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Final Product Redesign
Just in time for Thanksgiving, my modernized Baking Soda is ready to be used this season. This was a really fun project, and challenged me to find different uses and applications for a product I use mostly for baking.
Our task was to redesign the packaging for a product, and because I have always hated the Baking Soda box, I chose to do something about it. I learned along the way that the box has been in use for a very long time, and I’m sure it is nice for some uses, such as leaving it in the fridge as a deodorizer. However, my family uses it mainly for baking, and I can’t tell you how many times I have spilled Baking Soda all over because there is no way to close the box, or how inconvenient it is to use with a measuring spoon.
Sketches:
A couple of things I knew right away was that I wanted to change to a plastic bottle – like many other spices you would use in your kitchen – and I wanted to stay with the branding because it is so well known. I didn’t even realize until doing research that there are other brands of Baking Soda than the orange Arm & Hammer box. So my first step was to sketch different types of bottles I could use. I won’t include those sketches here because they are really rough and not very high quality, but I did explore a few different options. Once I decided on a package, my next step was to play with the labels I would put on the container.
With these I debated between keeping the whole logo, or changing parts of it as you can see in the sketches below. I played around with a few of them, but ended up taking parts of all of these for the final product.
Digital Sketches:
Usually I would have a little more to show here, but for this project, I didn’t really settle on anything enough to save a version. I built on what I had a lot, and changed things around, but didn’t save any drafts along the way. I knew I wanted to stay with the main branding, so I started with the image above, and just started taking away all the extras, coming out with the following label.
Once I got to this point, I edited, rearranged, and played with the different elements until I came up with the final design. The back label was tricky deciding what information to put there. Because there are so many different uses, it needed both drug facts and warnings, as well as the nutrition facts. On the box they solve this problem by putting one set of facts on the back, and the other on the side. The new package only had a front and back label, so I needed to be very efficient with my space, including manufacturing information and a bar code as well. In the end I think it turned out nicely. There is a lot of information, but it doesn’t feel to overwhelming.
Advertising:
Next was to create an advertisement for the product. This one was harder than I thought it would be. I feel like Baking Soda is something that doesn’t really need to be advertised, and all the examples I found were advertisements geared toward cleaning in some way. On the original one pound box I noticed it had advertisements for a free copy of Better Homes and Gardens or Martha Stewart Living. I decided there was a possibility the advertising could go both ways, so I designed for one of these magazines. However, I also wanted to stay super simple and clean with the look as well. I made a few drafts, the best of which are pictured below.
These drafts were a good start, and had a little of what I was going for, but weren’t quite making it. The background felt flat, the first one had a gradient that I didn’t want to include, and the last one felt like there was still too much. So I simplified the text, and added a background texture like the Baking Soda itself, played with sizing and placement, and came up with this final advertisement.
Style Guide Booklet
The final piece to this project is they style guide booklet. I took elements from the label, and turned it into a booklet outlining a brief history of the brand, my target audience and goals, some style rules, pictures of the packaging, and the advertisement to wrap it all together.
Final Product Video
Product Redesign Week 5
It’s getting closer to the deadline! I’m excited with the progress I’ve made, and I will be finished in time, but I’m not quite as far along as I hoped to be. However, I am getting closer all the time.
This week was busy. I finished my labels and put together the final project, I am almost done with the style guide, and I’m still looking up ideas for the advertisement. But here are some pictures of my final project:
You can also find a link to my current Arm & Hammer Style Guide here.
My updated timeline goes like this:
Nov. 21: Finish style guide
Nov. 23: complete advertisement and finish style guide
Nov 24: Turn in final project and write post
Dec. 1-4: make the video
Product Redesign Week 4
Nov. 17 start designing styleguide in InDesign
Nov. 18 Finalize styleguide and product design
Nov. 19 Create product and take photos
Nov. 22 Print and Bind book
Nov. 24 Turn in final Product and Styleguide
Dec. 1-3 Create and refine video
Dec. 4 Turn in video
Product Redesign Research
My current project is to redesign the Arm & Hammer Baking Soda packaging. I want to help the design be more modern looking, as well as find a way for the package to be more user-friendly, especially to those who cook.
My main progress on this project this week was research. I did a lot of additional research about different types of bottles and packages I could do. I found a lot of cool redesigns or additional brands of Baking Soda with unique ideas. You can find my examples on my Pinterest board here. I really liked the Domeca packaging – especially the different lid options.
