Imagine taking a bunch of house wives or a group of farmers, sitting them down, and asking them to brainstorm and draw, for the first time since they finished school (if they finished school). Imagine that these are all wonderful people who have all sorts of knowledge about the world around them which you are interested in gathering, but they are not used to thinking about the world around them, because they are too busy thinking about getting chores done, and what to make for dinner. What I describe could be just about anywhere. And this is in no way meant as any disrespect to farmers and house wives, for without them, we'd all be lost.
For my first project here in Puerto Princesa City I am focussing on branding and packaging for a group of women cashew processors. As such, I am faced with a typical design predicament. For the uninitiated, design simply looks like the process of making something pretty. And this can be done, more or less easily, with the right knowledge of typography, layout, and some awareness of what constitutes engaging photography or illustration. The difficult part of design is the gathering of information, the analysis of this information, and the synthesis of it into a new idea and form. It is easy enough to make a product look just like another product, but the idea behind a good design is that it takes into account the type of audience (or consumer) for a product, and tries to communicate to them a little bit about where the product is coming from. In addition to this, it is important not only to make this product look unlike everything else around it, so that it stands out, but also to use the correct visual language to imbue the product with additional value in the form of associations to other qualities it may have or inspire. These qualities can be everything from "natural" to "fresh" to "healthy" to "local", all of which make the product more valuable compared to those which are just "as you see them" in a jar or plastic bag.
As a communication designer, it is important for the function of what you do to be incorporated as part of the communication objectives of an overall marketing plan for a product, which includes the identification of a target market, along with pricing, placement, and promotional strategies that will ensure a positive return on all of this effort. The products I'm working with have no real marketing plan, but are rather placed into a supermarket with the hope that they will sell. As I am not a marketing intern, there is only so much I can do in this area that goes beyond suggestions. So, with the necessity of developing something in the time I have, I am left with the need to leave the specifics of a target market up to conjecture and develop a visual language that will communicate something of the qualities that any good local food product should have. I decided, therefore, that in order to gather local information about what qualities are important to the Kasoy Processors of San Jose, I could either spend weeks reading, or I could ask them. My timeline and lack of local information resources makes it implausible to just read about local life, and simply asking 20 different women what goes on around them, didn't seem to be very time appropriate either. So, I decided the best method for gathering info would be to do a group exercise.
This was a great idea, not only for gathering info, but also for showing me just how completely little I know about working with a group of people who know nothing about what I do (which from what I understand, is most businesses when it comes to design). I thought up a series of exercises which included the recording of words to do with the sight, taste, touch, and smell of Cashews and Kasoy fruit. I had them draw something that reminded them of a good memory, their family, tradition, and to list their favourite animal, colour, song, flower, etc. Lastly I got them into groups and brainstormed about words and ideas associated with "local", "safe", "health", "value" and "culture". I would like to have done more, but after a brief presentation on what a design should do, what we did already took a fair bit of time. Exercises like this are valuable because, as a designer, it is easy to get wrapped up in what you like, and overlook what is important to your audience or client. For instance, when having the group brainstorm about "value", I was thinking price, but ended up getting a lot of feedback about family, church, and neighbours. I found that a lot of what I was looking for in terms of local iconography was missed, due to my lack of experience in guiding the process, but even this is a valuable experience for next time. So now comes the tricky part, what do I make of all of this and what else do I need. Time is growing shorter, and the next step is visualization. (see more photos)
For my first project here in Puerto Princesa City I am focussing on branding and packaging for a group of women cashew processors. As such, I am faced with a typical design predicament. For the uninitiated, design simply looks like the process of making something pretty. And this can be done, more or less easily, with the right knowledge of typography, layout, and some awareness of what constitutes engaging photography or illustration. The difficult part of design is the gathering of information, the analysis of this information, and the synthesis of it into a new idea and form. It is easy enough to make a product look just like another product, but the idea behind a good design is that it takes into account the type of audience (or consumer) for a product, and tries to communicate to them a little bit about where the product is coming from. In addition to this, it is important not only to make this product look unlike everything else around it, so that it stands out, but also to use the correct visual language to imbue the product with additional value in the form of associations to other qualities it may have or inspire. These qualities can be everything from "natural" to "fresh" to "healthy" to "local", all of which make the product more valuable compared to those which are just "as you see them" in a jar or plastic bag.
As a communication designer, it is important for the function of what you do to be incorporated as part of the communication objectives of an overall marketing plan for a product, which includes the identification of a target market, along with pricing, placement, and promotional strategies that will ensure a positive return on all of this effort. The products I'm working with have no real marketing plan, but are rather placed into a supermarket with the hope that they will sell. As I am not a marketing intern, there is only so much I can do in this area that goes beyond suggestions. So, with the necessity of developing something in the time I have, I am left with the need to leave the specifics of a target market up to conjecture and develop a visual language that will communicate something of the qualities that any good local food product should have. I decided, therefore, that in order to gather local information about what qualities are important to the Kasoy Processors of San Jose, I could either spend weeks reading, or I could ask them. My timeline and lack of local information resources makes it implausible to just read about local life, and simply asking 20 different women what goes on around them, didn't seem to be very time appropriate either. So, I decided the best method for gathering info would be to do a group exercise.
This was a great idea, not only for gathering info, but also for showing me just how completely little I know about working with a group of people who know nothing about what I do (which from what I understand, is most businesses when it comes to design). I thought up a series of exercises which included the recording of words to do with the sight, taste, touch, and smell of Cashews and Kasoy fruit. I had them draw something that reminded them of a good memory, their family, tradition, and to list their favourite animal, colour, song, flower, etc. Lastly I got them into groups and brainstormed about words and ideas associated with "local", "safe", "health", "value" and "culture". I would like to have done more, but after a brief presentation on what a design should do, what we did already took a fair bit of time. Exercises like this are valuable because, as a designer, it is easy to get wrapped up in what you like, and overlook what is important to your audience or client. For instance, when having the group brainstorm about "value", I was thinking price, but ended up getting a lot of feedback about family, church, and neighbours. I found that a lot of what I was looking for in terms of local iconography was missed, due to my lack of experience in guiding the process, but even this is a valuable experience for next time. So now comes the tricky part, what do I make of all of this and what else do I need. Time is growing shorter, and the next step is visualization. (see more photos)
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