Out of my entire time here at cardiff met making moodboards i has never found it so stressful. Working for a completely different market in a totally new style has certainly challenged me and how i present my project. Despite this once i solidified what i needed to do it became a rather pleasurable process.
When starting to gather and arrange my images i followed the format i almost always have done. Using the squares around each image to carefully space and lay them out. Despite being happy with the composition of my theme board (shown bellow) i did not feel it really enraptured the theme its self. The imagery within each illustration was demonstrating what i needed it to say; however, it was restricted by the layout.
With my customer moodboard (shown bellow) i felt once again it had all the information; however, the very geometric and precise layout didn’t represent a 8- 11 year old. To gain inspiration for the images used on my moodboard i messaged my brother to find out some of his likes. Being a different gender and older it can be hard to put yourself into your customers shoes, so thought it be best to directly find out what some 11 year old boys are into. Although i realise one 11 year old boy will be very different from the next i am sure at least one image will speak to each child.
As well as creating a customer moodboard for the boy, as i have noted it will most probably be the millennial parent buying the card i thought it be best if i also create a customer moodboard for them. I felt this precise layout better suited this millennial age demographic much better than it did my child or theme. Within this moodboard i used inspiration from my trend research on millennials. From this i found out they were really into sustainability and social media so i included images for each of these on my moodboard.
When it came to creating my occasion board i started to get a lot more creative with my layout. As my designs would be for a birthday i wanted to have this board more of a celebration and less geometric in its structure. Despite using images that really represented a birthday i felt the images didn’t represent my theme as well as they could have done.
At this point i had not started to experiment with fonts or texts for my moodboard. Although this may have helped me think further into my theme i wanted to leave this until last and i could get an idea of what would best suit the imagery i have used.
Not happy with my customer board and having seen how much more interesting my occasion board looked i decided to have another go at my boys customer board. For this i used the same themes and ideas i had done previously; however, gathered different images that i could cut out on photoshop which would create a more interesting composition. Although feeling this was a step in the right direction i still felt it was not anywhere near exciting enough. I knew something was missing but couldn’t work out what it was nor how to do it.
Within a tutorial it was noted that although stand alone my boards were ok they didn’t come together as a collection. Each one was very separate focusing on the single idea of each board and did not have one constant theme throughout. At this point i was told that if i drew into my theme board and extended some of my images this would allow me to represent my theme better. I took this inspiration on board and started to completely re think how i was approaching this task. Although i felt my images represented a 8- 11 year old, my head when laying them out was not thinking how this age demographic would.
(BOYS) CUSTOMER
I knew i had to get more drawing elements into each board to represent my theme better, so used the imagery i already had as inspiration and drew them myself. By drawing more elements i have been able to bring in my theme and style into my customer board a lot better. To create a much more playful layout i stuck to images that i could cut out. By drawing certain elements it has also allowed me to combine different ideas. Fortnite is an xbox game which is at the heart of most boys lives so i decided to add this to the knife that is cutting the pizza. I also felt it was important to include a hockey stick as most younger boys play sports. To make this represent an 8- 11 year old better i decided to search for cartoon vectors. This image creates a much more playful feel than the one i was using originally.
Although liking all the imagery in the foreground i felt the background was lacking something as there was a vast white space surrounding the pizza. Instead of leaving it plain i thought this would be a good chance to try and incorporate some more monster elements into my design. Not only have the eyes extended on the child’s likes; however, also allowed me to introduce my style to the board some more.
(ADULT) CUSTOMER
Although feeling my previous board worked it didn’t enrapture my theme and made my millennial parent look a little boring. I decided to strip right back on the amount of images used and focused on a few which went directly to the heart of my customers interests.
As this is the adults board i didn’t mind using images that were bound to a box so much. I felt i could extend them; however, also use them to represent a slightly more mature demographic. Once again i wanted to really inject my theme into this board so started to highlight different areas through the use of texture and colour. By doing this i feel i have made the millennial parent seem more fun and edgy than they previously were. Once happy with what i had added to each image i then laid them out and started to bring them together by extending these textures. This brought the images together rather than them being completely separate elements to the millennial parents lives.
Within the image of social media on the left i decided to add one of the illustrations i researched onto the computer screen. This represents the millennial parents interests and what they enjoy looking at whilst on Facebook and other sites. I felt this was a really good idea to demonstrate what the millennial parent would be interested in when looking online.
