Notes in RGB

For the last 5 weeks we’ve been doing ‘Specialization part 2′ at Hyper Island. A module where  the class divides up in different specializations (Technology, Management and Design) and gets special assignments for each specialization. We (design specialization) got a very interesting brief from 3 young Swedes that had a dream to produce jeans in North Korea. They had an incredibly well documented story and both an interesting and unique concept. Our brief said to design a graphical profile, web concept, launch strategy as well as package design for a future perfume and the launch strategy behind it. Quite the brief – and with only 4 weeks of production it seemed like we were in for a real challenge!

And what a fun challenge. I teamed up with Andreas Johansson, starring as project manager, Josefin Hildingstam, starring as illustrator, Robin Isaksson, starring as designer and myself, starring as art director. Which turned out to be a successful group in terms of communication and teamwork and I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such effectiveness and consistency. Andreas is truly and amazing project manager that knows how to take the group forward and both Robin and Josefin did a wonderful job on the design and illustrations. I’m not going to go in to extreme details about the pre-production period, but rather show a few clips of the process and some pieces of the final result.

Noko Night

One of the most exciting events we had this project was a workshop our group hosted the first week in production. We called it the Noko Night, and it was 5 hours of pure crazy creativity. We met up in the afternoon with paint, pencils, clay, charcoal, finger painting, needle & thread just to mention some. It turned out to be a great kick start for the creative process and really helped us get started. When looking back after the project was completed I can clearly see that a lot of the stuff we produced that night inspired us tremendously in the weeks to come. In addition to this great workshop we had a lot of great guest lectures at school, including the designers behind Cheap Monday and some 3D guys from Pixar and Double Negative.

Here’s a little video Robin put together from our Noko Night.

When we started working on the graphical profile we created some very helpful guidelines through some keywords both from the client and some that we came up with ourselves that were based on their desired perception. Keywords being

• So wrong that it gets right
• Organic
• On thin ice
• Contrasts

We wanted to create a graphical profile that would stand out from other jeans brands, but still be recognized as one. The profile should contain some kind of phoniness, a distinctive touch that says something here is not right..

Here’s a video containing most of our digital sketches and drafts for the Noko Jeans logo.

Graphical elements

A graphical profile does not only consist of a logo. Typography, graphical elements, color profile, stationary and business cards is also needed.

As you see in the background, a pattern was created which is based on the illustrations we made on Noko Night (see the first video).

The graphical profile works very well in a whole bunch of different color combinations. Typography wise we chose Soho for headlines and titles as it creates a very strong contrast to the rather ‘weak’ logotype and Meta Serif for body copy and descriptions.

And of course, the business cards!

Ah, and all these things that I’ve learned!

This project was awesome and I had a great time doing it and working as an art director was both a new and a very learningful experience. At the end of the project we pitched our strategy and design profile for the client where we received some great feedback both on our work and the presentation itself. Lesson learned: You don’t need to pack in every little detail in the presentation if you’re on a tight schedule – it’ll just get messy.

NOTE: WORK IS FICTIONAL