Finalizing the Essay

It gives me great pleasure to announce I have managed to successfully compose a purposeful essay! :)

The data gathered in the study can be used by marketers/designers in the spirit sector to identify and provide good understanding of the visual elements of their product category based on brand’s perceived typicality, as well as give non-luxury brands an insight into core competencies, aspects and values that been identified as critical to the success of luxury products.

I have analysed and evaluated the findings based on literature and empirical research and came to the following conclusion: Companies need to invest in strong brand image as identity became the method of achieving success in the luxury sector. Creative design companies use a wide array of graphic tools and resources in the industry to visualise ways to transform information and ideas into a usable form. Artists are truly provided with endless creative possibilities. Customisation helps luxury brands differentiation and reinforces the craftsmanship, quality and innovativeness of the brand. Aspiration for better quality will drive artists to have stronger craftsmanship approach, use the finest materials and innovative design elements. In most luxury brand’s case distinctive bottle and hand crafted graphics convey the quality, value and heritage. Designers need to think about the whole experience from the structure to graphic design, from social media to the website. The design aesthetic needs to be portrayed to consumers through all channels when delivering the all-important luxury cues.

This study contributes to the growing body of literature on the impact of visual characteristics on product packaging in the luxury industry. For further research, I suggest to approach the issue from a marketing angle to study how design influences consumer’s purchase decisions.  Concentrating on the investigation of psychology and sociology would contribute to the understanding of the impact of package design in the luxury industry on consumer’s buying behavior. Within this area the motives for shopping need to be researched in depth. A greater focus on technological advancements could produce interesting findings as well.

Comparison of case studies

http://vodka-vision.weebly.com/analysis

I have attached a very detailed article about the comparison of two super premium vodka brands who I will study. We can gain insight into their design and advertising strategies and brand value. I will be observing more as case studies from a semiotic perspective.

I have been struggling to find the right content for my essay, this is just such a good find! I started to go through all audits from the marketing and branding firm.

Narrowing the topic

My essay looks overwhelmed at the moment, I have too many chapters and outside sources listed, I feel the need of narrowing down the topic. I also need to alter the structure, I decide to skip the questionnaire in the end. Instead I will be focusing on more examples when examining case studies to provide accurate result.

I started searching for literatures and studies, surveys that might be relevant, and not necessarily be directly on the same subject matter. My topic has not been researched in depth before therefore, this study makes a major contribution to research on the chosen subject matter.

I came to the decision to include Super Premium vodka brands in my case study (instead of alcohol beverages generally) including Belvedere, Grey Goose, Beluga, Absolut, Shevkoff which all come from different regions of the world. The reason for picking such a specific sector was based on the subject matter of my Final Major Project, that is a luxury vodka packaging related project.

General approach for current stage of work

At this point I aim to keep focused and maintain regular and meaningful contact with my tutor. I have refreshed my memories about the Turn-it-in and Harvard referencing systems at the beginning of the semester since I’m expected to use Turn-it-in to check my work regularly to avoid plagiarism, and must also use the Harvard referencing system appropriately during my work. I must remind myself of the essay deadline and pay attention to the schedule to prevent last minute essay panic.

These are the recent articles I have found useful regarding this matter:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/margiewarrell/2013/03/25/why-you-procrastinate-and-how-to-stop-it-now/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/margiewarrell/2013/03/25/why-you-procrastinate-and-how-to-stop-it-now/

Producing an essay plan

I have started creating a basic skeleton draft that acts as a backbone of my essay. It includes the key issues I have come up while  mind-mapping, which was one of the activities. I have also listed texts, research articles for main paragraphs, I would like to use. I’m awaiting for tutor feedback at the moment, after I received the feedback I can then further develop this essay plan and should have a more structured outline of the basic argument for my essay by week 4. I’m slightly concerned regarding the following points:

Accuracy of research data/ chapters (Should I narrow down my chain of paragraphs and focus on more specific issues?)

Structure of essay, overall academic writing (Is my essay well organized into sections?)

The essay is rather descriptive according to this current plan. I need to develop arguments to make it a powerful argumentative essay. I have collected and listed the texts, articles (not all listed in the previous bibliographic citation, I have conducted a further study in order to be able to write a thesis on my subject) I will use for each chapter but I’m not sure I have a central argument, only a description of the subject area. I know it’s essential to present two sides of an issue and chapters require judgement. The only key issue I could focus on to argue about is comparison. Comparing which graphic elements are more influential when it comes to communicating luxury, comparing luxury high end alcohol packages and find out which are the ones consumers prefer therefore most effective.