One thing i was keen to include on this board was the parents intrest in sustainability; however, i wanted to do this in a much more interesting way that represented my style than i have done previously. Inspired by my original image i decided to create my own bunting version representing the same theme. As i am thinking of introducing the idea of tree planting within my collection i felt this quote directly related to that, meaning the millennial parent would have a direct intrest in my collection.
OCCASION
Although liking the elements on my previous occasion board i felt i really had to tone it down and just focus on a few key themes more appropriate for my target market. As i liked the imagery on my previous board instead of totally discarding it i once again used it to inspire my new one.
I really enjoyed the playful use of the dinosaur a-mist the happy birthday bunting; however, did think it was a little to childish. To try to still use this image i image traced it. By doing this i feel it is more mature and also suits my style a lot better.
I decided to use a black background for this design as i really liked the way it made the colours pop. Within my own illustrations most if not everything will be accompanied by a black outline so it has allowed me to bring my style and theme into this board.
I really liked this image above of monster presents; however, once again felt it was aimed at a much younger age demographic than what i was aiming for. Like my dinosaur i first tried image tracing it; however, this time this technique didn’t work for me. I eventually settled on just doing some plainer presents to represent the birthday theme. Originally i was thinking of adding a big bow on the top of them but decided this may be a bit to girly.
I really liked the gift bags on my original occasion board but neither had imagery on them that i felt totally represented my theme. Because of this i decided to draw my own. By drawing my own i have allowed myself to bring my theme into my moodboard and also incorporate my colour pallet.
After finalising these elements i felt i had the ideas for happy birthday; however, lacked the celebration element. To incorporate this into my new occasion board i was once again inspired by previous imagery and decided to draw my own. Using this idea has again allowed me to bring my colour pallet and style into this board. I feel this element has worked really well, especially against the black background. I was trying to be really loose when drawing each curl via my wacom tablet and feel they really represent my targeted age demographic because of their loose and free style.
COLOUR AND TEXTURE
This board i had not had a first attempt at unlike some of my others so was started from scratch. I knew i wanted to use the soft yellow and electric blue hues i had encountered previously from my trend research so started my colour pallet with these two tones and then extended from there. For the rest of the colours i was inspired by the research i have been doing and then altered them in tone ever so slightly so they all worked together nicely. To display my colour range i decided to use scribbles instead of precise squares. I felt this much better represented my theme and style.
Inspired by my tutorial i decided to extend the imagery i already had in order to create a more fun composition. By doing this the images do not appear bound at the edges and also play on the idea of a story unfolding.
Overall i thought i would really struggle with this board as it was only my first attempt. Despite this i think because i now know i have to inject my theme and style into every board it made it a lot easier.
THEME
My original theme board was chocker block with different designs that although did represent my theme, overwhelmed the board its self. Although i would have liked to add perhaps one more large design i felt the 4 on this was just enough to convey my theme without overloading it.
Extending certain elements of the designs really helps to break up the bounding box and also alowed me to inject my own personality and style within this board. As well as this it was also rather enjoyable to get my head into that of an 8-11 year old and how they would imagine each element extending.
Now i am an awful lot happier that my theme board represents my theme and incorporates how i will use this to create my own style. Using these two bigger images has also helped to bring my colour pallet into this board so it is more of a continuation rather than two totally separate moodboards.
Now being happy with how my theme is portrayed not only within this moodboard but within the others as well, i selected a font that i have used to title my moodboards. At one of my work experiences i learnt the art of downloading fonts from an online source so had a wide variety to choose from by using this method. I selected this one called ‘Snot’ as i liked the textures used and felt it linked in well with my theme and the interests of my target audience.
COMPETITORS
Overall my competitor moodboard is my least favourite. Although i have managed to inject my theme through the loose scribbly lines i feel it still needs more work before i am 100% happy with it. At this stage i will leave it how it is until i can gain feedback during a tutorial.
I selected Fenwick and Papercase as my main competitors as they have imagery that is similar to my own in different ways, and also attract the same age demographic i am looking at. Not only this but their in store prices are about the same as that of Selfridges.
Overall i am a lot happier with my moodboards now than i was with my first attempts. Once i was told i had to look at them as a collection and inject my style into each one the process became so much easier; despite the fact i should have already known this. From now i will wait to gain feedback for them and then look at developing them further. Creating them up to this stage has also given me a much better idea of the direction my designs will take. Being so experimental with layouts has really inspired me to start to think about this within my own work and made me realise how much this can affect the overall style of my designs.
Upon reviewing my moodboard i decided it was only the bright white lines that i did not like. To make them more subtle i introduced some draw grey lines. This has lowered the contrast between the foreground and background.
BA Hons Textiles Consultancy Blog 