DESIGN EXPLORATION

04.04.2023 -  10.06.2023
Haura Laiqa Naznin / 0345050 / Bachelors of Design in Creative Media
Design Exploration

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INSTRUCTIONS

The module information booklet provided by our lecturer Ms. Noranis.

WEEK 1

When being briefed about what we were going to do for this project, my mind was swirling with ideas. I kept thinking about how to incorporate what I was best at - which is character design - with something that was more interesting than a simple illustrative poster. A lot of ideas came and went such as animatics and comics, but I thought that it would give me too much stress and I was not very experienced in those to confidently execute it yet.

It wasn't until Ms. Noranis showed us some examples from previous semesters that an idea finally sparked - I would like to attempt designing a blind box product which is something that has been growing in popularity recently.

It was a hobby to collect these items called 'blind boxes' which is basically a box with a figurine of a character inside. The fun part was that you didn't know who you would get until you purchased it. It's a hobby even I partake in! The need to collect all the characters can get quite addicting.

Example of a blind box set

There are a variety of themes these blind boxes come in. A very popular brand of blind boxes comes from Pop Mart who have several different characters in all sorts of outfits and designs.

Examples of blind boxes from Pop Mart

For this project, I could design the packaging as well as the characters!

WEEK 2

TASK 1 : COMPARISON

One of our tasks given was to find a good design or poster for social awareness and compare it to a bad design. I decided to find something that was recent and covid was a worldwide pandemic that occurred in the last 3 years, so that was what I chose.

A movement done by Mucinex sends the message of wearing a mask through various posters all depicting clever designs that incorporate the mask as well as an activity or job that required someone to leave their house for.

The reason why I chose them specifically is because I liked how simple yet very effective these posters are - they relay the message to the audience very clearly without having to use many words or assets that could make it more complicated.

Now, for the 'bad' design, I stuck with the theme of masks and tried to find a poster that could fit in this category.

I came across this poster created by Chinadaily.com which seems to be a website for news about covid in China. The reason why this caught my eye and can be seen as a bad design is the odd layout of it as well as the colour choices. Usually, yellow and blue are a nice combo, but it looks quite off in this poster - perhaps a little too neon. The font choices are also not the best and most appealing to the eye. The text is sort of all over the place too with the exception of the ones surrounding the images.

I then decided to look into packaging design, since my project would require me to design one myself. These are some I found that looked aesthetically pretty and would make buyers want to purchase it, especially with how innovative the first one with the oranges is.

It was quite difficult to find any good examples of bad packaging for some reason - most results showed boxes that were damaged rather than a design that was faulty.

WEEK 3-5

In the following weeks, I continued to work on the slides presentation that will compile my ideas together along with some initial sketching.

During Week 5, we had presented our ideas to each other in class and gained feedback for it from Ms. Noranis. For mine, I had to take into consideration the design of the characters as well as the packaging. The characters could be more diverse and be more influenced by my own and others' cultures. The packaging needs to be designed in a way that is reusable, so nothing is a waste.

These were my first initial concepts for the type of style I wanted to achieve with the figurines. Chibi and simple, which would make it easier for me to design as I don't need to make it so detailed. 

These were the initial designs that were then given feedback for that I mentioned previously.

WEEK 6-9

Moving on to the next few weeks I focused solely on finalizing the designs for the 6 characters I planned to make. The animals I wanted to base them off of were sharks, jellyfish, manta ray, lobster/crabs, moray eel and squids.

At the start, I struggled to figure out what consistent theme across them all that I should focus on as I designed around the chosen animal. I knew for sure I wanted an even amount of feminine and masculine characters, so there were 3 each. After I recalled the feedback about including more culture into my designs, I decided that each of the characters were going to be based off of different countries and their traditional clothes. It was going to be a challenge to try and incorporate the marine animal into it, but I was ready and inspired.

I wanted to try creating something with a bit more detail at first by sketching onto an existing base figure that I drew. This was to make it easier for me to simplify later on, because I found out that starting simple was somehow more difficult for me than I thought. It was fun to gather inspiration for each of their clothes and putting it together into something cohesive.

