Originally for this collaborative brief I was in a pair with Bobby, for some reason he dropped out so I had to find another partner, at the time everyone had already paired up so the only other option was to go in a group of three. The partners I ended up working with were Jordan and Joe.
The brief that they had selected to work on was the YCN Fedrigoni brief, at first glance this brief seemed very simple and straight forward as all the brief was asking was to create a desk calendar using they're Woodstock range. It didn't feel like there would be enough work to split around three people but we soon found there defiantly was. This project was different compared to most other major projects in the way that we needed to work. Research didn't play a huge part of the project it was more based around development of the product. Research did initially help guide our direction but for this brief it was about innovation and trying to come up with something completely new and fresh as this project has been running for a couple years now with only minor changes to the brief.
We started by discussing our options in terms of this brief and did a brainstorm on what we should focus on. We felt the underlying aspect of the brief was the green aspect of it, this was down to the stock they had chosen for the brief. The woodstock range is made from recycled paper, it comes in 15 different colours and several different weights within those colours.
The creative challenge was;
Woodstock is an uncoated pulp coloured collection of papers and boards. A unique paper range made from 80% recycled pre-consumer waste and 20% FSC certified Virgin fibre. Available in seven different weights with 15 wonderfully warm pastel colours and an additional mottled version, the naturalness and simplicity of wood is clearly identifiable with this range of paper.
In order to grab a presence on our customers’ desks, the calendar will need to be genuinely useful, but also speak in a visual way which appeals to their high aesthetic standards. It should therefore be a creative, yet functional, piece which maintains awareness of the range throughout the year.
We felt this brief really wanted us to play on the environmental side of things with an emphasis visually creative. We went through a list of what our calendar should be, it should be;
reusable
ecologically friendly
creative
well designed
works as a calendar
showcases Fedrigoni's range
high impact aesthetically
We also needed to consider things like, how easy it would be to recreate if we were to win the competition and also the use of inks or to laser cut text.
We felt if we could fill these personally criteria then we could feel happy with whatever we submit to the contest. Although the brief was based around creating a desk calendar I felt this was one of the least important details of the brief, once you look past the conventional idea of a desk calendar you can really start to be more creative with the brief. Obviously the calendar aspect was important but I felt it didn't immediately have to appear as one.
Our first real step into research was to look at past winners of the calendar competition. Last years winner was an amazingly simple idea which consisted of a stack of 365 pieces of paper sat on top of each other with numbers for the days laser cut out of them so they could be folded up to show the date. This simple idea was effective and did look visually striking but In terms of our brief we were looking to use the least amount of paper as possible. From this research we started to look at a number or creative calendars to see what we could use and apply to the specific brief.
We didn't feel research should be a massive part of this project so after we had each pulled together so relatively stung ideas we decided the production stage would give us a good idea on what our final design should be. During this phase we were always developing ideas, the ones that didn't work we would find a way around the problems and try and improve them.
As a group we looked to different areas for inspiration for this project. As we were working specifically with paper I started to look into origami and paper cutting techniques, I studied these things for a while during my foundation year so I already had a good idea on what we could apply to this project. I felt that if we were creative with the paper then we could find an innovative way of making a calendar.
I think this calendar really opened up what we could do with the idea of a desk calendar, it showcases simplicity as well as functionality.
I started to look into paper folding as a mechanism of marking off days on a calendar, created a model that seemed to work to an extent and we went from there as the next step in the project. The first model of the initial final design of the calendar changed massively as we started to consider all aspects of the project. As everyone had they're own input we got different elements that we wouldn't have thought of on our own, I guess thats the benefit of working in a group of 3.
these were some of my initial sketches
Joe developed the shape of the actual calendar to resemble the Fedrigoni logo which I feel is an important aspect in a sense that if this calendar were to be sent out to clients and printers then it could be easy to forget the paper company that sent you the calendar as the whole point of it is promotion for they're ranges and stock.
We wanted to keep the calendar as simple and environmentally viable as possiable due to the nature of the project. we decided against any printing on the calendar and any information that would be needed was to be cut out using the laser printer. One whole calendar would be printed out on a single sheet of A4 to save costs and weight essentially.
This was a developed net of the calendar, it still needed improvement and some changes in terms of the size.
The one thing that needed to be printed was the instructions, to us the calendar seemed relatively simple and straightforward but to anyone looking in could easily be confused by it. so to design the instructions we chose to go with just a simple sheet with minimal text and only the absolute bare minimum of instructions. For this i looked at ikea instructions which I found had little to no writing on at all which is to fit with the international nature of the business, to us this was no different, Fedrigoni is an international business so we assumed that the calendars would be sent all around the world to clients who speak different languages. I designed the instruction sheet and I felt they converted how to put the calendar together in a simple manner.
The packaging was another aspect we needed to consider because the calendars were flat packed we needed a box to put them in, this was something Jordan designed and made. He created a box that used only folding techniques that didn't need the application of glue to hold it together, this was another considered approach in our goal to achieve the most environmentally sound and reproducible calendar possible.
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