Indiana Cooper and The Temple of Boom!

This week, we pass the hot spot over to Lisa Cooper, our work experience pop-up book legend!

Hello …

My name is Lisa Cooper, I am 15 years old and I go to Davison CE High School for girls, in Worthing. Every year, amongst other schools, Davison give the opportunity for every girl in year 10 to have a go at work experience so like most others, I used this opportunity to do exactly that. I got myself a placement at The Brand Surgery – a graphic design based company. Impressed by my graphics portfolio, The Brand Surgery have asked me to write a blog about the graphics course at Davison, so here goes nothing!

At Davison, I take graphics as an option and what a brilliant option it is. Most people think that when it comes to graphics it’s all design work, but I assure you it’s far more involved than that! When I first began the course my teacher got us to practice designing, researching and manufacturing. Now, usually I would enjoy doing design work but it is slightly less enjoyable when your teacher is timing you, and every once in a while going ‘Tick … Tock’. However, what I did learn from him doing that is the time constraints sometimes issued on you when you have work to complete. This was a good method to use to prepare us for what was coming up!

The project began …

When I began the actual project, my teacher briefed us on what we needed to do and what the structure of the lessons was going to be like. He explained that we would need to do a lot of research before starting the design work. Doing this helped me gain an understanding of the requirements of the target audience I would need to aim my product at and what sort of things would appeal to them. We had a choice of either designing and creating a perfume box or a pop-up book. Now, I don’t know about you, but when given the choice between a perfume box or a pop-up book, one kinda stands out more than the other? So I chose the pop-up book. From this I started the research.

To meet the criteria of the brief the exam board gave to my teacher, I would need to do a lot of research, in a lot of detail. The three main pieces of research we had to complete were: product comparison, product disassembly and a survey. The product comparison helped me see what competition there was on the market and where gaps were – Gaps for me to fill with my product. Now, what is an interesting, unique, original and child friendly theme for a pop-up book? Indiana penguin of course! This idea ensured that it would be suitable for both males and females as it is adventurous and also. Who doesn’t love penguins?

The survey

However, a lot more research and development was needed for this idea to work. This is where the survey came in. For my survey I came up with several questions, all relevant to my theme, to be asked to three different age groups, for a range of feedback on what I could do to improve and develop my idea. From the data I received back I then converted it into pie charts and analysed it. I then wrote a detailed description of what the data suggested to me and how I was going to use it in my later designs. Seems like a lot of work for just one popup book right? Wrong! This helped me develop my work a lot as I got user group feedback and my idea was becoming more developed and evermore like a realistic goal to achieve!

After doing all the research I started on initial designs, where again I got user group feedback on all designs by doing a review, and I also reviewed my work myself to see if my designs met specification points I had written which stated what requirements my designs had to meet. From this I labeled my designs: Red, Amber and Green – A common way of self reviewing your work at Davison. Red, meaning that the design needs a lot of work, amber, meaning the design would need some work done on it, and green, meaning it meets all specification points and would need very little work done on it. After taking into account of the feedback I had got, I developed all designs that were red and amber and started to work out how my designs would work when put into a popup book, so I designed some nets and made a prototype!

Once I had made my prototype I got feedback for each product and developed them, if indeed they needed development. This helped me produce my final design accompanied by a series of nets all drawn to scale. By completing this, I had completed two ‘bits’ to the project – the research and the designing. In year 11 I will start the manufacturing part of my pop-up book and that is when I will see if all that research and development has paid off!

So to sum up… Davison offers a brilliant graphics course that will inform you and help you gain experience in, not only the basics of graphic design, but also the stages needed to accomplish researching, designing and manufacturing a product. Not bad eh?

Thank you Davisons!

Thank you to Davisons for sending us Sarah! We are well impressed with your graphic design course, and think that some university students could learn a thing or two here!

Call The Brand Surgery on 01903 824229 if you would like to find out more about our graphic design and branding services.