Filed under: Branding | Tags: Bamboo, Branding, CS3, Digital Publishing, Final Cut Pro, Full Sail, Hue, Illustrator, Maya, Photoshop, Tablet, Wacom
This post has been a long time coming, but I definitely think that it’s paid off. For a group project, we were tasked with rebranding a product and we chose Wacom’s budget Bamboo tablet line. Firstly, we didn’t very much care for Wacom’s current logo. This reworking was made by the lovely Ashley Nieves. We then thought that we could add life to the product by making a colored line of the Bamboos, hence the “Hue”. The Bamboo logo was made by the equally lovely Kristian Zabala, whereas I made the Hue logo.
My thought with this was that the swatches on the leg of the ‘H’ would rotate so that the current tablet’s color would emanate from the middle swatch.
For our advertisement, I wanted to be very literal in the execution -but not so much that it wouldn’t fit with the other parts. Since our tag line is “color the world”, we literally colored the world. I wanted to play around with transparency, taking inspiration from transparent film, and came away with a very watercolored look. This is further enhanced by the pastel color choices, whose variety and contrast balance out their relative lightness. Taking into account the Gutenberg diagram, a line is formed to lead viewer, starting from the illustration, going into the pen, tablet, the bamboo logo, and moving down the drip toward the tagline and Wacom logo.
Based on the response we received from our first advertisement, I decided to do another illustration, this time for the banner. I continued with the water colored look, only on a much grander scale. I went with a taller format for this piece to play with verticality. This theme is also incorporated by the subject matter: New York City. I used a cooler, but no less vibrant, color scheme in order to differentiate it from the other ads and to contrast more with the tablet and text.
The concept behind this banner is to break up the illustration into three layers and put them onto separate panes of glass.
The panes would be hung spaced out from the ceiling of the building showcasing, thus, playing up the transparency of the piece, as well as perspective. As soon as a customer would walk into the store, they would be immediately drawn to the colors and grandeur of the banner.
I also made this video real quick like of the boxes. I can’t really take credit for the actual boxes -other than for input and direction- as they were made by Kris and Ashley. They took an almost exorbitant amount of time to finish, but they were well worth the wait. The video is completely seamless and loopable.
This commercial wasn’t a requirement but we thought it would put us that much over the edge…I’m proud to say that it did.
To be fair, it was Kris’ idea to animate the color of the tablets. Though in all likelihood, I would have eventually thought of it myself.
As always, made with CS3; and as sometimes, Maya and Final Cut.
Filed under: Branding | Tags: Albertsons, Branding, Critique Structures, CS3, Final Cut, Full Sail, Illustrator, Marcin Zeglinski, Maya, Olive Oil, Photoshop, Wine Bottle
For Critique Structures, I chose to redo Albertsons brand Olive Oil. I found it on one of the bottommost shelves, thus proving that it’s generic, and it’s badly overdue for a facelift. The original is quite bland. It has very boring typefaces on the front label and a poor illustration of a nature scene, which they use for all of their products. Also, the actual bottle is boring and unappealing. It’s made of cheap clear plastic in a rectangular shape with ridges on the sides –which, while practical, aren’t very pleasing to the eye. Thinking about it, the poor design might be intentional since consumers usually think that poor packaging equals lower price.
For the redesign, I was thinking class, and targeted it for connoisseurs. I wanted some way to make the Albertsons brand stand out among its competitors (the olive oil market is pretty cutthroat.) I chose to go pretty simple. When researching the product, I found that much of the time, a simple design can be just, if not more so, effective in connoting refinement. A good example of this would be Godiva chocolates.
The font I chose has slanted baselines, which makes me think of Greek and in general the Mediterranean region. As for the other elements, I went with a simple illustration of an olive branch. I completely redesigned the container as well. I chose to mimic wine labeling, since only classy people drink wine. Ha. Joking aside, I put the product in an actual wine bottle. So as not to confuse the consumer into thinking that it is spirits, I chose an olive colored ink for the print. Also, I went without a label; choosing instead to print directly onto the bottle.
Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with the end result and I think it could stand on its own if it were a real product.
I also made a little video showcasing the product. Keep in mind that I’ve had very little actual training in 3D.
Made with Photoshop & Illustrator CS3, Maya 2008, and Final Cut Pro.
