Evaluation

GDA Practice One

Evaluation

Initially I found the freedom of being given a choice on what to design difficult and confusing. I had to find something that I could put my full attention towards without losing sight of the details in the brief.  The record box set was an idea that captures one of my strongest interests; music and the act of collecting it in the form or vinyl records.

Is it so wrong, wanting to be at home with your record collection? It's not like collecting records is like collecting stamps, or beermats, or antique thimbles. There's a whole world in here, a nicer, dirtier, more violent, more peaceful, more colorful, sleazier, more dangerous, more loving world than the world I live in.

Hornby 1995, p. 83

This quote from High Fidelity sums up the angle I was approaching when developing the idea for the project. I had to design packaging that a collector with an interest in Hüsker Dü would jump at the chance to purchase, even if they already owned the individual records included in the box set. I had to create a true collectors box set and to do that I needed to provide something more than repackaging existing music.  

I felt that producing something of such a high standard was a hard goal to achieve. Successful vinyl box sets are something that collectors desire; not only because of the content. The appearance has to meet approval from potential buyers as well as remaining true to the roots of the band. Finding the best balance of these factors was a task I struggled with for some time. I had to hold back and prevent myself from over designing it and missing the expectations of the target audience whilst creating something that would visually appeal to them in such a way that it would remind them what they saw in Hüsker Dü when they first heard them.  I believe I succeed in creating a product that reflects the hardcore punk scene they came from and retains their understated presence in the music world. They were a band who attained a mediocre amount of mainstream success yet maintained a devoted following from their days in the underground punk scene on SST records.  It uses inexpensive recyclable materials to create a glue-less box to contain a set of 7-inch singles, one of the most popular formats for music in the 80’s hardcore scene.

I feel I achieved a consistent visual style across these items, utilizing the band’s logo as well a consistent typographical style and by using the same paper type throughout. 

I used the pizza box design for this project because of its glue-less design and its suitability for holding the contents I wanted to include. However I think I could have looked harder into packaging records in a more innovative box if I wanted to further capture the attention of my target audience. I can’t say I have seen records come in a pizza box before, but I still feel I could have designed a brand new container. However, within the time constraints I quickly realized that this was not something I could achieve and felt that the time would be better spent on designing the contents of the box set and lyric book.

A valuable lesson I learned whilst completing this project was the need for time management skills.  This was something I feel I was quite successful at. When printing the box set I planned the time to be able to print and build the final products at least twice incase there were serious issues and I needed to reprint anything.  This was the case with the record sleeves, as my first run outs had extra strokes round some of the text and I had included folding guides on the spines.  Due to my advance planning I had time to rectify these mistakes and reprint. These small errors that resulted in me reprinting 9 record sleeves are something that I intend to address in future work. Making small mistakes is not acceptable on a deadline and to counteract this I will remember to thoroughly double check all fine details of any work before it is finalized for printing. This is definitely an important skill to practice to develop me as a designer. In a professional setting, small mistakes such as these would not be tolerated as they instantly diminish the quality of your work. These aspects of the project are things I am very glad to have learnt and are possibly the most important outcomes of this assignment. I do feel however that my approach to the book was not quite as successful as I had hoped. I had intended to produce a perfect bound book, but I did not anticipate the cost involved with this process as well as the time it would take to produce a book of this size.

An aspect of this project I did not explore as much as I would have liked was the use of recycled materials.  I could not finalise a visual style in time to search for the suitable materials with which to create it with.  This failure taught me that to create an eco friendly design using recycled materials you first need to source what is available to you and use that as the basis for your design. This could limit your capabilities but would remain within the ethical boundaries of remaining ecologically sound.  This downside to ethical design is something I would like to challenge with future work I produce, I will have to work harder to source the appropriate materials and create a design that can utilize them, and perhaps even show them off, should the brief allow me to do so.

I do feel however that my approach to the book was not quite as successful as I had hoped. I had intended to produce a perfect bound book, but I did not anticipate the cost involved with this process and my design was not quite suitable to be bound that way.