To start the brief we had 4 workshops at the museum spread over 2 days.
✦ To view the contents, please click on the name of the workshop.
Day 1 (14/04/26)
Brand Evolution
In this workshop we looked at how brands change their packaging over time and redesigned what we thought PG Tips could look like in the future. When we looked at the different variations in their packaging over time we noticed changes in imagery as they switched from including a person to just simple leaves. We speculated this might be based on how modern audiences may view the inclusion of field workers as being exploitative but also in line with how lots of brands began to simplify their designs.
With there being a rise in sustainability we imagined PG tips to follow this trend. Being made of card the existing packaging is already sustainable so we thought about how it could be made reusable and designed a tin for it and refillable dispenser.
Customer Profiling
In this workshop we focused on how products targeted different demographics and how many will have a primary customer profile and secondary customer profile. The primary profile being their intentional demographic while the secondary profile sometimes being accidental. The example given to us was Jaffa donuts.
Visually it is easy to tell their target is children. By using bold and easy to read writing as well as stylised font the product looks appealing and exciting. Being an individually packaged product parents can also easily use them for their children’s packed lunches.
While the main consumer base will consist of parents buying for their children it may also appear to adults such as those who exercise and eat healthily who want small treats as it may fit their needs of being individually packaged, flavoursome or cost effective.
We were told to create primary and secondary profiles based on one of the objects on the table. We chose to explore Head and Shoulders 2 in 1 shampoo/conditioner and decided on the primary audience being mothers who would buy it for their families as it is cost effective. We thought the secondary audience may be young men who would buy it due to the convenience of it being 2 in 1 and having maybe grown up with it.
We created a collage of our primary audience and fleshed out who we thought Hannah would be, keeping it very generic.
Day 2 (15/04/26)
Gender in Advertising
In this workshop we looked through a collage book for a specific time period. The book featured a large collection of different adverts from various advertisements. As the book was period specific it was interesting to see how views on gender compared back then to now. Our book was for the 1910s so featured images surrounding the suffragette movement and we were able to see how women were depicted through them, often times in a negative way.
Based on the images we had seen we then created an advert. We noticed that with the car adverts it was always men driving so we chose to create an advert for a flying car with lesbians driving.
Sustainability in packaging
In the final workshop we compared the sustainability of 2 products. We chose to compare a glass soy sauce bottle and a plastic Coca-Cola bottle. While they were different products we chose to compare them due to their different materials and them serving the same purpose of holding liquid. Immediately we knew the glass bottle was more sustainable but by analysing them we found extra details such as the glass bottle mentioning refills being available. We also found it interesting to note how Coca-cola used to use glass bottles before switching to the plastic we now know.
We then redesigned how we would choose to make Coca-Cola more sustainable. We drew inspiration from bottle recycling stations in Germany and branded it for Coca-Cola. We imagined it being stationed in areas with high traffic such as near schools, parks and shopping centres and would have an app run alongside it so people could get discounts on future products and measure how much they’ve saved.
These workshops were beneficial as they made me actively think about the world around us and helped to give me the language to discuss these ideas in detail. Throughout the workshops we had opportunities to discuss our ideas to the room. Doing so helped me to become more comfortable and familiar with public speaking as it is something I usually shy away from doing.
Interview
I agreed to be interviewed and talked about my experience with the customer profiling workshop. Doing the interview pushed me out of my comfort zone as I don’t like being put on the spot. To prepare for the interview I recounted what we did with a friend and made a few notes based on the questions being asked to others. This helped me to answer clearly during the interview as well as having the reassurance that the footage would be edited so it was okay to slip up a little.
The Brief
We were briefed about the project and given the chance to choose which workshop we would like to create an animated opening sequence for as the film students would be making a live action film for each, using the footage they took during each workshop.
Hearing we would be working on another animation brief my first reaction was honestly “again????” Since we had worked on the animated Nippets logo just before this and I was not an animator. This made me lose interest in the project a little as it is not something I enjoy doing as much.
I chose to work on the Gender in Advertising sequence as I could remember it quite easily and felt there would be a lot to work with. After the briefing we had a quick meeting as a team where we discussed the option of creating the animation in stop motion. This interested me as I came from an illustration background so going back to traditional mediums appealed to me a lot.
Before our first call with Nicky we decided just to come up with a few ideas each. I created a mood board based on the minds of visuals I could imagine. I drew inspiration from the adverts we looked at to include a variety of embellishments and considered different paper texture ideas such as rips based on some of the collage work we had done in over workshops. Since everyone looked at a range of different time periods during the gender in advertising workshop I also wanted to embrace that by showing how we could combine visuals from different periods on to people.
After our meeting with Nicola we decided to further develop our ideas by coming in to university to do some collage work. I worked with Violet to find images in magazines we could use to play with typical gender roles and stereotypes and stick onto photos taken during the workshop by the film students.
During this meeting we also discussed what work we would need before our next meeting and delegated tasks.
I worked on images surrounding the title frame and explored the use of different fonts and colours based on the museum’s guidelines provided to us as I wanted it to feel cohesive with their brand.
We were encouraged to incorporate the museum’s exterior into the sequence if possible so I used it to frame the workshop title. I took inspiration from the magazine books we looked at in the workshop and arranged different people behind.
