Studio Brief 02 - Product, Range & Distribution - Development

Concept - 

A limited edition design for Belu Water to help raise awareness for the global water crisis, but the focus is on how we use water in this country and the effects it could have if we don't think about how we use water. The design(s) will be informative so that people begin to understand the problems at hand, which will be mainly typographic as this links with the current branding for Belu Water. The bottle is also going to be advertised as a reusable product as this is also better for the environment and Belu are very hot on recycling. There will also be a supporting social media hashtag so that people can post pictures of the bottle in use, this helps to widen the reach of the product meaning more people will start to become aware of the issue and hand. A promotional code will also be featured on the bottle, if they enter the code into the Belu website this will give them a promo code for buying more water as well as more information on the global water crisis and what they can do to start making a difference.

Once I had the concept down it easy to start putting together some designs for the bottle as I had an idea of what I wanted to after looking at the current Belu branding. Thinking about what was going to be said one the bottle was a difficult task, I wanted the tone of voice to be strong but I didn't want the tone of voice to be negative as I felt a lot of the facts/figures that I had looked to have a very depressing tone of voice. 

So the first part of my design process started with coming up with slogans/sayings that would helps to make people aware of the issue but not by hitting them with harsh facts as I don't think this would be a very good marketing scheme as it could put people of buying the product if the tone of voice is too harsh. By looking into ways that people can save water (facts), as well as thinking about impactful sayings help to put the campaign idea perspective I was able to come up with a selection of different sayings for a bottle design. 

Facts and sayings - 

• 1.2 billion people live with inadequate water supply
• 1.6 billion can't afford water
• Water use is increasing faster than population
• Only 3% of the worlds water is drinkable 
• Use water wisely 
• Save Water. Save Lives. 
• Water is life. 
• Fix your dripping tap
• Take short showers
• Every drop counts.

These are the sayings/facts that I came up to help make people think about how they are using their water. I felt that the more factual phrases give the wrong tone of voice, but the other phrases are more thought provoking, especially if they on a water bottle that someone will be using for week or so. 

The first thing that I had to decide was the shape of the bottle, Belu Water currently only use glass bottles, the idea behind my design is that the bottle will be plastic and square and there is two main reasons for this. Firstly a square bottle means that you can fit more bottles in a box when transporting, which means less waste as they won't need to use as much packaging. Secondly because their normally bottles are glass this means people will may not reuse the bottle or even be put off buying because of the glass, this is why I am proposing a plastic bottle that can be more accessible and customers will prefer to reuse a bottle that is plastic. 

With these first designs I have kept it as similar to the original branding, as I want the target audience to be able to recognise the brand. I took inspiration from the Belu advertising posters, where they use uppercase bold sans serif type, in this case I have used Helvetica Neue Bold which is very similar to the original posters but I also felt that this type was very eye catching and it would be able to stand out on a self against other brands. The colour scheme currently hasn't changed from the original brand guidelines and this is because I want people to still be able to recognise the brand even though it is a new product, the blue and white colour scheme also helps to keep it very simple which I think this campaign needs as it does not need to be over complicated it just needs to bold impact from the type, which this design does achieve.  

I have experimented with different combinations of the design, they all follow the similar style of typesetting which is taken from the advertising. The focus of keeping it simple (type based) means that people will be thinking about the message helping to make the more aware of the issue. By making the target audience aware like this by using simple slogans and bold typography it will encourage them to find out more which they will then able to do if they use the information on the back of the design. 

The back of the design features some text, this text helps to give the customer a little more information about the awareness for the water crisis and the issues that come with it. I did not want to over complicate the back of the design as this is where people will look for information and there is no point trying over complicate the design. It also features the promotional code that the customer can use to access more information online as well as giving them vouchers for more Belu water if they donate a small amount of money. I also added the WaterAid logo as I this is a recognisable logo which the audience will trust so seeing on the packaging means they will have a better idea of where their money is going.  

Social Media - 

To get this campaign good distribution there needs to be some sort of social media content that can be used to share the awareness of the product but ultimately let more people know about the issue.   

Belu and Water Aid had a campaign for World Water Day which was used #blue4water, I want to take this idea of #blue4water and create a new # which plays on the previous one, #BELU4WATER this way people can use the # to take photos of them using the bottles and it will help to raise the awareness of the issue to a wider audience. 

The campaign will include posters that showcase the new bottles, using the style that they already have for their branding this way people will still be able to recognise the brand as the same water. I will also create some GIFs for that can be posted on social media sites advertising the water and the campaign. Because the target audience is so broad social media is the best place for something like this as it will allow the majority of people to see it, if it was just print based not as many would see the campaign. 

Feedback - 

• Create a set of three using the outline design 
• Use "Every Drop Counts." "Water Is Life." "Save Water. Save Lives" as these don't give off a negative message but they make people think. 
• The white with outline is the strongest design
• Water Aid logo needs to be more of a feature on the back
• If using the white design, have the blue and white back and this adds constant to the over all design. 
• Add the size of the bottle to the information (1lt)
• Consider any other colours you could use for example: Water Aid
• See how illustration or imagery can be used

This feedback has given me what I need to take my designs to the next stage. The feedback was very useful and I will be making the changes to the designs to get them ready for the production stage. It was interesting to see what people thought of the designs and it was clear that the designs that have a good slogan on work a lot better than a design with harsh facts as these harsh facts would out people off the product. 

Using the very useful feedback that I received I was able to experiment with some suggestions that have resulted in some positive outcomes. The first thing I wanted to try was looking at how I could incorporate the Water Aid brand more, of course the Water Aid logo is featured on the back but I also wanted to see how I could use brand colours to make the bottle more of a collaborative effort. I feel that it works well and when I asked people what they thought they said it was very eye catching and helps to give a different look however I think that the colour and the illustration stray too far away from the original brand guidelines meaning the people won't notice the product as the same brand and the brand is already very well affiliated so it would be a bad idea to change the design this much.   

Using the feedback that I received from my peers I have come to a final design decision, I have chosen three designs that will work as a set. I have decided to take the design forward as a set because I felt that if there was only one design it would not create a strong enough campaign, it also works as sort of collection so people could be encouraged to collect all three designs this works especially well with the target audience in mind. The though process behind these designs is that I have tired to highlight the words that will make people think the most for example "Save Water. Save Lives" the water lives are filled because these are the words that have the most relevance to the issue at hand. The colour scheme follows the Belu Water brand guidelines, I didn't want to change this as I felt the brand is strong enough already, it also means people would still be able to recognise the water as Belu. The back was kept blue rather than white as this kept some contrast in the design, if the design was white it would have been felt to similar to the front the blue is much stronger which it needs to be on the back as this is where most of the information comes from about the issue. 

The next stage of my design process is to get the design ready for print, and consider how I am going to apply the design to the bottle.