of your catches effective. You may want to think about how they match the goals of each piece specifically. It looks like you’re starting to do this with the calls to action. The validations are particularly interesting as they function as fun facts! I appreciate your unique approach to the color palette. It makes me think of eggplant. I’m struggling most with the pink (may not be rendered well on projector). A melon color may be a closer link to food. The typeface and form studies that you’re doing have a very humanistic and natural quality that I believe links well to your topic and message. In closing, I think you’re off to a strong start. You may be trying to accomplish too much and may find it beneficial to establish more focused goals for each of your pieces. I also encourage you to write content for the pieces to see if what you’re planning is feasible.
Christie
I like the visual direction you guys are going in. I think having some mock ups of your pieces would help me visualize the context and form better. For your print piece, it might be helpful to be more intentional with where you would put it. What affordances would it have if it was on the bus, at the grocery store? Might be helpful to think about a students mindset when they’re at those locations. As for audiences, I think the mindset of a Freshman (who are on a meal plan) vs. upperclassmen are very different too, so you might want to be more specific about how you approach students.
Natalie
I appreciate how you designed your slides using your inital visual language (reminds me a bit of the chobani rebrand). I think you guys are giving a lot of thought to the visual forms used in you project, but I think you need to put some more thought into the system. It seems like you guys just need to make some decisions though, but don’t wait too long! It’s harder to give feedback when things are still up in the air. I resonated with the phrase “time spent cooking is time well spent”, and I think that tied in well to your observation that students also spend a lot of money eating out.
From the critiques we received from our presentation, we realized that we had to alter our intended audience. As all of our mediums focus on grocery shopping and cooking, we observed that it would be less accessible for a freshman audience, who are forced on a meal plan and may not have access to a kitchen area. We decided that rather than focusing on freshman (as we would not want them to waste their money with their meal plan), we would focus more on upperclassmen with access to a kitchen. This would also benefit people moving from the meal plan to cooking on their own who might not have experience and may need extra guidance.
4.17.18 | Final Decisions
Catches
Poster: “It’s time for breakfast/lunch/dinner/dessert”
Digital: “Know what you eat”
Handheld: “It’s time for breakfast/lunch/dinner/dessert”
Call to action
“Time spent cooking = Time well spent”
4.19.18 | Prototyping
Digital Piece
In the end, we decided to go with a style akin to digital illustration. We decided that we wanted to use more messy lines similar to the crayon bread example used as inspiration.
We started planning out the different recipes and ingredients that we wanted to use in our pieces, and began to iterate individually.
We started off by animating some of the different iterations we created in terms of graphic elements. This was before considering how the text and information would be included.
There were also a few different iterations of various ingredients included. Some considerations we had to take in were the amount of time each animation was allotted as well as how diverse each would be from one another. Each illustration took from the colors we had originally planned on using as part of our visual system.
Print piece
Stylistic decisions: it took us some time to completely nail it and come up with similar style altogether since we were individually drawing assets for our piece.
For the print piece: We decided that we wanted to play around with exploded-view of the ingredients of the food– pointing to specific ingredients and calling out health and nutrition facts for validation.
Choosing recipes: I chose my recipe based on the number of steps and time to cook. Especially, I included recipes that is doable for me and recipes I’ve done previously.
These are some of the iterations for the print piece assets:
Asset–1st Iteration
The issue with first set of iteration was that it was very dimensional while the assets for other two medium were very flat and line based. Part of it had to do with the tool I was using. I used illustrator to draw them and then extrude them using object -> extrude to give dimensionality because I found it difficult to attempt at exploded-view of the ingredients without giving images some dimensions.
Asset–2nd Iteration
After the feedback from the first iteration, I switched to using tablets to create my assets. Specifically, we agreed on using bamboo brush on Procreate.
Asset–3rd Iteration
These are the final assets created using Procreate on iPad and on Photoshop using Wacom tablet.
Poster–1st Iteration
Once the assets were set, I moved on to creating the poster on InDesign. Each of the spot colours were used as type colour and the main three colours were used as background colour for the poster.
Poster–2nd Iteration
Feedback from the first iteration: The visual style of the illustration is working well with the meaning and the voice of the piece. The typeface does communicate sophisticated and fancy but falls short of explaining the friendliness and ease of cooking on your own.
Interactivity: Right now, the poster doesn’t serve as anything more than providing a one-time information– what are some ways that we can integrate the recipes or other information onto the poster so that we establish different levels of hierarchy? How can the system live without us being part of it?
Hierarchy: Also, be mindful of the contrast of colours on the poster because contrast plays an important role in the order of information is perceived by the viewer.
Typefaces: What are some ways to play with the typefaces? Typeface successfully communicates sophisticated and fanciness but it still feels very corporate. Using hand-written typefaces or playing with different baseline of the types may help with the playful aspect of the poster.
