Research into packaging:
When I came up with the idea to actually create the packaging for my advertising campaign I wanted create an experience in the exhibition where the consumer would feel as if they are actually walking into a shop and physically picking up the products on sale. Due to COVID-19 I had to reevaluate my plan and think about how I could make this transferrable digitally. I came up with creating an online shop, these products being advertised like any other advertising campaign.
In order to complete this I had to look into the branding of products and how companies would make their products appealing through the screen. The best way in my opinion to advertise products is through the platform Instagram.
I did some research into how companies promote their products on instagram, these are the accounts that stood out to me:
The one that stood out the most to me was @aesopskincare. I liked the simplicity of it and that was something I wanted to concentrate on. The product needed to stand out when creating my own.
The first thing I did was create my brand logo. I decided to keep it consistent with the billboard so I used a gradient of brown background and kept the fonts the same throughout.
I used Adobe Illustrator to create my logo:
I found some free templates on https://zippypixels.com/products/mockups/packaging/ which allowed me to edit them and make them my own using Adobe Photoshop.
With this I started to create my first draft of packaging, this is what I started with:
The feedback that I got from this was although they all look great separately there was nothing connecting them all together - they don't look like they are from the same brand.
So I had to come up with something that tied them all together apart from the name of the brand. I went back to the drawing board and decided to keep the flower pattern in picture 4 consistent in all of them. I thought that by advertising the products as something desirable and 'pretty' the message becomes more uncomfortable.
I also decided to add the slogan from the billboards so that the message is consistent throughout. 'Love your shade of black' is now featured across the two platforms.
There were also some other inconsistencies with the product design such as some products were white and brown and others were just brown, so I paid attention to the small details and changed them. This allowed me to come up with my final product.
The final design:
After finalising the product design I then had to create the Instagram account. The page is called @_shadeofblack and promotes the products as if they are real products. This is to send the message that this is what is actually happening in stores, and hopefully make people question whether this is something they are OK with.
