Fever Tree - Evaluation

What went well?

I felt I had made a good start to this brief with my initial sketches and ideas, I felt I was building up a strong concept linking the tonic water to the treatments for malaria. Technically, I think my initial drawings were strong but then developed into something else throughout the creative process.

I had a strong body of research into the Fever Tree brand, the Malaria No More UK charity and mood boards based around the product itself. This set me up for a good start and I felt well informed about the topics I was working with.

I think my final outcomes work well as a set, they clearly follow the same process of making and they look like they belong together. Colour is usually a weak point of mine but I think I have done better with this project. My initial sketches were all monochrome and I thought this might be the direction I would go in but I am glad I pushed myself out of my comfort zone to work in a different way. I think it has paid off, the colours work on each individual bottle but I also as a set, they don't seem to clash.

I think I have done well to avoid the malaria clichés (mosquitos, for example) and managed to keep the design decorative but still with an underlying concept. I think a lot of people will have gone for the typical malaria imagery so I moved away from that and followed a more general theme of nature.

I think the presentation of my final submission to YCN was a strong point, I felt it looked professional and sophisticated and fitted with their brand identity which is important. I have never had to do this before so it has been a good insight for me to learn how to present my work.

What didn't go well?

I was very confused by what the brief was actually asking be to do, I understood the concept but the physical requirements seemed unclear to me. I probably should have spend more time clarifying this at the beginning rather than finding out about it half way through, however at the beginning I did feel that I had understood it correctly.

I have to admit my time management for this brief totally fell apart which is not like me at all. I left a lot of the work until the last minute and the prospect of a looming deadline wasn't encouraging me to be more productive like it usually does. It is probably an issue to do with motivation, but then again, I was excited by this brief at the beginning and really wanted to get stuck into making something I could be proud of. 

I think the crafting of my final designs could have been more sophisticated. Especially because this was a key word used in the requirements of the brief. Again, this was probably down to lack of motivation and leaving this to the last minute and not having enough time to spend on them. Looking back it does seem ridiculous that I didn't stick to my time plan because I had plenty of time to work with, I am disappointed that I didn't make more of an effort because it's not like me to treat a brief like this. 

Responding to feedback is a low point for me in this project, on one hand I don't feel the feedback I received was that inspiring but on the other hand, I should have seeked out my own feedback, asking direct and relevant questions to people. I also think I should have worked harder to have had more work to show for this brief at the final crit, I feel it was a wasted opportunity. 

What would I have done differently?

I would set this as my priority brief for this module. It should have been my priority but the smaller briefs I was working on interested me a lot more and the collaborative brief probably took up more of my time than it should have done. 

I should have tried harder to stick to my time plan because this would have kept me out of the mess of leaving things to the last minute. 

I should have had time for reflection mid-brief because I feel I lost sight of my original ideas. If I had taken the time to review what I had done so far, I think I might have had a clearer concept coming through in my final designs. 

I should have been more organised! This isn't like me at all and I don't like that my organisation is slipping. Working under pressure normally makes me work harder but for some reason I really struggled to stay motivated, even towards the end. I thought that working to a brief from a real company would have made me work with a certain level of professionalism but it hasn't. I need to change that. 

Have I fulfilled the requirements of the brief?

I think my designs could have been more sophisticated by simplifying them or maybe making the process more labour intensive and well crafted. I think I have successfully produced designs that work as a set and represent each country, although I don't think they would be easily recognisable at a first glance. To be honest though, without the research I have done for this brief, I wouldn't know anything about these countries and wouldn't have been able to identify them from images. 

I think I have promoted the concept of 'all natural' well and I have stuck to the technical requirements of all of the information on the label remaining the same. I don't know whether I have matched the target market as well as I could have done but again, this is down to the fact that I could have made it more sophisticated. I think my design works for attracting new customers though, maybe people slightly younger than the given 35-65 years age range. It will also be eye-catching on the shelf so more people might notice it or even buy it on a whim.