Collateral Pieces

Here are two of my collateral pieces. One is a tri-fold mailer with two coupons for free drinks and an illustrated diagram of what goes in each drink, and the other is a gift card and gift card holder.

For the gift card, I printed the front and back pieces, cut them, and glued them onto a plastic card to give a sense of heft.

I'm pretty pleased with how smoothly making the gift card went and even more pleased with the results.

These are shots of the final drafts of those two aforementioned pieces which are both ready for the critique on Monday. In the meantime, I'm working on some ideas for mailer coasters.

I want Mean Mug to have several pieces as collateral to showcase all the various elements a coffeehouse can use to advertise and spread its brand.

How To Score Paper With Only A Spoon

That's right, you heard me correctly. After folding my collateral by hand with a ruler, I knew there had to be a better way to avoid the creases. I wanted to have a professional looking crease, crisp and clean, and I didn't have all the tools required to typically do so.

So I tried googling and found this video:

It's amazing and it's the real deal! All of you should try this out!

Good luck with your collateral pieces - I can't wait to see everyone's on Monday!

Mean Mug Ad Campaign

These are my finalized ad posters for the client's ad campaign. After many revisions and discussion with classmates and Stan, I made changes that I'm pleased with based on their feedback.

Here are the three ads.

This the the 8.5"x11" ad and I increased the saturation of color on the left side, adjusted the type so the headline, "THE MEAN MUG DIFFERENCE" is on one line, and changed it to the same dark brown found on the bottom slab. The copy on the slab has been reduced in font size as well, as not to deter from the main content, which is the "mugshot" photograph.

For the 3.5"x11", I changed the color on the right to a more brown color from the red I had previously. I also made the background cooler, whereas it was orange before.


For the 5"x5", there hasn't been many changes.

For all of them, I got rid of the slab on the top which used to be behind the headline text. I opted to used the burn tool in Photoshop to darken the background behind the text to make it more legible instead of using a colored slab.

Revising Past Projects

Over the past break and days proceeding, I've been revising and re-printing past projects in preparation for the portfolio we have to put together. This is one of the projects that went through said revision process.

It's the book cover I designed for GRD3000 and you can see the before/after.

Before

This is the before, where you can see that the text on the spine and back aren't as neat as the text on the front. I also redid the tree on the back and changed the cover art on the front to something more universally symbolic to the book. I also edited the frames of the front and back so they do not become cropped by the edges.

After

The chalkboard background has gotten darker to improve contrast and the text on the flaps have been changed from Didot to Times New Roman for improved legibility. It was hard to read the thin white text on black. I also omitted the "written by" above the author, Harper Lee, because it's understood.




Overall, the thought behind the revision was to make things easier to read, refined, and de-cluttered. I think I achieved that goal with the revisions I made, and this will be the version going into the portfolio. I had to get out a chalkboard and re-write/re-draw these elements but I am pleased with the effort.

Gift Card Ideas/Inspirations

These are some gift card ideas I saw while searching Google Images for inspiration.
For one of my collateral pieces I am thinking about creating a gift card holder and designing both the holder and the gift card. I'll have to figure out how to create the template and how to fold/cut the design. I think it'll be a fun experiment. I have already pretty much finished a direct mailer collateral design so with the time remaining until critique, I'm tossing ideas around on creating another collateral piece, hence the gift card ideas.

Mean Mug Stationery Set

This is my stationery set for Mean Mug Coffeehouse. Included is the business card, envelope, and letterhead. For both the business card and letterhead I decided to have rounded corners. My redesigned logo has both rounded corners (top part) and solid, 90 degree corners. The business card has all rounded corners while the letterhead echos the logo by only having rounded corners on the top. The envelope also has roundedness, but only on the flap.

Because I wanted to have cohesion in everything, which is one of the main points of re-branding, I adhered to the same color palette found in the my logo. Everything is still clean and professional, although it is a coffeehouse, because of brand unity and to bring up the upscale-ness of the shop and usher it into the modern age.

The business card depicts the logo in the front, and the name of the card owner, and all other relevant information about the business is located in the back to prevent it from being cluttered and distracting.

The letterhead is clean as well, and only uses colors picked from the logo. Everything is aligned to a grid and has a purpose in terms of maintaining an aesthetic balance.

Mean Mug Logo Redesign

For the client I'm taking on and re-branding throughout this semester, I decided on Mean Mug Coffeehouse in downtown Chattanooga. The first project we have to complete is re-designing the logo. Here is my re-imagining of it:

I wanted to convey a clean, sleek, and upscale effect with the logo, while at the same time give off the vibe of "meanness" which is conveyed in the muscle arm/handle. The logo is minimalistic and there is the coffee mug doubles as the two "M"s in Mean Mug. The second M is hidden beneath the first.

There were many iterations and it was a long process to sketch, sketch, sketch, and narrow all the choices down until I arrived at where it is now.

There is a simple black & white one, and a color version. The black & white one can be used economically for mass printing, while everything else will use the color logo. Both logos convey the same vibes because the color logo itself only consists of two shades of brown and yellow.