Thesis Process Blog

This week, I worked on a few "house keeping" things from my deliverables. This included transferring the files from my temporary laptop to my computer and organizing the files one what's needed to be mocked up. Upon seeing what was left, I realized that some of the deliverables had the wrong website and so I was going through each deliverables to make sure it's correct. Upon doing that I also found some inconsistent typography. This was like a domino effect of edits I found. I recorded myself speaking about my deliverables in the PDF presentation. This presentation will go after my Thesis video presentation. I'm thinking the structure will go something like:  1) Thesis Video 2) Thesis Presentation (app video demo within it) 3) Question/Anser section I'm not sure if this is correct, but I'm hoping to find out more in the upcoming weeks. Going through my presentation has helped me see what structure to do my presentation and how I need to get used to talking...

This week was pretty hectic, but fortunately I found out my desktop is fixed and all my files were saved. I'm hoping once I get it and have everything updated, I'll be able to have a more robust Process Book. I have started with drawing illustrations to represent the user testers, to keep with the brand's illustrative style. For this week, I worked on mocking up my packaging deliverables, the thesis video, and PDF presentation. I'm still having sizing issues with the video. I made all my frames "fit to frame," but there isn't equal negative space. Speaking of sizing, I resized my final presentation but when putting the mock-ups in there's a lot of space and some pages have mixed-match background colors so I hope to fix it for next time. Since I'll have my files back, I'll be able to edit/resize the mocks. For social media I created more gifs, and another thing I plan to accomplish next week is to figure out the best way to have gif/video mocks ...

This past week in module 8, I've been trying to get re-organized in my new set up on a PC laptop while my computer is still in the shop. Some of my files got lost, including process works from Thesis 1. I'm thinking of ways to look for those files or how to fill in the missing pieces in my process book.  Organizing my final presentation PDF, and seeing the mock-ups back to back has helped me visualize my system's components and find ways to present them with more sophistication. For example, the app mock has been something I've been struggling with this semester since most online mock-ups don't fit well with the look of 210 confeccion. So, I think I'm going to create my own mock with the iPhone being an illustrative outline. I think my social media ads are shaping up, I found an ad mock (Ad Parlor) which I've done but the animation wasn't working due to the browser I was using. I'll tinker with it some more this module. I also worked on the rough vid...

My visual system has evolved to become more detailed, which is part of my keywords. One detailed aspect are the illustration elements. With my user testing, the feedback was overall positive with the visual system and especially the illustrations on the bars packaging. I was told to spread the flavor illustrations, from the bars packaging, to the truffles and hot cocoa packaging. This made me think about how I would incorporate the flavor illustrations upon the different 3D packaging structures. My focus group has helped me see how my target market appreciate simplicity rather than overly designed applications. With CBD especially, it's important to convey the legitimacy of its ingredients without compromising the design and losing the overall message.  Another aspect of detail includes craft and having a high-level of design which includes variety in my visual system while still being consistent. Print, Social media, the app, and packaging look similar but have different applicati...

This week I worked on my social media posts, visual system in my process book, and did a rough storyboard of my thesis video. I didn't get to gather the insights from my user testing this week, but I plan to work on that over spring break as well as finalizing my deliverables into more updated mock-ups.  It's been a while since I've made social media ads, but I did realized that they don't need to have too much text on them because that's what the post is for. I'm also going to work on the copy for those as well. I don't remember the name of the ad-mocks I used to do, but adparlor.com seems promising.  Spring break is going to be me catching up on my thesis project and process book, so we'll see how it goes. 

This week was pretty hectic getting ready for my user testing sessions. I had a few different instances of user testers one in person, one virtually, and one survey. In total I have 8 responses/user testers from this past week. In module 6, I'll incorporate what I learned from their responses into my deliverables.  A couple of insights I remembered from the week is to have more of a buying incentive. For the app, this includes a coupon or deal for newcomers to buy the product. The packaging, will have more of a take-away gift, like how the bars packaging have the illustration wrapper; but instead I'll change to a perforated card. I also became aware of being more transparent in my packaging as far as the differences between each type of CBD and to make the packaging more sustainable. The CBD store owner suggested conveying the product is made of seed paper so it's biodegradable and can have a new life as a flower/plant.   I learned a lot in my user testing, but I know the...

This week, I refined my bars packaging more and took it into Adobe Dimension for mock purposes. I dabbled with the sizes a bit and found the appropriate wrapper to use for the product. I was trying to figure out a way to make the AR video I took to go into Adobe XD, but the capabilities aren't there yet. I'm going to instead include it into the video demonstration; make it seem like it's part of the app.  I'm realizing my process book needs a lot of work, especially with organization. I don't think the current timeline approach works well; especially given the context of the Visual System later on.  I also planned on the user testing dates for my focus groups and will be continuing on getting ready for it in the beginning of module 5. I created a small social media graphic, with my visual system, with all the pertinent info in regards to the date of the virtual user testing and the option to do a self-directed one. Hopefully I'll get some good results and insigh...