OUGD503 - Studio Brief 2: Session 2

In preparation for this session we needed to complete the collaborative partnership form/contract. This would be what our terms of agreement are for throughout the partnership.
To be able to fully complete this form we needed to come up with a general idea of what we were planning to do, in order to split the roles equally. We started by drawing out a quick brainstorm of everything we could do and the tone of voice we wanted to go for.

 After this we discussed exactly what we wanted to do, and how we were going to do it. Following this discussion we wrote down all the roles & responsibilities.

From this point we filled in the sheet, adding from what we wrote in the last session and changing that to suit our concept.

 In the session we were given the time to have a crit on our concepts that we had come up with. General feedback for ours was positive, however as we were delivering our pitch, we realised that although what we were proposing is how Oasis see themselves, it doesn't truly reflect the audience they have.
Oasis seem to believe that their audience is of a much younger age than it actually is, and this shows through the way they write/design to. The clothes they make are generally for young professional women, however the image they are creating for themselves seems to be more along the lines of the teenager generation.
With this in mind we discussed the approach that we could take. In reality, what Oasis are asking for doesn't reflect their audience at all. If we were to design to their audience we felt that the submission would be completely overlooked because Oasis seem to think that their current branding is appropriate. However we definitely didn't want to continue with the kind of thing they are currently doing because it would be completely ignoring the audience and would make our designs seem a bit pointless because we would be ignoring the obvious.
Our initial concept was to go with what Oasis wanted, using bright colours and hand drawn type, however after discussing the issue with the audience, we decided that we would aim it at their actual audience but keep a young vibe to it by using bright colours. We also decided that hand drawn type was now not appropriate at all, and a sans serif typeface would be much more for the audience.

After this discussion we filled in the Project Rationale sheet with the problems to solve in the brief as well as how we were going to solve them.

 Along with this we were given an Action Plan sheet to fill out so we would know what needed to be done for when. We spent a good amount of time discussing and ordering everything for importance and deciding what we needed for each crit.

At this point we were a little concerned about the amount of time we actually had together to fulfil this project brief.

When the session finished we sat down together and decided to go through everything that needed to be done immediately. This included choosing a colour scheme, overall aesthetic and to rewrite the messages.

The first thing we did was work on the colour scheme. We used Adobe Kuler to begin with to try get a colour scheme.

 However this didn't particularly well in terms of what we were looking for, so once we were happy with one of the colours we took that into Illustrator and chose four colours around it.

Chosen base colour

Chosen colour palette

While we used the base colour to help get the other four colours, we found that we didn't need it in the end as it didn't fit in with the overall tone of the four colours we chose. We decided that for an overall look, the background of everything will be one of these four colours and the text on everything will be white. We checked that white worked well over all four and found that it did.

After this we decided to choose out the typefaces to use as this could potentially set the tone for the rest of the brief.

We previously decided that it would definitely be a sans serif typeface that we were using, so spent time going through them until we eventually decided on 'Quicksand'. This would be used for body text. In contrast we wanted something bold that could be used for the headings. We looked through and couldn't really find any that we particularly liked. We then started looking for the overall shape that we like that could be edited.

We came across 'Budmo', and although this definitely not what we were looking for, the overall make up of each letter seemed very simple and bold. I turned the text into outlines and got rid of the circles and we immediately decided that this was a good typeface to use. The typefaces chosen are quite contemporary and will be easy to edit if necessary.

After choosing the typefaces we moved onto working out the messages and wording them in a much more friendly way which reflected our audience. We did a couple and started to find it quite hard to do so I suggested the idea of keeping a format through them all where a question is asked and then answered. Using this as a base we found it very easy to fill out the rest of the messages.

Messages:

• Too busy to wait around? Give us a time and we'll deliver it to you.
• Got no cash? You can use PayPal in-store.
• Need help or advice? Talk to our personal stylists today.
• Got an NUS card? You students get 15% off all year round.
• Can't find your size? We will track it down and deliver it for free.
• Want to see what else we have? Free wifi in store to check out our Oasis app.
• Stuck for ideas? Treat your friends to an Oasis gift card.
• Want to get more from your Oasis experience? Get yourself a loyalty card.
• Want to get more involved? Follow us online.

After writing these messages we discussed the overall aesthetic that we wanted to go for. We agreed that each of these messages should have their own individual image, which Daisy will work on while I work on the type. The main thing we discussed was if there was imagery in branding or just individually, and how were the images going to be created.

We agreed that Oasis seem to be very into watercolour at the minute, so maybe this was something we could use digitally as backgrounds instead of just plain colours. This is something to explore further on in the brief.

While discussing how the illustrations would be created we went onto Behance and looked at the illustration on there. We didn't want it to be too realistic or too flat. It needed to be something that is quite individual and hasn't been seen in a retail environment before.

We came across the following designs:

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Herbarium-time/10710717

 We thought the way these were created was very creative and quirky. As well as using straight edges from the shapes this pattern was put into other more generic shapes. This idea is definitely something we want to incorporate into the images.

After deciding everything we had, we decided that it was time to go our separate ways and begin working on our individual parts and bring the elements together before the next progress crit on the 27/2/14.