Illustration: Illustrations on the poster is working well. However, consider how the ingredients and the dish itself could be differentiated– maybe change scale and use transparency adjustment to give ingredients tints of the background colour? (tone them down)
Hand Held Piece
Recipes: To start I began by finding a few initial recipes to use. We talked about providing options for people with different eating restrictions or diets, so I found a recipe that was free of the top eight allergens, one that was vegetarian/vegan friendly, and one for those without any restrictions. From our poll, we heard that time was an especially big factor for most students in trying to decide whether or not to cook for themselves, so in addition to dietary restrictions I also looked for recipes that took less than 30 min to make.
Drawings: I had a bit of a harder time matching the drawing style we chose for all the pieces. Initially I tried to simplify the drawings to be more reductive and simplistic. I initially thought I’d be making more of a pattern than a small arrangement of the vegetables, so I wanted to keep it simplistic.
Format: My initial designs for the cards was very formal, I was trying to align with the sophistication of the typeface.
While the overall formatting wasn’t bad for these designs I especially needed to continue to work on the illustration style to keep it consistent accross all mediums. I also needed to work on the hierarchy of the cards to make sure elements like the borders didn’t overpower.
4.20.18 | Continued Explorations
After agreeing on the set style used for the animation, we created a few more pictures of ingredients that we could include in the digital piece.
4.23.18 | Sounds for Video
There were a few songs that we considered including in the video. We went through a few different instrumental videos/playlists and settled on a few candidates. In consideration of the pace that we wanted our video to play out as well as the overall vibe of the song, we ended up choosing “Warm”, in order to fit in with our “fun but sophisticated” sort of feel.
Hand Held Piece
I tried to impliment the improvements we talked about in the last class, working especially on the drawings. I also came up with a rough draft for the shopping lists.
4.24.18 | In-class Group Work
After coming back together as a group, we realized that the graphic styles we were using were all slightly different. Our animation and recipe cards were more illustrative, whereas the poster had graphics that were created as vectors. After talking about the pros and cons of each style, we decided to go with the more illustrative style (procreate using bamboo brush) in order to more streamline the process of creating assets.
Once we agreed on this step of the process, we continued on each piece. We discussed the different visual variables of the animation as well as how we could improve it before continuing on with different/new ingredients.
4.25.18 | Further Considerations
Despite Instagram taking wider formats than just square ratios (in terms of size), we decided that we wanted to try shrinking our content in order to fit a square. This way, we could potentially post different videos depending on the context—being Facebook or Instagram (or even projected in buildings on campus if available).
4.26.18 | Game Plan
Before continuing on with our work we took a moment to reflect on what work we have done and what work we still need to do. Each of us recorded this for ourselves and for the other two teammates. We then joined together to make one main plan for the rest of the project.
This day in class we also received feedback for the work we had done thus far in terms of our illustrative style and poster layout.
4.28.18 | Response to Critique (Video)
4.29.18 | Poster Exploration
From our critique last class, we realized that we still had a long ways to go from our original poster idea. We wanted to find a way to make the poster look more appealing and welcoming, as opposed to something more “corporate”. Essentially, we wanted it to look as if it was something created by us, rather than people with a different relationship to this project.
With the help of Stacie and Andrew, we observed that some issues we had with our poster may have been due to the nature of placement of all of our illustrations and text, so we decided to work on moving them in a way that was more telling of our design styles. We messed around with type as well as implementing validation (through call-outs), a connection to our pop-up shop, and our call to action.
All of us agreed that we liked the plates placed slightly on the left side of the poster rather than on the centre.We also tried to work with hand-written types for the title to make the poster more engaging and playful for the viewer. We used prisma colour pencil to trace the letters and then scanned it.
However, since these handwritten letters were only used on the posters, we also thought handwritten letters disconnected the posters from the rest of the mediums.
4.29-30.18 | Recipe Cards and Container
With critique from our professor and the reminder that all pieces needed to have the catch, call to action, and validation, I set to work to continue revising the hand-held piece. After some discussion in class we decided that it would be better to only have the recipe card rather than both the recipe card and the shopping list, so from here on I continued with only the recipe card design. In thinking about time, I tried a new method of formatting the food in a circular pattern rather than scattered, this allowed for more space to add the additional pieces of information.
Since the poster wasn’t headed in the same direction, I went back to the original format with the goal of making it less formal. After recieving a prepackaged card container that was too small, we also decided to make our own container. We also realized that the container could show the information we needed, rather than clogging the recipe cards themselves. I finished up the illustrations needed for the remaining of the cards made thus far.
I also worked on a rough version of a container.
I have a feeling we’ll go with the one where all the lettering in centered and there is a cutout for the cards, but I wanted to play with the format of the writing similar to in the posters.
5.1.18 | Continued Exploration (Envelope)
From looking at the printed piece, we realized that the plate and the placement of the fruits and vegetables on the top of the envelope looked a little odd together. Through user testing, we also noted that the key that we had originally created was not reading as such. Although we had originally planned on having the text off center from the plate to tie it in more with the poster, it seemed a bit arbitrary compared to the recipe cards that would be residing in the envelope.
From here, we decided that we needed to alter the main side of the envelope as well as the fold. We began to experiment with more common schemas for the color key and moved the white silhouettes from the flap to the main side.
In order to make the title stand out and look more official, we treated it in a similar manner to how it appears on the poster and emphasized the word cook in order to tie it into our system.
