Our resolution needed to fit in a standard envelope and be accompanied with a visually appropriate mailing list.
To begin this brief I started my planning, i reviewed the brief a few times and then started asking/answering questions appropriate to the brief:
What do you want to say and how do you want to say it? What language would be appropriate?
I want to follow the theme and language style of poster series for the previous brief, but I also want to expand on it and take my feedback into consideration.
What visual languages exist that relate to your message and how can you use them?
I need to make sure it grasps your attention, it is visually impacting but at the same time both interesting, informative and helpful to my target audience. For this I will use a mixture of type and imagery to compliment each other in the aim to communicate my message as directly as possible.
What does the mail-shot aim to achieve? Does it direct you to a website, encourage you to attend an event, is it interactive or self-contained?
My mail-shot should aim to achieve being informative, helpful, unique and memorable - directly communicating the message I am transmitting for a good cause of preventing internet trolls from hurting people and cyber bullying online. In this essence I will need to be attaching a value of a helpline or information website in the contents of my envelope to help students/children that are already being affected by trolling and cyber-bullying.
I decided I wanted to design my own envelope to make everything feel more professional and give me the chance to use the stock I wanted to. An idea i had to make it more cost efficient and interesting was to make my mail-shot a single layer but have it double sided and folded to make it more interactive for the audience. To open my mail shot, it would be a 'tear open' the sides pack as it will be glued together and carefully perforated.
For this reason I measured all of the edges of the designated envelope size to make sure mine was accurate to description. And then began sketching ideas for a few hours. My favourite after all of them was the first which consisted of a keyboard theme, the front of the envelope being the face of a keyboard and the back being the insides with all of the sensors and wires.
To develop the idea I had I made a planning sheet with all my ideas illustrated and written all over the place to give me a feel of whether it was going to work or not and then if it did, work towards that as my aim.
I was more than happy with my idea and how it developed into a double sided mail-shot and communicated what I wanted it to, I then started to work on it digitally.
The longest process of this whole brief was drawing the keyboard, inside and out. I had no idea about how much detail there was to include in the outline illustration of this piece, but now I do. The inside was the hardest because of how many layers of drawing there were to include in it.
After that was finished, I started on the colouring, which yet again seemed very simple and easy to do at first, but I had no idea how many layers of colour in the same opacity I needed to include.
The blue was then slowly added into the bottom of the keyboard and then I I laid all of the letters on the keys in helvetica to keep it simple and legible. Instead of the command 'F' keys at the top like a normal keybaord I displayed the words 'STOP IT NOW' to present an impacting message in a subtle format.
Background colour was added as well as stamp positioning and address box to display the recipients information. I then got some feedback from my peers that the message was too subtle to even notice so I displayed the words 'Trolling and Cyberbullying needs to stop' just above it as if it was the brand of the keyboard, this then helps the eyes follow the message below it.
Here we have the finished image of the outside of my envelope which would be folded in half and then stuck together after being printed digitally onto a light card.
My next task was to make the opposite side of the mail-shot, aka the inside which will inform and advise by following my planning sheet. I used the header type from my posters but changed the words into "How can you stop a troll?" to relate to my current task.
Next was to lay out the text I had planned out including an introduction/explanation of the mail-shot and then on the right side, some contact information to help people who were suffering with cyber-bullying or victimisation by internet trolls.
An interesting idea I had when sketching my planning sheet was to display a skull in the inside of the envelope, i feared it might be a bit too subtle and confusing what the message was but I went with it anyway. This represented the death/end of trolling or cyber-bullying.
Within the skull, I laid my body copy of advice into the shape of the illustration just to make things a little different and make it memorable.
The last thing I had to design was the mailing list which I already roughly knew how I wanted to display it. I decided that I'd be sending this to educational institutions in the area as I was targeting students and children who might be suffering from cyber-bullying.
My list of institutions consisted of:
Leeds College of Art
University Of Leeds
Leeds Metropolitan University
Leeds City College
Allerton High School
I researched their addresses and noted them down for when I needed them in the design process, in the mean time I got started on the design of the List.
After titling the page for my mailing list I boxed it out to help with layout and be visually aesthetic in composition.
Each contact was laid out in the same way, Script header font, and then a block impact type to both identify the institution and present the address.
This layout was followed through with the rest of the institutions and then divided by a single line between the identity and the address. Apart from that I set out an introduction to my mailing list just below the title to make things clear.
After everything was finished and it came to printing and creation I ran into some obstacles. Firstly, I had to cut everything down to size myself because of lack of shaped stock, this made things slightly inaccurate but I managed to fix it all to work within the print format needed.
Next was the stock I chose, I had about ten minutes in the college shop thinking about what kind of stock to use for print and I came to the conclusion that watercolour paper was a fantastic idea because of the texture. Little did I know that the print surface was too rough to stand a decent quality.
Another problem I came to was after printing the double sided mail shots that it wouldn't print directly in line and it was unavoidable that clipping would happen
Overall I was very happy with the results I was left with for this delivery brief. Everything worked together as a set in my eyes and the use of type was followed throughout it to link it together with my three posters as well. If I had the time I would experiment a bit more with the stock I used to find out what would produce the best results.
Crit
For our crit on this brief, we were put into pairs and had about 20 minutes to discuss peoples work on a different table to our own and deliver some feedback to help them understand mistakes and point them in the right direction to change things if needed.
For my first form of feedback, the pair that evaluated my work told me that the title is clear however the writing inside wasn't very legible because of the bad print and the use of black on blue. However they did know what the mail shot was about.
They didn't understand the skull reference but they thought the use of language was ideal for my target audience.
They told me the brief has been met and the dimensions of the envelope were fitted.
When asked if the mailing list was graphically and visually appropriate they said its easy to read, an effective layout and it looks like its been screen printed, however they didn't think the colours were consistent with the envelope. The purpose and intentions were achieved though.
Everything they said finally was very positive apart from their justified opinion on the black text on blue background.
My second form of feedback was very to the point and helpful.
Their first comment was the concept of trolling isn't really clear as some people don't know what trolling is so i should of made it clear by saying "internet troll". I responded with the appropriate tone but the point size and print quality made it hard to read. the mailing list works better than the mail shot because of its clarity and white type. the purpose is understood and immediately recognisable for schools and educational institutions as a whole.
Both forms of feedback advise i use a different stock, flip the inside the other way round as when it is opened it is upside down, and change the point size and type colour on the inside of the mail-shot to suit the mailing list better.
If I had more time on this brief, I'd use a wider range of stock to experiment with and find the best solution which doesn't effect quality of print or material, and I'd also change the point size and type colour on the inside of the envelope.
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