Brief 3 - Plant Publication - Brief and Early research

Brief:
For this brief the aim is to create an engaging magazine aimed at students that promotes the use of plants in the workspace and in homes/accommodations. The magazine needs to include useful tips on how to keep plants and not kill them.

Research that I will need to undertaken will be into the benefits of plants in workspaces and homes, as well as research into how to keep plants alive.

I will also need to find out how many students already have plants and know their benefits as they are my intended audience and without this information my magazine may not be needed. To find my content for the magazine I will be looking into other books and magazines that speak about plants benefits as well as keeping them in the house, I will also research articles and websites that provide similar information as it is important that I get a wide range of resources to have reliable information. 

Research:

To start my research I decided that I would look for the answer to my initial questions that I set out to answer with this publication. I used a range of website to answer the question of ‘what are the benefits of having plants in your house/workspace?’ There was many answers to this question as there are many different benefits to plants such a cleaner air, increased productivity and reduce sickness. When researching into how not to kill plants I found 10 golden rules that will help to keep plants alive. All the useful information that I found to answer these questions will be included in the publication as it is all useful and informative about having plants in your home. 

links to found information :
https://www.ciphr.com/advice/plants-in-the-office/
https://www.myflowertree.com/blog/2017/09/important-health-benefits-of-having-indoor-plants-in-your-workspace/

10 GOLDEN RULES (from book 'the new house plant expert)

1. Don’t drown them

Roots need air as well as water- keeping the compost soaked at all times means cerain death for most plants.

2. Give them a rest in winter

Beginner are usually suprised to learn that nearly all plants need a rest in winter, which means less water, less feeding and less heat than in the active growing period. 

3. Accept the loss of ‘temporary’ plants

some popular girft plants such as cyclamen. chrysanthemum and gloxinia will die down in amtter of weeks. You’ve done nothing wrong- these types are flowering pot plants which are only temporary residents. 

4. Give them extra humidity

the atmosphere of a centrally-heated room in winter is as dry as desert air. To avoid this you could move your plant to a moist room such as the kitchen or the bathroom. An alternate method is to usea humidifier to increase the moisture content of the whole room. 

5. Treat trouble promptly

Expert beginner, trouble will strike some time. One or two scale insects or mealy bugs are easily picked  off; an infestation may be incurable. Overwatering is not fatal at first but kills when prolonged. learn to recognise the early signs of trouble.

6. Group them together

Nearly all plants look better and grow better when grouped together.

7. Learn to repot

After a year or two most plants begin to look sickly; in many cases the plant simply needs repotting into a larger container.

8. Choose wisely

The plant must be able to flourish in the home you provide for it. Even the expert can’t make shade-lover survive in sunny windows.

9. Have the proper tools

Buy a watering can with a long, narrow spout and a mister for increasing humidity, reducing dust and controlling pests. You will need a reputable brand of compost and a collection of pots plus stakes and plant ties or string. Drip trays will keep water off the furnature - a bottle of liquid fertilizer and a safe pest killer will keep the plants looking healthy.

a mister for increasing humidity, reducing dust and controlling pests. You will need a reputable brand of compost and a collection of pots plus stakes and plant ties or string. Drip trays will keep water off the furnature - a bottle of liquid fertilizer and a safe pest killer will keep the plants looking healthy.

10. Check the plants specific needs

Research any of your plants spercific needs before purchasing. 

Benefits of plants 

Houseplants actually improve indoor air quality. Dry indoor air is blamed for a host of aliments like respiratory problems, sore throats, colds, and even breakouts. Indoor plants help to maintain, and in some cases increase, humidity levels by emitting water vapor during transpiration. And in addition to emitting oxygen and humidity — plants produce negative ions, similar to many fancy air-purifying machines. The negative ions attach themselves to, and effectively remove, any particles in the air such as dust, mold spores, bacteria, and allergens.  

breif 1 - vegan chocolate - prototyping and development

Sleeves designed by anna, with input by me: 

small, sleek, bright, makes the most of the space

lots of blank space not being used, vegan logo not obvious

makes logo stand out more, still lots of empty space

makes use of space, vegan logo bright but might get covered on a self in stores

vegan logo more obvious but sleeve too high makes it look cramped

better spacing, vegan logo clear, would be better if sleeve box fit in squares so it framed better.

almond milk logo type face - hevetica neue bold
bar type face - helvetica neue bold
flavour name - absy (found on https://www.dafont.com/abys.font)

After developing the patterns, we decided to experiment with using them as a wrapper with the type and imagery on a sleeve around the wrapper. An important part to our design was making sure the typography was appropriate to the packaging and purpose. We decided to use two different typefaces alongside the cadburys logo, a bold Sans serif Typeface for the almond milk bar title so that it was clear to read and a softer more playful Sans Serif typeface that felt rustic because of its uneven lines for the flavour of the bar.   

Using these two different typefaces automatically created a typographic hierarchy. The colour for each sleeve was selected from the pattern of each bar so that they perfectly complimented each bar and seamlessly matched the wrapper. While experimenting with the sleeves we also experimented with the use of colours and size and placement of the vegan logo. We created three different sleeve designs, two full sleeves one with a green banner for the vegan friendly logo, and one sleeve that was thinner with a large box that contained the typography and imagery. To experiment with these sleeves we produced a mock-up of the chocolate bar with the patterned wrapper on and experimented with the positioning of all the sleeves. While experimenting with the sleeves we received feedback on what people thought worked the best, people really liked the smaller sleeve as it exposed more of the pattern but were concerned where the vegan logo would go. After this feedback on our experimentation we decided too use the thinner sleeve that had the box that contained the typography and imagery in, as this sleeve fit nicely within the squares of the pattern which created the illusion of the sleeve been framed by the wrapper. As the sleeve was smaller then the others, it did not leave room for the vegan friendly logo so to overcome this problem we created round green stickers of the logo that could be placed onto each bar. After creating these we experimented more with the positioning of the sleeve to accommodate for the vegan sticker, the most successful position was with the sleeve slightly above the middle of the bar and the sticker in the top right hand side of the corner. This positioning worked the best as the information was at the top of the bar so could be seen if it was obstructed by shelves in a store while also creating open space at the bottom of the bar to show off the pattern. 

Brief 2 - YCN frontier - idea and idea development

 After analysing the set brief to create a campaign to make frontier stand out from the crowed lager market, we consider how we could make something that lager most lager brands don’t have. Our research of 25-35 years old in London lead us to believe that it is the age of young professionals and decided that making something that was aimed at the generation they grew up in would be more engaging than your typical lager branding campaign and the predictable sole use of posters and social media. After deducing that the audience was young professionals we considered the type of environment and social conditions in which they would be drinking frontier lager in. As the brand of lager is largely sold in pubs and bars in London we wanted to embrace this and make something aimed at this situation by using what most 25-35 year old young professionals will have on them at all times and rely on greatly. A Mobile phone.

Our idea is to create a pub quiz App that embraces socializing and drinking frontier lager and bringing the out of date classic pub quiz to a new modern format, while also offering other useful services that are currently available on the frontier website. This idea not only makes people feel part of the frontier team, it makes frontier content accessible anywhere. 

Some early development of the home screen with the use of a scrolling screen to show information

Development of quiz homescreen 

Development of the find your nearest pub location paint.

Icon development for the food pairings page on the homescreen.