I think this is a start to a better design – although I wish the hole was bigger – there is no way I could fit a Tablespoon in that opening. The other packaging I liked was found on Behance. I really like the lasercut label, and the natural feel it has. I think it was very well done.
The downside to these products, are they are not orange. One thing I want to keep clear is the difference between Baking Soda and Baking Powder. To do that, I am going to keep the orange color.
Timeline:
Nov. 9 Sketch design and logos/ start figuring out style guide colors and design
Nov. 11 start vectorizing
Nov. 14 receive feedback, refine
Nov. 16 finish vectorizing
Nov. 17 start designing styleguide in InDesign
Nov. 18 Finalize styleguide and product design
Nov. 19 Create product and take photos
Nov. 22 Print and Bind book
Nov. 24 Turn in final Product and Styleguide
Dec. 1-3 Create and refine video
Dec. 4 Turn in video
Product Redesign Topic
I’m really excited for this project, I 
think it is going to be really good. Ever had one of those products that you really like the product itself, but hate the packaging? The next project is to redesign one of these. I have chosen Baking Soda.
Baking Soda is a common household good, that has many uses. The current design is in a box, that makes it really hard to get to the product. I use it mostly for baking, and it is a pain to try and get a teaspoon of baking soda out of that box. So I want to redesign it to be more user friendly.
History
BrightNest has a cool little chart about the history of Baking Soda itself that is fun to read through, but it has nothing to do with the packaging.
The main brand of Baking Soda, Arms & Hammer, have been around since at least the 1860’s and was partnered with John Dwight & Co who came up with the product in 1846. It has been in orange boxes ever since. A timeline can be found here for more of a history.
The Current Design
Currently, Baking Soda is sold in a very well branded orange box from Arms & Hammer. As mentioned earlier, this package has been around in one form or another since the 1860’s. The bright color makes it easy to find on a self full of supplies, and the recyclable box was environmentally friendly since before that was popular. However, for those who use Baking Soda for cooking, this package can be a pain. Trying to get exact measurements, and not opening the box all the way doesn’t work very well. I set out to create a better way.
Target Audience
The target audience for this product will be bakers. They use this product mostly in cookies and other sweets, and need exact measurements. They may also want to use the product for cleaning and other uses, but they really just want to be able to get the Baking Soda out of the container, without opening the box up to make a mess everywhere.
The Big Idea
The big idea in this redesign will be to make the Baking Soda more accessible. To accomplish this, the packaging will have to have multiple lid options,based on your use – similar to some spice containers that have half the lid open, and the other half enables the spice to be sprinkled.
Inspiration
Click here to see some of the inspiration I have gathered for nice design and alternate packaging ideas.
Timeline
My timeline for this project will go as follows:
Nov. 2 Sketch desin and logos
Nov.5 start figuring out style guide colors and design
Nov. 7 start vectorizing
Nov. 10 receive feedback, refine
Nov. 11 finish vectorizing
Nov. 12 start designing styleguide in InDesign
Nov. 17 Finalize styleguide and product design
Nov. 19 Create product and take photos
Nov. 22 Print and Bind book
Nov. 24 Turn in final Product and Styleguide
Dec. 1-3 Create and refine video
Dec. 4 Turn in video
Charleston: Icon of the 20’s
I’m addicted to dancing, specifically swing, ballroom, and country. This was a fairly new hobby for me that I have developed during my time here at BYU-Idaho, where we are spoiled with dances nearly every night. So, I decided to do an infographic for one of the dances. I have learned swing this year, and I love it, so I decided to focus on Charleston, a type of swing that became popular in the 1920’s.
The only requirements we had for this infographic is it must include at least 3 graphics and a stylized graph. I had a few weeks to complete the project, but once I picked my topic, I seamed to have a really hard time focusing on what I wanted in that infographic. I bounced back and forth between doing a “How To” and a “Did you know” infographic. I did a lot of research, finding that there is a lot of contradicting and copied information out there about Charleston. Even the origins have mystery behind it. Some say it has been around in some form from the 1500’s, others say it started in Africa in the 1800’s, and the most common is that the base steps were developed on a small island off the coast of Charleston South Carolina by a group of African American’s in about 1903. You can see some of the visual research I did, as well as my final infographic here.
