From my research and analysis I had identified 4 types of backing design that I actually liked. Each had it's own target market and all development potential. I found it difficult to choose one style of design out of the three so I decided to come up with product criteria and initial sketches for all.
Text/Plain
Type of frame it'd be in:
Plain and simple design mirroring the simplicity of the typographic backing paper. Minimum to no detail, high class product.
Target audience: Home owner, young to middle aged, none specific gender, more middle class background.
Sketched Ideas:
Retro/Vintage
Type of frame it'd be in:
Usually a modern product trying to look like it's older than it is, the backing paper assists in conjuring up a history the frame never had. Mid-high end product, fills in the gap in the market for people wanting vintage genuine items but who can't afford to purchase/source them.
Target Audience: Home owner, young to mid aged. Usually leaning towards women in this market and people of an alternative 'style'.
Sketched Ideas:
Photo/Arty
Type of frame it'd be in:
Like with the text frame it'd be a high end product and very simple in design. The backing papers may not seem as simple for this category as there's a lot of detail, however by keeping the designs simple with no more than 2 colours per piece it shouldn't over crowd the small space.
Target Audience: Home owner, middle class (possible photography enthusiast using the frames to show off work) non specific gender however leaning slightly towards the masculine.
Sketches:
Patterned
Type of Frame it'd be in:
High class piece A frame more like a design feature than a practical product usually fully of unnecessary details and craftwork.
Target Audience: Once again mid age range (late twenties to early fifties) however this frame would appeal to someone with more of an eye for detail. A frame of this type would be most attractive to designer types, people who take pride in carefully decorating and choosing objects for the home. For this target market a very high class looking backing paper needs to communicate the importance of the object.
Sketches:
Interim Crit
What I needed from the critique this session is a clear direction to go towards, with so many ideas, all of which I consider strong, it's pretty difficult to make a decision. I feel the retro/patterned designs would be best as I can visualise their target markets better. So I posed my class mates three questions:
With the majority agreed with my initial opinion. It was time to move on to the production of the patterned ideas.
Production and Development
With the patterned idea I really wanted to get across a sense of texture and depth, shadows and tints and so on, so it looked as if the backing paper was cut out paper art. I had wanted to do this by cutting out a simple pattern, scanning it in and repeating it using photoshop, however when it came to trying to do this practically, my scaple skills severely let me down and what i produced looked very childish and uneven (plus the shapes kept ripping/blowing away so I nearly lost my sanity).
Also the colours- although faded/pastel like as I had in mind looked really dull and clashy and it was difficult to visualise how effective they'd be in a full scale pattern- so I decided to skip the traditional and cheat slightly.
I scanned in my original sketches and, using illustrator, I outlined the key patterned features to make some easy to play with shapes. I then transferred these into photoshop and worked my magic.
Step One: Colour- I still wanted the colours to be more autumnal/burnt slightly so as to match well with a gold frame. To counter-act the darkness of these colours I had intended to fade the opacity/find a pastel version however this proved difficult.
Step Two: Creating the 'Layered' effect using drop shadows.
Step Three: Texture- adding two faded opacity layers using an image of crumpled/textured paper I found on the internet making the image looked aged.
Step Four: Text. When it came to choosing a font I knew it had to be serif typeface, the market I was aiming for and the style of patterns being produced just didn't fit comfortably with san serif at all. So I played with the classical looking options- Book antiqua, Modern No.20 (which looked Sherlock-y despite it's name) etc. I ended up settling for Engravers MT, the fixed cap height created a nice shape out of the text and the thinness of the stems keep it from being over powering. I created the boxes using the same paper texture as before (so as not to contrast from the feel of the design entirely.)
Step Five: Repeat for the other two sizes.
Final Products:
(photos needed of print out/backed versions)
So How'd I Do?
To be honest I was pleased with myself- rolling along whilst watching my peers tear their hair out and stress from a lack of ideas and creativity. It's smug and pathetic I know but there's a sense of calm you feel when everyone is loosing their stuff around you and you know exactly what your doing. I feel idea generation wise, I kicked ass, so many people said they had no idea what to do and, despite being daunted by the brief initially, I considered, grouped and categorised my research so thoroughly that it produced a clearer path forwards. I still feel design wise the colours are too dark (especially on the 4x6 and 6x8 designs) and it does look 'photoshopped' so it may not fly in a high class store. Printing quality aside though, the designs are pleasing to look at- and they looked great mocked up in a frame, so I can't complain. I really enjoyed working in photoshop, the satisfying feeling of having a minimum of ten layers per image- and although I had used the programme before, it was good to recap and get used to it again.
It was a funny after thought I stumbled upon looking at my frames and considering my target audience. Middle aged, more likely female, interested in interior design, considerate in home presentation and design and choosy when it comes to the specific objects displayed in their homes- turns out the target audience was my mom. I think that's probably why I found it as easy going as I did.
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