vislang. p3. pontificating.

Visual Communications from theory to practice
Shannon&Weaver brought up a few good points to keep in mind about visual communications:

1. Level A: Technical
1. How accurately can we communicate our message?
2. What system should we use to 'encode' and 'decode' our message?
3. Is that system universally compatible or does it require special equipment or knowledge
2. Level B: Semantic
1. How precisely does our choice of language. symbols or codes convey the meaning we intend?
2. How much of the message can be lost without the meaning being lost as well?
3. What language should we use?
3. Level C: Effectiveness
1. Does the message affect behavior the way we want it to?
2. What can we do if the required effect fails to happen?

The designers role is mainly the semantics of a project. Needing to communicate the message with out changing it or adding to it.

The technical level of design is often done prior/without the designer, which can be a fine thing or sometimes a bad thing. Figuring out which mode of communication can often make or break design. If your target audience is senior citizens who, for the most part, stay away from internet, and you create a website, you've completely missed the mark as to what would be the best mode of communication.

Feed back is a must in any good design. If you design something you think is brilliant and award-winning but never get any feed back it will more than likely bomb like no other if you dont treat it with the utmost care.

Noise is a rather big thing to keep in mind when it comes to design, and the successfulness of it. Noise, in this reading, is broken down into three levels. Level A are the obvious problems, printing smudges, spelling errors, etc. Level B noise is the receivers cultural background as well as their social group(s). Level C noise is, essentially, being able to pick it out from everything else. The overall effectiveness of the design. Noise can also be caused by excessive aesthetics applied to a message, thereby blurring what the actual message is behind unneeded and maybe even confusing aesthetic choices. However, if used right, aesthetic choices can actually help reinforce and reiterate. Redundancy adds context and aids understanding, and offers an "error check.

vislang. packaging. process.

(click on any image within this post for a larger version of the thumbnail shown in here)

Below are the sketches for each of the paths for the three packages. Cesar, Tylenol, and EVOO. For each packaging, we had to explore the other two modes of appeal and how they would look.

Cesar Canine Cuisine Sketches: Logos

Cesar Canine Cuisine Sketches: Ethos

Tylenol Sketches: Pathos

Tylenol Sketches: Ethos

 Rachael Ray Extra Virgin Olive Oil Sketches: Pathos

  Rachael Ray Extra Virgin Olive Oil Sketches: Logos

From here we chose one package to proceed with, I chose the Rachael Ray EVOO. From here we did more detailed sketches for the two modes of appeal.

RREVOO Detailed Sketches: Pathos

RREVOO Detailed Sketches: Logos

From here we picked one(or two) directions to start building in the computer and start building them in the computer.

RREVOO Digital: Pathos

RREVOO Digital: Logos

At this point, we were ready to pick our path for each mode of appeal and make iterations on those two paths. For my pathos direction, I needed a pattern of my olive trees to put in the window, here are my different patterns.

I also tried some different sizes and shapes of windows trying to get that iconic window shape.

For my logos direction I tried many different compositions of image to text.

From here I narrowed it down even farther and still iterated styles of the more specific packagings. I narrowed it down to two patterns and one window:

I narrowed the recipes down to one final layout and created a series of three recipes, all one of Rachael Ray's 30 Minute Meals:

Below are the final packagings with explanations about each mode:

original packaging(ethos) with the two new packagings(pathos in the middle, logos on the right).

the logos series. three recipes, pizza carbonara, basil pasta, & rigatoni.

callouts of the two modes of appeal.

in context shots.

Pathos

The pathos packaging was getting at the home-grown aspect of olive oil and olive oil production. Farmers of olive fields in Italy today still go out and pick the olives off the trees by hand before it goes through the process of becoming olive oil. The packaging is a simple die-cut of the iconic window on the front of the bottle that lets you literally look through the window, through the olive oil, and onto the back of the bottle that has an olive tree field on it. Again, trying to reenforce the idea of "Straight from the backyard" and the home-grown feel to italian olive oil.

Logos

The logos packaging focused on a series of recipes that the customer could make with the extra virgin olive oil they are about to buy. The recipes on the bottle are from Rachael Ray's 30 Minute Meals(all the recipes are also italian meals) The packaging focuses more about the recipe than the olive oil itself or the photography of the food. The ingredients of the meal are on the front of the bottle as well as the amount and the directions of how to prepare them are on the side. It makes it easy for the customer to know when else s/he needs to buy to make the meal. I was trying to figure out how to get the customer to pick up the packaging and turn it around instead of just looking at the front but never seeing the directions on the side. I decided that the label needed to wrap around the side of the bottle so the customer could visually see there was more information on the side of the bottle. I also used the photography of the dish itself to help renforce this direction of the customer to the side of the bottle.

vislang. proj2. mike mccoy.

Mike is an industrial designer who was head of the design department at Cranbrook for over 20 years. Some of the work he was involved in was more experimental design and taking risks. Prototyping is a giant must, you should be willing to let it change, be able to scrap it, build from it.

Activities, Environment, Interaction, Objects, Users, AEIOU is a way of looking at framing.