So much inspiration in one place. As i am trying to concentrate on packaging design this year, this has been a more frequent destination for visual stimuli. One that caught my eye this week is a new juice drink called Melo. The packaging was designed by Imagemme, based in New York. The idea was to create a mouth watering intuitive package that would attract a thirsty consumer.
The bottle shape is based on a watermelon and is made of a sustainable BPA material, since the type of packaging could alter the taste of the product. It is just a lovely simple considered design and the logo is effectively sweet and unfussy. It's a perfect example of how a simple considered approach can have more impact.
To add a bit of balance, the Design Week website, which as a subscriber, I now have to use instead of having the paper copy drop through the door, which I used to look forward to and is so much better than having to read it off the screen, anyway. I am going to stick my neck out and criticize a piece of design.
There seems to be a backlash against revamped brands that don't really add any value. Some examples are the recent Design Museum shop rebrand which seems totally unnecessary. Apparently the designers are quoted as saying that the line...
‘symobolises the first mark made in the creation of any design and shows how design is at the core of everything the museum touches’.
I very rarely slate anyone elses work as I always feel that I am not in the position to do so, still being a student. But is this really design to be celebrated? When I see something like this I always think I am being really thick and don't know what I am talking about. Saying that, there is something to be said for the Emperors New Clothes effect. Another recent development has been the apparent leaked design for the new Windows operating system designed by Paula Scher.
I don't understand why you would want to change such a well known brand and then end up with this. This surely doesn't help with the public perceptions of what designers do for a living and whatever you do , don't mention the Olympics logo. Which as a matter of fact, I quite like.
So, today on the Design Week website, we get to see the exciting new identity for The Associated Press, a major force in the news arena. Apparently the new system will unite all of its businesses under one brand and follows the development and implementation of a master brand strategy in 2010.
Again, I feel like I have missed something here, You know that feeling when you are in a group of people and someone tells a joke and everyone falls about laughing. You laugh because you don't want to feel left out and obviously there must be something wrong with your own sense of humour. Trying to put myself in the clients shoes, sitting there waiting for the design agency to pitch there new idea to me and then being showed this. Would I feel cheated? Was my money really well spent? Surely someone in the office could have knocked this up in half an hour on Illustrator.
Or could they? They must of done there research for such a major client as Associated Press. They probably analysed what had gone before to see the development and strategy behind the past identities. I always wonder if I had the initial brief, would I have come up with something similar, bearing in mind that I hadn't got the above image as a reference. Would I have played it safe or done something radically different? What's probably missing from these designs is not knowing what the client has been saying to the design agency. They must of showed them some development ideas along the way so they could make sure they were on the right track.
We can and always should have an opinion on something we do and don't like but have we missed a vital bit of information? Do we know all the facts? Or to put it bluntly, is it really a load of rubbish?
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