Once I finalized the more detailed versions, I simplified them and drew them over a chibi base. The next step was now to add colour and I find this step to either be a breeze or a nightmare.

It took a while for some of them, but in the end I am quite happy with the color palettes of each character. Of course, I tried to keep it similar to the colors of the animals they are based off of. I may change it up when I finalize the designs further but for now, these look good to me!

WEEK 9-11

The next step was to design the packaging for these figurines. I took inspiration from several sources.

When it came to sketching, however, I ended up going a different route. My initial thoughts regarding the box was that it had to be easy to open, as well as minimizing any trash that would come from opening it. This is to reflect the SDG topic further since waste is part of 'life below water', in fact, its quite a big topic within that theme. It would be hypocritical to have waste with your product after all!

I went for a way for the box pieces to be reused, or at least for one of them to still be recyclable. So in this sketch, the user would simply pull the upper part of the box to reveal the figure. The figurine itself may or may not be wrapped to conceal the surprise, though that isn't super important at this stage.

The bottom part would be used as almost like a stand for the figurine, or a stage for them to be displayed on.

When it came to finalizing the design of it, I decided to rid of the background prop as it didn't quite work out in the end. I moved on to creating the box art which I drew on a separate canvas.

This is the final design. I was quick to know what I wanted for it, which is obviously something to do with ocean waves and the foam patterns on it. After this, it was time to construct the box and place the art on top of it.

Now that the box design was done, I moved on to designing the cards that were going to be included in the box alongside the figurine. It would include information about the animals that each character represented.

WEEK 12-14

This is the concept for what the cards would look like - silhouettes of the marine creatures would be in the background. Each color represents said animal too.

It wasn't difficult to complete the designs as I didn't want them to be too detailed, but still be sleek and fun to look at. At this point, I have yet to add any text as I moved on to work on my final presentation.

When the presentation week was over, I was given some feedback by Ms. Noranis about the character design and cards. Firstly, she said I could add more qualities to the shark and squid design to truly reflect their animal and make it more obvious that they were supposed to be based off a squid and shark. So, I've added in the features of tentacles and a shark fin to the design. I even altered the shark girl's color scheme to resemble more closely to a shark.

As for the cards, since I have yet to add in text, she suggested that I be put in the shoes of the consumer who would purchase this product to know exactly what to write on them. I first wanted to just focus on putting information about the animal they are based on but she told me to think otherwise and perhaps create an actual persona for each character.

Thus, I gave each of them names and even added in a meaning to their name that could connect with the theme of 'life below water' and the animal they're based off.

I put in default text to imitate what the information displayed could look like if it were real.

WEEK 15

Moving to the final stage, it was time to create the rendered artwork that imitates a real figurine of one of the characters. In my presentation I explained that due to various reasons I am unable to produce a real 3D printed model, so instead I would create artwork to reflect it.

I chose to use the jellyfish character also known as Akane since I already used her as an example in the presentation. It was certainly a challenge to render her in a style that mimics 3D and I can only hope it came across that way in the final output. I had a lot of fun using references of actual figurines to render her though!

Finally, I put her next to the packaging for a size comparison. In the artwork, I did include a stand which would most likely also be included in the whole product so the figurine has a better chance of standing without toppling over.

This concludes the journey throughout the weeks of creating my own Blind Box for the goal 'Life Below Water'.

REFLECTION

At the early stages of the semester, I certainly did feel excitement when the project for this class was announced. I could do something that I enjoyed which is to design characters whilst also diving in to doing new things such as packaging design. I feel that this class helped in strengthening what us students are already good at but also encourages us to try new things, which I've seen my other classmates do when they ventured out of their comfort zones.

Of course, there were struggles along the way and some plans had to be changed which is a shame as I really did want to attempt making a 3D print model of the figurine. Though these things happen sometimes which are out of my control and I'm glad I came up with a quick solution at the very least.