Evaluation

So far this project has been a firm favourite for me. I was initially slowed down by the choice of briefs, finding both the variety of clients and ways to tackle each brief slightly overwhelming. I also surprised myself when it came to actually choosing, as the one I went with was far from my preferred one. I thought it would be useful exercise to get way out of my comfort zone and as a result I did find myself thinking in a much more creative way.

Overall I'm very pleased with how I answered the Fedrigoni brief and although I found it challenging working through each problem as I came across it, I think I came to the best decision each time. The only remaining thing is waiting to see how well I managed to communicate my concepts to the Fedrigoni marketing team through my pdf submission. I am reasonably confident that I have been successful in doing so.

Sending off my Calender

To support my submission I've decided to send off a physical copy of my calendar. Even though it isn't a requirement I feel like it would help my design stand up against the competition. YCN only give an address to send it off to so I will have to find out from them what needs to be included in the package to identify it as mine.

Photographing the Calendar

For my final PDF submission I needed to photograph my calender. As per the advice given to me by everyone is the crit I included some photos of the calender with the models. The set-up was quite simple, the same as for photographing the instructions minus the fill light on the far left. This is a sample of how the photography went:

Calender Base

To keep the calendar upright after binding I kept a long strip of card included in the stack. This was then folded around the back several time sand then glued into place to form a stand for the calendar.

Ring Binding

In order to keep my whole calender together and give it a much more professional feel I decided to get it ring bound. For this I went to Ryman's and had it bound in something called snap binding which was the best looking option. I also chose to have a clear acetate cover put on the front to protect the pages underneath. Here's how the binding looks:

 

And the clear acetate:

 

Crit Changes

After doing crit yesterday I received some helpful feedback from 2 of my tutors and my classmates. In terms of my actual product people seemed to think no changes would be necessary, and the rest of the points were all about how to present my work in the final pdf for submission. The most important points were to make sure that I make up a range of the models and display them with a version of the calender, having a short flow diagram explaining both the process of making the patterns on the background as well as the way its used, and displaying the full years worth of calender pages on a single A3 page. All these will be acted on when I produce the pdf booklet.

Test Printing

To get a better idea of what my physical calender will look like on the paper I'm using I made a test print of each calendar page on its chosen paper colour. Overall the way the transparent graphic overlays works well, keeping the original tones of the paper, just altering the individual tones.

One thing I do need to change based on this experiment is the shade of red, its very hard to read because of its brightness.

Pre Crit

For the crit on this project I plan to show all 12 of my designs as well as printouts of the actual pages of the calender. Unfortunately due to time constraints I haven't been able to get the final pages ring bound for crit, this will have to be done outside of Uni and I will try to get some interim feedback via out group facebook page. Here is what my final designs look like printed out pre crit:

The things I will be trying to get an opinion are during crit are:

• Ease of instructions
• Clarity
• Overall consistency and coherence
• Adherence to brand identity

As I haven't bound the pages I will also ask the class what they think of various methods of joining everything together, as well as some suggestions for what to put into my pdf and submission to YCN.

Ready to Print

Quick shot of all my finished model photos and calendar pages:

QR Code Scanners

After asking a few people I realised that not everyone has a QR code scanner on their phone, or even a smart-phone. To combat this problem I have added a custom shortlink just below the QR Code on the calendar. This link takes the user straight to the imgur image site.

QR Code Generation

To make my instructions accessible to smart phones via QR code I first uploaded a full resolution image to the image hosting site imgur:

The reason I chose to use imgur for this is because of their very short embedding URLs. Shorter URLs mean shorter QR code size, as well as more potential for increasing error tolerances.

I then took this URL and generated a QR code that lead to the full size image using the online tools available at the-qrcode-generator.com. After a quick test I then saved the image to be used on the January month of my calendar.

Editing Instructions

Once I had photographed all of the steps in making the model I then needed to edit them all together in Photoshop. To do this I created a canvas at 640x12000px (640px wide to be wide enough for average smart phones) and stacked each photo in, adding instructions and arrows in between.

 Once I had everything where it should be I then exported it as a single image. In order to keep file sizes down -especially on smart phones- I exported at ~jpeg80 compression levels, resulting in an acceptable file size of 1.1M considering its dimensions.

