On 'Good' Design
I am reminded of a chapter where I was first immersed in the design process, as a former partner of a catering business.
The shortened version of our design brief from 2011 follows.
Our designer produced something that we were rather fond of. We were very keen to team up with fellow Leiths alumni to make artisan food under the banner of The Preservation Society.
The Preservation Society suited the stage of our early business career and other small catering companies that were interested in similar things to ourselves and additional income - but were not necessarily the main activities of our respective businesses. We were excited by the concept of and felt the name fit the bill - it was slightly irrevent and playful.
Days before submitting an application for a trademark I stumbled upon an article in the press about intellectual property and for some reason checked the IPO database and I was crest-fallen.
An application for the Preservation Society had been submitted a matter of weeks before. The uncanny resemblance between the design still troubles me to this day.
Design
brief & website brief
Requirements:
1)
Logo
for a trademark application for The
Preservation Society, which hand-makes top quality jams, pickles, chutneys
& preserves for selling at market stalls or to independent delicatessens &
cheese shops;
2)
Logo
for the catering firm called Cooks &
Capers the threefold business of which is
a)
Catering
for upmarket private dinner parties;
b)
Catering
for larger parties up to 100 people for corporate clients
and at weddings, anniversaries & funerals; and
and at weddings, anniversaries & funerals; and
c)
Canapé
parties
3)
Designs
for and construction of website for Cooks
& Capers (including a page for The
Preservation Society); and
4)
Designs
for labels for the jams pickles chutneys & preserves for The Preservation Society (although this
may not be the final name, dependent upon the outcome of the trademark
application – see below).
The
combination will be used for merchandising: banners, product displays, &
props.
People
who are asked to quote may not be interested in all elements. If we find one firm that has all necessary
skills at the right price, that would be great, but it is not a
requirement. Plainly the graphic design
work, particularly jar labels, will evolve over time and may need input from
different designers. But it does not
make sense to have more than one firm involved in the website. It is important for anyone who is quoting to
understand how we have got to where we are and why. Hence this document.
Context:
Two
man partnership called Cooks & Capers
based in Palmers Green, North London, owned by Julian Parker and Rich
Graham. Biographies of both are included
in the example content of the detailed website brief set out below.
Detailed
background
We
met while taking the professional chef’s Diploma at Leiths School of Food and
Wine and we decided to go into business together
Much
thought has gone into naming the jams, pickles, chutneys & preserves side
of the business. We were both of the
view that Cooks & Capers works
for the private dining side but doesn't really work for the jams, pickles, chutneys
& preserves.
Too
many Preservation names
We
wanted a company called The Preservation
Society Ltd but there are restrictions under the Companies Act on the word ‘society’
which may not be used unless in the name of a non-profitmaking company.
We
know people, who would like to make and sell jams, pickles, chutneys &
preserves, for whom it would make sense to use our registered food kitchen and
our infrastructure. We’ll get access to
additional ideas and labour and the ability to expand in due course. It is principally for this reason that we
want to have a name that has collective connotations.
Thoughts
about styles
We’ve
spent much time in the past 9 months thinking about fonts, colour palettes,
logo design, label design and branding. We’ve
been to countless trade exhibitions & food halls & endured myriad
aisles of supermarkets. We've looked at
hundreds of websites. So we've analysed
what we do and don't like and why.
We
like both in websites and labels clarity, simplicity and elegance. Understated class is what we’re after. We attach at the end of this document links
to websites and label designs that we do like.
We
don't like Gothic fonts or identikit farmhouse labels. And we don't like busy.
In
particular we are very keen to achieve across all 4 requirements a consistent
and coherent feel centred around three elements:
the
kitchen in which we work;
the
garden outside; and
the
produce that goes into what we sell.
We
want to use these as our inspiration and theme for three reasons:
they
are beautiful;
they
already exist & are always easily available to us; and
they
won’t cost extra money!
There’s
an extensive collection of good-looking kitchen equipment, domestic linen and
elegant craft pottery which can be used in photographs and in the overall
design.
These
are the things that we would like to appear regularly within our photos in the
blog, that we hope will define us and differentiate from others using stock
photos. Rich has spent a day in the
kitchen with the camera and has identified some sample props, themes, colour
palettes and textures to start us off.
The
images are available. A summary list
follows:
1)
“Man-made”
colour palette: wall colours – white,
deep blue & yellow & cooker colour, similar deep blue, Fired Earth tile
colours http://www.firedearth.com/tiles/colour/rose-17676
2)
Natural
mineral: granite and marble, brushed stainless steel and wood
3)
Natural
organic: spices e.g. In the mortar shot,
granary bread, herbs
4)
Japanese
knives: (mottled steel and wooden handles), copper preserving pan, copper mixing
bowl, copper fish kettle, poaching dish, wooden chopping boards, granite mortar
and pestle
5)
China
and porcelain: blue and yellow crockery, off-white crockery
6)
Outside
space: metal tables, pergola, plants
Label
Design
Rich
originally came up with a very simple label design using two matt pastel
colours together with a white background, an example of which is below.