During this class period we also discussed what would logistically need to happen in order for us to create a pop-up shop, as well as the disadvantage of only having the cards available when people were there and the shop was open. While we considered options where the cards could be picked up near the posters, we ultimately decided to just make it so that students picked up their collection of recipes at on-campus dining locations, where they would be rotated as new recipes were available.
5.1.18 | Exploring Type through Video
With all of the alterations to our poster and recipe cards, we realized that our video did not seem to fit the system as well as before. We decided that we wanted to focus on altering the placement and treatment of the text in order to remedy this issue.
Per Stacie’s suggestion, we started by creating compositions in Illustrator as opposed to working in After Effects. This allowed us to create faster ideations without having to worry about keyframing and timing.
We also decided to use different styles in order to emphasize some of the words in the text that we found to be more important. That way, viewers would be able to more easily process the information, despite it not being up for very long.
We were unsure how similar we wanted each frame to be, so we decided to make a few iterations for each of the different ingredients we were highlighting in our video.
Unfortunately, due to the altering shapes of each of the ingredients, it seemed like it would be hard to be very consistent in terms with the type layout on each composition. However, we decided that using the same type treatment for each would allow for it to still look comprehensive as a set.
5.1.18 | Card color Explorations
From our last class check-in, one of the biggest critiques we got was to think more about our color choice for each card type (allergy-friendly, vegetarian, and healthy eating). In the original design, when choosing between our three spot colors, we had yellow for allergy-friendly, blue for vegetarian, and orange for general healthy eating. The original thoughts were that the blue was close to the green associated with eating lots of veggies, the yellow was similar to the color used for epipens and the orange was unasociated and more general than the other two. In talking to a professor and other students, it appears that these connections are not as obviously made.
The first plays with color made the yellow brighter like the epipen and the blue more green.
The first round of color alterations:
The second round of color alterations:
The third round of color alterations:
With these iterations I then went back to asking students their associations to the colors and found that there was more of a medical association with the blue, making people think it was meant for those with allergies. The other two colors didn't evoke as strong associations, but the medical feeling of the blue came up multiple times. In researching companies and organizations associated with allergies, I noticed the trend of using blue/teal, and was reminded about the teal pumpkin project for those with allergies around Halloween.
Going forward I planned to flip the blue and yellow cards, adjusting the yellow to be a little greener, and the blue somewhere between medical blue and teal. In order to tie in more with the video, I also needed to go back and play with the changing baseline.
5.2.18 | After Effects Exploration
After deciding on compositions to include, we tried to play around with incorporating the lines into the piece. Unfortunately, we were unable to figure out a good way to include it without it looking awkward.
In the end, we altered the timing of the words as they no longer utilized the typewriter. We also updated the text at the end, given that we were no longer planning on tabling.
5.3.18 | Poster Type Exploration
Stacie suggested that we use this same style across all of our medium and that it is important for us to come together and iterate our design in order to create a more cohesive system.
Reflecting Stacie’s feedback, we decided to take a closer look at our use of type in posters. Playing with baseline made the poster one step closer to looking more playful and friendly. However, the type treatment for our catch seemed to similar to other types of the text. We decided to work on placing our catch somewhere next to the plate instead of making it part of a chunk of text below “It’s time for _____”.
We also decided to incorporate handwritten typefaces to enhance the playful element of the poster.
5.3.18 | Video Explorations
In order to make the video even more consistent with the poster, we went with the more playful text incorporating different baselines.
5.3.18 | Card Explorations
I altered the colors once again, fipping the yellow and blue cards, as well as made the baseline change for a word in each recipe. I also made this adjustment to the card holder.
While consistent with the poster and now the video, we felt that the fluid baseline was too strange on the individual recipe cards and made the decision to only have it on the front of the card holder. In printing, we also found that the yellow looked to muddy, so we spent a lot of time adjusting that color. Our final four choices were these:
We opted for the peas’ yellow, which appeared bright enough when printed while staying more subtle like a lot of our other color choices. This choice felt like the least overpowering to the content as well. The final cards are below:
5.6.18 | Medium in Context
As we discussed earlier, we thought it would be suitable to place the posters on bus stops in front of campus and near grocery stores such as Giant Eagle. As a student myself at CMU, it is often difficult to spend time to eat properly for all three meals. By placing the posters at these locations, we aimed to grow awareness of cultivating healthy eating habits and eating regularly. Most importantly, we wanted people to take away the message that “time spent cooking is time well spent” because in the long run, knowing how to cook and knowing what goes inside your meal is critical in maintaining healthy eating habit.
In addition to placing the poster at the bus stops, we decided to locate them on on-campus dining sites.
5.7.18 | Video & Handheld in Context
As we altered the type treatment and placement on the video, it made more sense to keep it as a rectangular format. We photoshopped it into context on Facebook as if it were a sponsored advertisement.
We also photographed our recipe cards in the context of CMU dining locations—specifically Resnik and Entropy. We decided to put them in areas that were utilized a lot on campus, where people would be able to see it and intrigued to take a closer look.
