New project: Homebase Grow Your Own

As part of one of my final University briefs, I’ve been working on developing a new line of packaging for seeds for Homebase’s new brand that encourages novice gardeners to grow their own fruit and veg. It’s been a quick, but very ‘fruitful’ project. I’m really happy with the finished packs. You can see the full project here.

Packaging for Homebase's Grow Your Own
Packaging for Homebase's Grow Your Own

As someone who doesn’t have any experience with any form of growing my own food, I found this project to be particularly interesting because while researching, I was doing it as both a designer and as someone who Homebase would be targetting i.e. someone who may be put off by the thought of digging about in the garden.

As you can from the above photo, the packs are designed to be as colourful as possible and focus on the richness that can be found within any food that can be grown yourself. The images used on the front of each packs are super-high resolution (2,400 DPI) scans of fruit and veg. It’s amazing to see how detailed food can be when looked at so minutely. The front of the packs are stripped of any uneccessary information to simply attract as many people as possible. All information can be found on the back of the packs.

A full range of iconography.
A full range of iconography.

The packs measure just 7.5cm². This reduces the size of the packaging by half compared to current seed packaging and makes it stand out. Because of this reduction in size, a lengthy description of how to use the seeds would be both impossible and unwise, as it would turn potential gardeners off. Novice gardeners do not want to be overwhelmed by lots of instructions. Instead, a system of iconography was developed to better communicate with consumers. This reduces text to an absolute minimum, while keeping all important information visible and easier to understand by using iconography instead.

Point of sale for Homebase's Grow Your Own
Point of sale for Homebase's Grow Your Own

I also designed point of sale for the packs, further encouraging people to purchase them. The point of sale uses the same high resolution photography for each type of seed. Each type of seed has its own point of sale, which when placed next to each other creates a block of texture and colour that would stand out in any store.

I’ve really enjoyed this project. Packaging is something I’m very interested in designing. Sometimes, even though the product (in this case seeds) is fairly generic, you can really make it shout out by employing some strong design and by designing the physical packaging in a way in which isn’t currently being used. If your packaging looks different to everyone else’s, it’s bound to get seen and remembered far more than your competitors. Give it a go.

New projects coming soon

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You’ll have to forgive me for not updating more often recently but University is coming to a close. I’m working as much as I can on getting my projects up to scratch and submitting them for the deadline of 12th May. It’s an incredibly nervous and stressful time for everyone who is in the same position as I am.

I’m looking forward to being able to use these entries as a way to offer insight into how I’ve been working on my projects, offering screenshots and rough sketches. I really believe that seeing this kind of thing helps other designers. For example, David Airey always offers great insight into how he works through his work, offering glimpses into his paper-based work and digital variations. I’d like to go one step further than that, though and provide a more detailed analysis of one or two projects, showing exactly how I’ve arrived at the final piece of work.

I’d like to do this for two reasons. Firstly, because from one designer to another, I always think it’s interesting to see how someone works but perhaps moreso, from a non-designer’s point of view, I think that the world of graphic design can sometimes be a ‘private club’. A profession with a very unusual and hard to break into language. Since graphic designer’s clients are usually not design-orientated, it is of course important to make design as accessible as possible to them and I hope that through offering a walkthrough of my work, I’ll help people understand how I work.

I’m also looking forward to uploading new projects, including some unexpected charity work that I’ve recently completed for Chester Charity Beer Festival. The festival begins 14th May and lasts until 16th. Last year, the festival managed to raise £7,000 for charity and I’m hoping that this year they might raise even more than that. I’m waiting until the festival is over to upload the project because I intend to take some photos of the work that will be on display at the festival. Stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, please do get in touch if you’d like to discuss working together. I’d love to hear from you.

Designer charged $18,000 for his own work

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Jon Engle is a graphic designer from the US who has recently been charged a staggering $18,000 for copyright infringement. The outrageous thing is that the work for which he is being charged for is his own work. You can read the full story here.

This post is purely to support Jon in his efforts to get this matter sorted and to discredit the company who are going to every lengths to give him a bad name, stockart.com. The company are actually going to the despicable lengths of calling his clients and telling him he’s involved in a lawsuit. A lawsuit which he has not brought on himself. I find this completely unprofessional at any level and stockart.com must be discredited for their actions.

Copyright infringement is a terrible thing. I’ve had a run in with it myself, where someone has used my logo without my permission. I can’t say I’ve ever had the misfortune of being charged $18,000, thankfully. Jon’s case is a terrible one and one which no designer should have to put up with. I hope he manages to get the case sorted out quickly. stockart.com are going to come out of this very, very badly with the amount of publicity this story is getting.

Jon’s blog, situated at www.jonengle.com is currently down due to the incredible amount of traffic he’s currently getting so if you wish to voice your support for him, his twitter account can be found at http://twitter.com/relevantstudio.