OUGD601: COP PRACTICAL - Developing Label designs

Made in japan:

This book gave me a great insight into Japanese graphic design. Within this book I mainly looked at packaging design giving me inspiration for my labels. This also gave me ideas of how I could intertwine Japanese type in my design. I love the use of colour in some of the packaging, something to also consider when designing.

Article:

This article focuses all around Japanese packaging and why its so successful. It talks about modern Japanese graphic design and tsutmi, meaning presenting gifts. Reading this article made me realise the important process in opening something in Japan, and why they take such care in there packaging design. This gave me inspiration and made me consider how I could package my brand.

Developing label designs:

 At this point in the project I decided to develop some the designs which I felt had potential. With each design I decided to see what they would like as the set of packaging labels. This allowed to see if the design would look fluent and consistent across the different names and types. Across the board with these designs I have used the same colours scheme. I felt this variation of colours are just bright enough to capture the audience’s attention, but at the same time are slightly dulled colour creating a more approachable and soft mood.

This first developed design uses the font ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro across both types. This type is quite neutral. With similar qualities to Helvetica this type creates a solid look that is very readable. I have broken the logo into two parts. I have split the Japanese type and the English with a simple line broken with a coloured circle in the middle, this colour shows relation to the specific product. This colour is then translated across the English type, creating a contrast with the solid black Japanese type. I feel the layout of this design is effective, it highlights the partnership of the product being for both here and the east.

This second design takes a different approach using a solid square block of colour as the draw for the eye. The creates a much livelier initial look. Saying this, the type takes more of a back seat here. Avenir Next UltraLight is the type used for the English text. This delivers a friendly, harmless look with clean, thin, rounded letterforms. This is matched with ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro again, this time much smaller and in solid white. This gives the impression that the Japanese type has been punched out of the logo, portraying the idea that japan is engrained in this brand. This contrast with the English type in black, which your eye IS drawn due to the impact of black on with a background colour.

This design is one my favourite. Using Helevtica Neue Bold italic for the main body type this creates a feel as if the type has been sprayed across the label, linking in effectively with the products. This is then matched with a much smaller Japanese type: Arial Unicode MS. This works really well, slyly hinting at the Japanese routes through the type. The simplicity of this design works well, I tried to approach some designs with a minimalist Japanese aesthetic allowing the main type to breathe. I rounded the edges on the labels with two variations of line running down. This is meant to imitate dripping, in relation to the products.

Although I felt it might not be appropriate to further develop this sweet inspired idea, I thought it was important to expand on it and see some different variations. Developing this did actually change my mind a little and I could see how this could work and be effective. Saying this I feel the designs relay to much of Japanese aesthetic and look like they belong in a store like the one I visited for primary research. I say this as I feel I have made the Japanese type to much of the focus of this design. 

This design is quite opposite of the previous. Taking a very simplistic approach. I have centred the English type, using Nunito as the typeface in lower case on the coloured rectangle background. I wanted this design to create a friendly mood allowing the audience to understand with ease. Although the English type is small I think this works well, drawing the consumer in to read the name because of the small type. This is paired with a thick stroke Japanese type. Although this time I have used the type differently, making into a pattern running along the top and bottom. This completely distorts the text allowing you only to read half of it and from far, it just appearing as a pattern. 

This final design also takes a simpler approach. Using my favourite Japanese type ヒラギノ丸ゴ Pro W4. This type is beautiful using soft curved corners and thin strokes, it is a type which is warming and welcoming. Underneath this larger Japanese type is a coloured bar, containing inside, the English translation in small sub heading Nunito typeface, with a white fill. I feel these particularly works as a set and the consistency of the labels would work well on a shelf.