Obviously
our thinking has moved on since then but we like its simplicity and the 2 tone
colour scheme because many of the products that we are likely to make have 2
main ingredients. So one idea that might
be to select a colour palette that works across the piece and use variants of
that in some form – doesn't have to be a straightforward band – it could be
elegant Japanese brushstrokes, who knows?
– as part of the design.
If
one looks at, for example, the Luscombe branding
it's
immediately apparent, from a distance, which brand group it belongs to and that
they are all part of the same design family.
An
examination of the Fortnum and Mason website reveals that many of their labels
are colour coded in relation to the product inside the jar and the colour
palette is immediately recognisable as being from the same stable. This we like, though their current colours
are a bit garish and we're a bit more Farrow and Ball.
There
are some technical constraints that we need to bear in mind. Without going into massive detail, either a
separate label, or the main label, needs to contain the volume or weight
required by law and the list of ingredients in descending order of importance,
together with a best before date. There
is a detailed set of rules that requires one to make this information available
to the consumer easily with in one field of vision so that they know what
they're getting. We also have to be able
to identify the batch number and to include an address to which problems or
complaints can be referred. We will
probably set up a PO Box number to deal with this. But the point is that this information needs
by law to be there. We are perfectly
amenable, subject to cost considerations, to a solution that involves, for
instance more than one label – a pretty label, and an information label or
elasticated tag that contains the consumer information around the top of the
jar.
We
suspect that what the above means in practice is that for reasons of logistical
practicality and in order to minimise costs a template needs to be designed
that can be scaled to different jar sizes and can be easily edited both in
relation to text content and colour shades, containing any necessary logos, and
also an area into which art work can be successfully imported.
We
have seen some label designs on our travels which have either been watercolours
or line drawings: they appeal both for the colour palette and the simplicity of
design.
General Comments from Rich
“We
have to try and tie in two separate businesses into one website, and ideally
with one identity. I have had some thoughts about a coherent design that is
essentially quite Japanese. However I would like to reconcile them with a final
look that doesn’t feel Japanese!
They
are:
1. Flowing paintstrokes, with two
or three tone colour scheme.
2. A stamp
For
The Preservation Collection:
If
you put Rothko into Google images
you
get bold colour use and interesting textures. Focus on that but not the his
obsession with blocks and then think Rothko meets Japanese character strokes,
in particular hiragana as compared to katakana or more traditional Chinese-style
characters. Image #1 below is a good example of the movement, texture and
simplicity of the brush stroke that I really like.
I
was thinking Rothko in terms of textures of colour related to the flavor
combinations. So using the feel of the image below, but using two or three tone
colour combinations.
Would
we be taking the Japanese styling too far to have a “hanko” type stamp? I certainly like the simplicity of it again.
Perhaps this is where quasi Kanji look might work?? Ie a blocky image/character
with associated text, in black and white.
For
the Cooks & Capers website
To
continue with the Hirigana theme I would love to come up with imagery for the
headings that depicted concepts using a series of fluid brush strokes for the
website as well. The challenge would be to illustrate concepts using the least
amounts of brushstrokes possible, in a type of calligraphy. I don’t particularly
like image #2 but it’s not a bad example of the simplicity I would like to
achieve.
Websites
we like, don’t like and why:
We
like this for the simplicity and colour scheme, but it’s perhaps got slightly
too corporate feel?
Again
perfectly simple, great navigation, but we would like a greater amount of
colour and warmth.
Julian
and I really like the photography. However we have not really developed a
photographic style yet. My amateur view on this is that the photography is very
bright. Personally I would like to go for something a little cosier and warmer
Love
the fact that it fits on the browser without scrolling, interesting use of
colour throughout.
(Comment
from Julian: up to a point: the menus are a rubbish layout with scroll bars!
And navigation is horrid. Horrid because pop up and drop down menus are a
tricky way to get about)
Low
key; which is great. The dropdown menus are a pain. The wine list is a shocker
in terms of layout though the prices aren’t bad. Good photos, but the 360 view
makes you install Java. No!!!!
The
homepage is quite striking and I like the line drawings, but I agree that they
are difficult to match with photographs.
This
is a fantastic site. I like this as it ties up the logo, clipart titles and the
pictures extremely well. It’s not too busy, there’s no extraneous animations,
sounds etc. It’s straightforward. (Julian: but the navigation is not fabulous…)
No comments:
Post a Comment