Making Instructions

As a trial for the format I want my instructions to take I decided to take a series of photos show my building the first of the models (Koshizawa Butterfly). In order to make sure the photos were clear enough I set up some lighting equipment to both reduce shadows and enable me to shoot at a smaller aperture, which increases the depth of field in the photos. Here is a picture of my set-up:

And a sample of the kind of photo my set-up produced:

Shooting in this way with total control also meant that I could take photos with the same settings each time, meaning I could sync my settings in Lightroom and apply any changes from one photo to all of them and know what it would look like. This made editing the photos very quick and easy.

Origami Models

I've now decided on the following list of Origami models to use in my calender:

• Angel Fish
• Waterbomb
• Flower
• Desk tidy
• Stingray
• Dolphin
• Pinwheel
• Butterfly
• Bird
• Bat
• Chicken 

 I tried to strike a balance between animals both land and sea as well as toys and useful items. I think overall I manage to include enough of a variety to keep most users interested.

Perforation

To make a perforated edge to enable the user to tear off sections of calender to use for model making I used an overstitch wheel I use for leather working.

The overstitch wheel has 4mm tooth spacing which I found was hard to tear accurately so I passed over the line twice, using a ruler to maintain a straight line:

QR Code Test

In order to see if my previous worries would be a problem, I devised a test to see if my QR code idea would still be viable. The first thing I did was create swatches using the ICC data supplied by Fedrigoni, and overlay a simple QR Code leading to the Fedrigoni website as a test:

These were then printed out to the same size as they would be on the finished calendar and then separated to ensure accuracy.

I then went through each square using the app 'Scan' on my phone.

Once the code successfully scanned, the app immediately redirected to the Fedrigoni website via a url shortener to keep QR code size and complexity down.

Results: Almost every QR code scanned perfectly the first time/within a few seconds. The only problem was with the red square which took very slightly longer to scan due to its very bright hue.
I will test again once the designs have been printed in full.

QR Code Problem?

When it comes to putting the QR codes on coloured paper I have noticed a big potential stumbling point; printers don't print white. This means that the white areas of the QR code will be rendered in whatever colour the paper is because the printer assumes its white. This won't be a problem on lighter papers but may be a concern for darker one's especially blues.

I did a bit of research on the topic and QR codes fortunately have an error tolerance of between 7% and 30% depending on their size. Below is a code leading to the same URL but with varying levels of tolerance:

To determine what level of tolerance I need for each colour, I will print a test sheet of each on any colour that may be a problem.

Size

After looking at the size of the current Fedrigoni calendar and the fact that they specified in the brief that it shouldn’t be too big, I have decided to reduce the size that I plan to produce my calendar at. The current one is a squared off A5 size whereas mine is almost A4. Even though mine only takes up a footprint of around 10x20cm -similar to the Fedrigoni size- it has a much larger visual impact due to its height.

After doing a bit of research I found out that there is a standard size for origami square paper, 15x15cm or 6x6in. This means that I can reduce the width and height of my calendar by about 25%, making it still larger in height, but occupying a much smaller footprint then the current calendar. Overall I think these 2 factors will balance each other out and result in a calendar size that fits with what Fedrigoni has in mind.

Current Calender

While on my visit to the Fedrigoni offices in London I had the fantastic opportunity to see and handle their current calendar.

The main thing I noticed was how much smaller it is then what I’m planning, an issue I will have to address before I proceed. The other thing was its apparent lack of some kind of visual ‘hook’ that successfully grabs the attention of the viewer. The cutout sections contribute a bit of interest but I feel life its missing a well thought out concept.

Visiting Fedrigoni

In order to get a better idea of the aesthetic and feel of the company I will be presenting my product to, I decided to visit the Fedrigoni offices in London. Here are a few photos I took whilst there:

I think my initial assessment of the brand was pretty much correct in that they favour a fairly clean aesthetic. The only addition is their use of blocks of black in the branding, something I will trial on my design.

While there I also looked at the full range of paper I will be promoting and took a few samples with me use when producing a physical mock-up.

The variety of weights was something that I was able to experience and meant the I could decide on a weight of around 80-120GSM for my final calender, to ensure structural stability as well as fold-ability when it comes to actually making the model.