Sketches:
I was able to do a few layout sketches, and gather ideas from a lot of different places. Most people I talked to wanted something about how to do the Charleston on the poster. I was leary of this because every source I had found trying to describe it (as opposed to teaching in a video) where fairly unsuccessful – I wasn’t able to understand what they were trying to say. I debated displaying facts like famous movies where they danced the Charleston, or doing a section on each era since the 20’s and how it has evolved over time. In the end, I decided to stay with the basics of Charleston.
Visual Drafts:
After sketching, I started to get try some different layouts, but didn’t like anything I tried. I kept getting stuck, and the design felt really flat. I knew I wanted to follow some of the 1920’s style, but that was about all I knew. I played around with different graphics, and tried desperately to find some sort of hard data for my graph. After working for many hours, and having a great start to my project, my computer crashed and I lost all my work on that file. This started a very long week and a half of fighting with my computer, rationalizing that it was working enough (It just took forever), that I didn’t have the time to go get it fixed until after this project (and other projects I was working on at the same time) was in. That logic failed me, and I ended up losing my project about 3 times when they were trying to save so I could upload them to dropbox. The only draft I got to stick around is below:
This was try 2, before I lost it again that night, having to start over, yet again. I decided to stick with this layout though, simply because I had already made a lot of the needed design decisions, and I was running out of time.
Final:
After my computer decided to stop working all together, I found myself with at least three major projects that needed my design attention, and no computer to do it on at home. So the next 3 days I confined myself to various labs on campus. This was not my only project that I lost work on, and other projects were of more pressing importance, so I yet again became way behind schedule. Today, I focused in on this project, and found that a lot of my decisions were changed, but I am happy with the overall turn out.
Conclusion:
I still have a lot of work before this is up to par, but I think with everything that has happened, I am happy with the way it turned out. I showed it to my roommate, who is a art illustration major, and her favorite part was trying to learn the Charleston, and she did pretty well with no other instruction. I hope to go back and rework this project soon to see what else I can do with it.
Infographic Week 4
This week has been crazy! I’m not really sure where it went, and although I feel like I have been doing a lot of work, I don’t have much to show for it. I worked on digitizing my outlines and trying to decide where information is going to be placed. I got the background texture, and a few graphics. I had a lot more done that I was really excited about, but twice my computer has crashed as I have tried to save my files, and I have lost all my work. Not very fun, but life goes on.
So this is where I am at so far! I have a lot to do before taking a final rough draft to class on Tuesday, but I can do it (If my computer holds up:))
I’m getting closer, and I’m excited about how different parts have come together!
Here is my updated timeline going out from here:
- Oct. 26 (Tues)– refined draft to present to the class for critique and review
- Oct. 28 (Wed)– continue to refine and implement critiques received in class.
- Oct. 29 (Thurs) Finish infographic
- Oct 30 (Fri) Present infographic
Infographic Week 3
It’s been another crazy week. One of these days I am going to figure out how time works, and how it always seems to fly by, but last forever at the same time. But on a different note, I got some good work done for my infographic of facts about Charleston Dancing. I’m still having a little bit of a hard time visualizing how I want this to look, but I have done some good research, and concept sketches. These aren’t the highest quality, but help to get the idea out on paper.
In class this week we had a brainstorming session, and it was awesome. We started in small groups where we took 5 minutes and wrote down every word we could think of that could relate to our topic. Sometimes it was harder than others based on our knowledge of each others topics, but I think it was good to get another perspective on Charleston Dancing. Here is a copy of my list:
After word mapping, we got another sheet of paper, and passed that with our word maps around the class, and about 10 students had 1 minute to draw their ideas based on the word list we gave them. I think I got some good ideas from that as well, here is a picture of that page:
I’m excited to see where this goes. Like I mentioned earlier, since then I have done a handful of sketches, mostly outlines of how I want it set up. I tried to incorporate lots of different ideas but I think I still have a ways to go. Here are some of those sketches:
Still a lot of work to do, but I think it is going to turn out just fine. Here is m updated timeline for the rest of the project!
Oct. 19 (Mon)– Vectorize design
Oct. 21 (Wed)– Add Color
Oct. 24 (Sat)– Clean up and revise vector graphics
Oct. 26 (Mon)– Project finished for review and refinement
Oct. 28 (Wed)– Present Infographic
Infographic Research
Time for an update! This week has been super crazy and all over the place, but I got some good research done this week. I decided to take my infographic a little different way. I’m going to stay with Charleston Dance, but I’m going to do more of a Did you know style. As I have been doing my research I have found lots of fun facts about Charleston and Swing in general that I think would be fun to display.
