Brief 6 - Papergang

For this brief, I wanted to challenge myself to complete a brief over two days, 

I believe I will need to explore the use of patterns, colour and composition within this brief while keeping in mind the audience that buys the Papergang boxes, this will be important to design and its success as the winning design will be made and sold so it has to be practical and attractive. The requirements for this brief are to create a design for the box, a desk pad, a card, a pin, a coaster and gift wrap. 

To start my research I decided to look at past Papergang boxes. A common theme in Papergang boxes is that they are colourful and have a beautiful illustration on them. A common overarching theme is that all the boxes are playful and all the items work well as a collection, this is something I had to keep in mind when designing my collection as I didn’t want to create a box that looked out of place from the others. 

My second point of the research was to look at patterns that the Papergang use and sell in their shop Ohh Deer. The patterns that Papergang use are all very similar in style to those that they use in their boxes as they are also very colourful and feature pattern. Another interesting thing I found from my research is that Papergang and Ohh Deer both like to use humor in some of their designs.  This research informed my design as it helped me identify key aspects that would help my design be successful, such as including colour, humor and illustrative patterns.

images of wrapping paper. 

Informed by my research I decided to create a design that featured illustrations. As I only allowed myself two days for this brief and the first day was for research I decided that I would base my theme on cactus illustrations as they are very popular at the moment along with tropical patterns that are used on home accessories and stationery, and papergang have not previously made a box with a tropical/plant theme yet. From this idea I quickly drew a collection of three different cactus. These were the basis of my design. 

After completing my illustrations I made them into a pattern using photoshop. I experimented with the arrangement of the repeat and then finalised a design which I then applied to the box. 

When it came to designing the card for the box I decided that a pun would be appropriate as Papergang and Ohh Deer like funny puns and use them in their designs, because the theme of my box was cactuses the phrase ‘can’t touch this’ fitted well as you are physically unable to touch them. When decided which cactus to have on the front of the card it was a matter of which cactus fit the best in the space alongside the type and the speech bubble. This was the flat cactus as I filled most of the blank space that the other cactus illustrations did not. 

The desk pad was the most tricky to design as the pattern as the background was too overpowering and when only using carefully placed cactus it limited the amount of writing space in the boxes. To overcome these problems I decided that a simple block colour taken from the pattern was the best option as keeps the link between the rest of the box as well as creating a clean open space to make notes. 

For the gift wrap I chose to continue the use of the pattern that I used for the box, and carried over the purple from the deskpad to use for the ribbon. 

When choosing a cactus for the pin I decided to use the cactus had a large arm like features as it is commonly the most recognisable cactus figure, and in my opinion, I think that I would be a more desirable pin to use if it was recognisable. 

To submit this brief I posted the final designs on Instagram, using my design account with the tags that the brief asked you to use. In my opinion, I think that this brief was successful eventhough I was not picked as a finalist as it showed me what I can do in a limited amount of time. what i thought worked well in this brief was the concept and the colour pallet. I used a repeat cacuts pattern for the larger items in the box and added a hint of purple to conplement the pattern. The key aspect to this design that I think makes the box complete is the card. The simple yet effective phrase on the card adds a little hint of humor to the box that without would be too simple.

In the design of the stationary and home accessories at the moment plants and pastal colours are very popular so I thought that it would be a box that people would enjoy. On reflection, this may have been an oversight on the design as I did not consider what will be popular when the box is intened to come out in october. If I was to redesign this box I would consider the time of year more and possibly aim it as halloween or autum theme as it would be more appropriate for the time of year.