My Essay Mind Map

Mind mapping

Quick tips on brainstorming techniques

Tutor feedback

According to the Assessment Feedback more in depth reading and engagement with the sources suggested and necessary for producing my essay. I will need to identify key chapters, specific areas of discussion, key issues that can develop arguments, and demonstrate how these fit into the picture of my essay.

Areas to improve:

Structure and presentation of academic writing and accuracy in terms of Harvard use.

Strengths:

Texts regarding the relationship between luxury brands and people and the semiotics were appreciated as are journal articles.

Contingency planning

It is a key part of the preparation, for  events such as the loss of data, internet and other disruptive, unforeseen circumstances. It's crucial to make contingency planning and develop a strong ‘Plan B’. Due to unexpected interruptions I had to highlight potential solutions and after a comparison I came up with an effective response. for managing the emergency situation. I asked for a late submission and I devoted my time the most productively in the last week in order to meet the requirements. I had seven days after the deadline to submit it, meaning I could spend more time to be able to hand in a work that is up to a high standard even though the work would be capped at 40. I'm aware of the fact it will have a significant effect on the final mark, but given my circumstances this would be the best thing for me to do. I feel that I have improved my skills through the activities submitted and benefited from the feedbacks my tutor provided me with, that led to continuous personal development.

Another great TEDx Talk realted to my subject matter!

Title/subject negotiation

Due to unfortunate personal situation that resulted in lack of communication with my tutors and students I was left alone with deciding which direction to go when choosing a title. Before receiving any feedbacks I started to settle for a subject matter I sympathised with and started to work on the essay structure accordingly. As the IdI tutorials outlined that the essay needs to have a theoretical approach including semiotic, multicultural, psychological, postmodernist or other different theories I seemed to settle with the psychological theory while observing aesthetics.

However according to my tutor I’m approaching the topic from the wrong perspective. I was pushing the essay into a marketing/consumer angle. My annotated bibliography needs to be more design related. In order to support the analysis, I have to have a specific focus on how design practices and theories of semiotics and visual communication aim to engage the audience.

Changing direction at this stage is quiet worrying as I have spent weeks researching and studying my chosen theme from a specific angle. This time I took a more specific approach to the subject matter taking design theories and semiotics into consideration as suggested and generated more questions that I could focus on in my essay. The next step will be getting in touch with my fellow students for more feedback and come to an agreement with my tutor.

My more specific approach to the subject matter taking design theories and semiotics into consideration led me to the following questions for suggested essay titles:

The impact of the package as a visual communication medium on consumers

How the visual effect of packaging information (text, picture, color) influence consumers?

How luxury brands can be communicated by the use of color, graphics, typography and imagery?

How visual elements come together to create visual impact on packaging materials?

Are verbal brand communication (including advertising) and developing visual brand communication equally important? Which one should designers, marketers focus more?

How to enhance visual communication by combining graphic elements on packaging?

Evaluation of color in graphics semiotics

Semiotic perspective on aesthetically preferred luxury products

This video helps to understand the relationship between aesthetics and function within design. 

Finding a topic

I would like my conceptual paper to aim to give insights into the decision-making processes in the brain of consumers and find the most common factor, element consumers influenced by on a subconscious or unconscious level. I tend to do behavioral, neural, and psychological investigation into aesthetics within package design.

I always wanted to analyze the relationship between aesthetic and functionality and which would the consumer be affected by the most. The reason I would like to deepen my knowledge in this area is that I seriously consider specialise in packaging design and believe that the researched theories would be beneficial. By knowing which are the the most important package elements, it would help me making the right decisions about packaging a product. It could be the driving success of my practise. 

My overall intention is to find out if packaging colour, printed information, used material, brand image, innovation or function that help consumers in their decision buying process.

Please check this comprehensive article covering all aspects of packaging including shelf impact below. 

Reference:

https://99designs.co.uk/blog/tips-en-gb/6-rules-of-great-packaging-design/

Design thinking methods

My basic flow shows similarities with the pinball machine model of the design process, as my ideas come unexpectedly and I don’t normally follow a pattern or have a firm plan. My thinking process often take unexpected directions all of a sudden. 

My design thinking methods include:

-observation, quick visualisation, user scenario, framing, ideation, evaluation.