Some facts I found include:
- Charleston became popular in the 1920’s as part of the Jazz era featuring music, speakeasies, and flappers.
- The dance originated from a group of African Americans who lived on a island off the coast of Charleston SC in about 1903.
- It’s danced to ragtime jazz at a fast-paced 4/4 timed rhythm.
- Charleston was a physical representation of that generations uninhibited enthusiasm they wanted to express.
- Although it was around before the 1920’s, it didn’t become popular until 1923 when it appeared in the Broadway show “Runnin’ Wild” to the song “The Charleston” by James P. Johnson
- Charleston was most associated with the Flappers (rebellious young women who wore short dresses, bobbed their hair and listened to Jazz), and was considered scandalous because of it’s high kicks and reckless abandon.
- Charleston can be danced solo, as a couple, or in groups.
- Charleston was banned in some social halls during the 20’s because it was considered too scandalous and exuberant
- The iconic image of the 20’s is a Flapper dancing Charleston, the most clear icon of any generation
- There are many different genre’s – usually named after a time period. The 20’s 30’s and 40’s dance styles are the most common.
- 20’s Solo:
- a very showy, fast-paced form. Puncuated with moves that aren’t actually Charleston, but improvisations of other dance forms.
- Often danced in large groups, similar to a mosh pit in a rock concert
- 20’s Partner:
- same footwork as the Solo version, but arms and torso are in closed position – or the traditional dance position.
- Because of the close proximity, the steps are kept smaller than in solo
- 30’s and 40’s
- More open than the 20’s. 3 additional partner holds – Jockey (same as closed, but both dancers are turned to face line of dance), Side by Side (partners are next to each other with only one arm connected, the other following the style of solo Charleston), and Tandem (both partner does the same steps, facing the same way – one partner in front of the other)
- Other additions include: Hand to Hand, Jonny’s Drop, Freezes, and Savory Kicks
- Although other dances have had their 15 minutes of fame, Charleston is the only one to have such a widespread influence, infecting an entire generation in such a way that 100 years later we still think of Flappers doing the Charleston when picturing the 1920’s.
- Many non-dancing jobs of the day required black employees to be competent to dance or teach the Charleston in order to be hired. Often advertisements looking for a maid, cook, or gardener would include the stipulation “Must be able to Charleston!”
A couple classic movies that have scenes of Charleston include:
- It’s a Wonderful Life – the Pool Scene
- Singing in the Rain – “All I do Is Dream of You” – Charleston like dance
- The Song and Dance Man
- Mary Poppins – “Step in Time”
I’m excited to start designing and organizing everything to where it might make sense! I also want to follow the style of the 1920’s for my infographic design.
My edited timeline for this project goes as follows:
Oct. 14 (Wed) – Sketch layout and design
Oct. 17 (Sat)– Vectorize design
Oct. 21 (Wed)– Add Color
Oct. 24 (Sat)– Clean up and revise vector graphics
Oct. 26 (Mon)– Project finished for review and refinement
Oct. 28 (Wed)– Present Infographic
Infographic Part 1
I love the look of infographics, and for my next project, we get to make one. There are lots of different types of info graphics, and lots of different options for topics, which can make it harder to choose just one.
I started with doing some research, I wanted to have my topic be swing dancing, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with that topic. So I went to Pinterest and looked at different types of infographics, and what kind of infographics for dancing was already out there. You can find my board here. My favorite pin was probably this one:
I like the topic it gives, and it is really clean and easy to read. Although it takes a subject that could be difficult, and have a lot of suggestions, it has enough information to be worth reading, but not so much as to turn you off. It incorporates different graphics, but is explained in a way that it doesn’t need a lot of graphics to get the point across.
For my infographic, as of right now, I want to do something outlining the basic steps for some type of dance (east coast, lindy, or Charleston), and my “hook” would be “what to do with your two left feet”, ” How to dance the _______”, “learning the _____”, or “Advancing from the 6th grade shuffle”.
My timeline for this project will go as follows:
Oct. 6 – Sketch layout and design
Oct. 10 – Vectorize design
Oct. 15 – Add Color
Oct. 18 – Clean up and revise vector graphics
Oct. 22 – Project finished for review and refinement
Oct. 28 – Present Infographic