This is the second year running Ive entered YCN and the third time Ive entered the Fedrigoni brief. This brief has always appealed to me down to the fact its very reliant on you doing something creative with the stock they set. Last year you had to make a calendar which had to promote the use of there eco friendly range of papers. This year the brief was to create a promotional tool for Fedrigoni's new Sirio black paper, the blackest paper in their range. The idea behind the promtional tool would be that it would get sent to different agencies and printers to promote this certain stock, I felt this was the main aspect of the brief because it outlined that it would be sent to various people so the challenge I felt was to get the recipients to engage and take an interest in the product you were sending.
I thought initially about creating a series of posters but I quickly realised that creating a poster really isnt showing off the stock and promoting it. Its also something that could easily be missed or thrown away. I felt the product I was designing needed to be something that would immediately be noticed and interacted with.
My next development into this project was where I started thinking about simple origami, something where I could send a sheet of paper with instructions on which could give the user something to do in their spare time, I liked this idea because it would force interaction with the paper and I feel this is one of the best ways to sell paper because you will gain the most from just feeling it rather than looking at it.
I started to have a look at some simple origami to see if any of the subjects would apply to this brief.
These are some simple animals which I thought could work as a promotional tool for the stock, they arent really relevant though. they dont relate back to the aper or Fedrigoni as a company. If I was going to base this brief around origami then I needed to find somehting that was relivant to the stock, ie something that is historically very black or something that was relivant to Fedrigoni itself.
I started to look into some more complicated versions of the humble paper plane, I felt like this idea could be built upon because paper planes can be fun no matter what age you are, I also feel that a paper plane had an added element of promotion in it due to the fact it can be thrown around the office, in a sense spreading the word about Fedrigonis new sirio black paper.
I started by looking at some different paper aeroplane designs because I felt the standard design was too well know and wouldn't pose as a challenge for anyone receiving this promotional device.
Another way I could make a paper plane relevant to the black stock is by taking a plane thats famously black like the stealth bomber or night hawk.
There are paper plane designs based on these so I thought it could potentially work. After some thought and work on this project I came to the conclusion that making a paper plane as a promotional device is essentially flawed. I do think it might be a good way to spread the word around an office in the form of something fun but its also a way of creating a lot of potential litter and wasted paper that will ultimately be thrown in the bin. This really change my thoughts onto something that could potentially have some longevity to it, something that someone will want to keep rather than just throw away.
My next route I decided to go down was to look at what could be given as gift that could double up as a promotional device, my immediate thought was flowers. From being familiar with origami for years I knew that you could make flowers out of origami and I think black versions of these would be quite striking and would attract attention.
There are quite a few options when it comes to origami flowers, I wanted to make something easily recognisable so I chose to make a rose as I feel it has good symbolism connected to it, for example passion and love which is what Fedrigoni as a paper come down to it.
I did originally want to create a promotional tool that was sent incomplete with instructions so it would force the recipient to interact with the paper. Ive included some instructions here I found on the internet, I feel they have been too simplified for the rose because its quite difficult to build especially the first time you make it. I had a go at making my own instructions addressing some of the issues I found when first following the instructions. In the end I felt it was just too much to include instructions and a square piece of paper. I decided though I could include a pre made rose that would hopefully sit on the desk as an ornament, the ultimate aim ideally was to create something that would be kept.
After establishing what I wanted to create I went about practicing a few different rose instructions too see which one worked the best.
after deciding on the rose I wanted to use I needed to work out which parts of the paper were actually on show once the rose was folded. I did this by unfolding one I had made and marking the sections for a reference next time I folded one. The reason I wanted to mark the rose is so that I could create a pattern to put onto it to show the sirio blacks foiling capabilities, something that was oulined in the original brief.
I had a look at some different patterns and I felt the more geometric ones would work best because it would give a contrast between the more natural lines of the rose. I had also decided to only use certain panels on the paper to give further contrast between the paper and the foil. I didnt want to foil the whole thing because I felt this would take away from the paper which is the whole point of this promotional device.
When it came to the decision I wanted to use black foil which I felt gave a very subtle but clean effect to the design.