My usual creative techniques I apply during design process: 

-brainstorming, doubting, quastioning, idea generation, detailing, drawing, focusing, listing, mind mapping, word clouds, negative brainstorming, other people viewpoints, comparing, picturing, five whys, situational analysis, random stimuli, relational words finding, story writing, visualising, feedback

I should consider switching to the most common and successful universal model of design process (known as the double diamond model) in order to be more organised and follow a sequence, a model that is linear and structured. Here in the first two ‘discover’ and ‘define’ stages designers need to be open minded and come up with as many ideas as possible. Then there is a change in mindset and time to narrow down the possibilities usually by choosing themes. In the next 2 ‘develop’ and ‘deliver’ stages the possibilities are need to be expanded again this time within the theme. In the end the solution is created.

The method I need to improve is definitely communication, collaboration and participation in team activities, group work. I prefer working independently as an individual most of the time.

Being part of the team is beneficial and effective as every members contribute different values, therefor collaborating could lead to more ideas and solutions in the end. Teamwork is a suitable environment of trial and error and through feedbacks and rethinking of unforeseen issues and correcting my mistakes immediately I will benefit the quality improvements of the final solution. Learning from failures through feedbacks and criticism would improve my performance.

References:

Brown, T. (2008) ‘Design Thinking’, Harvard Business Review, 86(6), pp. 84–90. Design Council UK (2007) 11 Lessons: managing design in 11 global brands. Available at: http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/resources/report/11-lessons-managing-design-global-brands (Accessed: 23 February 2016). Design Council UK (2015) Our Story: Celebrating 70 Years. Available at: http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/our-story-1 (Accessed: 23 February 2016). Dubberly, H. (2004) How Do You Design?: A Compendium of Models. Available at: http://www.dubberly.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/ddo_designprocess.pdf (Accessed: 23 February 2016). Lupton, E. (2014) Beautiful Users: Designing for People. Available at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MMWPC2K/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1 (Downloaded: 21 February 2016). Moggridge, B. (2007) Designing Interactions. Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Taleb, N. N. (2012) Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder. New York, NY: Random House.

Evaluation of inspirational sources

When evaluating the sources I try to gather information about the authors individually and further study their historical involvement and views on hypothesizes. I have run through enormous amount of scholarly articles first using Google scholar then later switching onto the Hertfordshire University Library data base in attempt to find specific information related to the chosen topic.

I found useful to read other designers conceptual papers to see how they analyse certain subject matters and see what sources they use. The depth of knowledge the journals provided me was very useful as well as the essays written by other design students included references however I had to double-check if the information and quotations were accurate in order to be able to use it for backing up my thoughts. The academic source are sometimes rather difficult to comprehend due to the complex language hence I intent to improve my vocabulary daily. I found this blog helpful to translate my academic writing into less formal writing and reflect my thought on the progress which serves as a guidance i can get back to any time.

List of books related to my topic:

Packaging & Dielines II : The Designer’s Book of Packaging Dielines on Issue Visual Research: An Introduction to Research Methodologies in Graphic Design, Ian Noble and Russell Bestley Brand Bible: The Complete Guide to Building, Designing and Sustaining Brands Designing Brand Identity, 4th Edition, Alina Wheeler Logo Design Love, David Airley How Brands Become Icons, Douglas B. Holt Art of Package and Structure II  Xia Jiajia Fashion Packaging Design Chris Huang Branding: Distilled Cynthia Sterling New Structural Packaging Josep M. Garrofé Ecological Selection Packaging Patricia Martinez Encyclopedia of Label Technology Michael Fairley Packaging Design: Successful Product Branding from Concept to Shelf author Marianne R. Klimchuk, Sandra A. Krasovec Packaging Structures , SEndpoints The Package Design Book 2 , Pentawards Promotional Packaging and Design , author Cristian Campos Visual Arts of the Liquid Packaging , Graphic Design group Around Europe Packaging  , Andres Fredes The big book of packaging, Will Burke, Lisa Baer, James Pietruszynski Choosing color for logos and packaging , John Drew, Sarah Meyer Designing Sustainable Packaging , Scott Boylston Supermarket: Package Designs, Kaoru Takahashi Designing for Re-Use: The Life of Consumer Packaging Tom Fisher, Janet Shipton New Packaging Design Janice Kirkpatrick Package Design Now Gisela Kozak, Julius Wiedemann 1000 Package Designs , Grip Packaging Sustainability ,  Wendy Jedlicka Design Matters: Packaging 01 , Capsule Conor Harmony: Packaging , James Mousner Print and Production Finishes for Packaging author Edward Denison Package Design Workbook  , Steven Dupuis, John Silva The Designer’s Packaging Bible , Luke Herriott Structural Packaging , Josep Garrofe Experimental Packaging , Daniel Mason The Packaging Designers Book of Patterns , Laszlo Roth, George L. Wybenga 50 Trade Secrets of Great Design: Packaging , Stafford Cliff