layout experiments

I found a shop that sold produce in old-style market bags - as above - but I'm not sure how I could use this within the design. This time I worked using jpegs in Photoshop, then placing them in the inDesign file. I was also using the correct web proportions - as opposed to before when I was just guessing.

In both of the layouts above, there are too many colours and textures - I want to take elements from each, just the most successful ones. Tonight I'm going to brainstorm ideas for names and try to make a decision about the look I'm going for - so that tomorrow I can really get on with designing each page, using the techniques above.

edible letters

I used a technique similar to this on my foundation course, and also in the first project of this year. I want the website to look like it is clearly about food, at first glance, without having to read any of it. That's why I wanted to try making the header of the page literally from food.
I used ketchup, sweet chilli sauce and mayo on brown paper. I like this aesthetic better than the letters carved from fruit or veg, BUT it doesn't really fit with the 'healthy' focus of the website. Ketchup, mayo and sweet chilli sauce are all processed foods, high in sugar, salt and fat - which kind of rules them out, even though I like the way they look here.
With the fruit and veg, it's possible to be seasonal, although that would mean a constantly changing header. I think that the effect doesn't work well with the pear as there isn't much contrast, but maybe with something like a cucumber, this would look better.
I have to say that this is my favourite aesthetic so far, because it was the most fun to experiment with - but I don't know if that translates across to the reader, or even if it should - the subject is quite serious.

Aesthetic / brand / identity

I'm now in Easter 'break' - so won't have any tutorials for four weeks. 8 weeks away from assessment, I'm now working toward final outcomes. This week I'll be working entirely on the website - a pdf of every page, with real data, the aesthetics and name for the site, the online presence for it, and demonstrations of how it would work.

Today I've been trying to come up with a name - something which is very hard for a food-based project, as there are lots of restaurants, blogs and organisations out there already, all with original names! (EAT, Sustain, etc) It will be hard not to tread on anyone's toes. A short, one or two word name for the site is what I need. I've written down a lot of ideas but haven't found the right one yet - I'll work on that this week.

I've also worked some more on the ideas I had last week about how the website should look. My mentor was keen on the brown paper element, mixed with hand-drawn and computer generated. I like the brown paper because it has a market feel - maybe I could use that classic market stall handwriting somewhere too. I worked more with fonts today - choosing which ones to use, and what colours looked best.

At this stage in the project it is getting really difficult to explain to people! I've been working on it for so long that I know everything about the project, and it is easy to forget that other people don't. I need to work on explaining it better - both for my presentation exam, and for the show!

Cooking workshop sequence and web identity work

Yesterday and this week I've been working on ideas for the visual look of the website - somewhere between home-spun and professional. I came up with 5 ideas in my sketchbook, and yesterday I tried to mock these up on Illustrator. There are two examples here. It took a lot longer to do than I thought! There is a lot of work still to be done on this.

Above is the sequence I've been working on today. I'm not happy with it at all! But it is a start. I used Premiere and got to grips with the basics of it. I want to improve and extend this movie so that it shows the whole scenario around the workshop, including how the website is involved. Pete advised me to put subtitles with it to support. He also said that i could take film footage and merge that in too, quite easily.

Scenario experimental stop frame

Last week I used photoshop and some existing photos I had to create a series of images. I joined these together in iMovie to make a short stop frame animation. I lost all the quality of the images when I did this, and it was also a really long process - moving the figure, save as, move again, save as - really tedious. The concept might work but there's no way I could do this for an entire film! I tried using flash for the first time, but it was difficult to get to grips with and I couldn't achieve the effects I wanted.

March 21st - Winter workshop 2

This workshop went really well. Thanks to the brilliant volunteers who I couldn't have done it without! This time I didn't get involved at all, my friend taught the recipe while I documented the whole thing. This worked much better - I took over 80 photos. I also got the participants to fill in feedback forms, which was really helpful. The whole experience was great. I'm putting a few photos up here for now, but I have lots more work to update you on - I'll try to do that tomorrow.

Cooking Workshop 2

Today I designed an invitation for a second cooking workshop. I used this task to explore the aesthetic of the website a bit more - merging together hand drawn and professional. I also spent the day storyboarding a scenario for a film showing how the workshop happens as a result of the website. I'm excited to start filming this! I want to use real places and people, but take photographs of them and try to manipulate them in Photoshop, to make the stop frame. I don't know if this will end up working but I'm looking forward to having a go!

Prorotype cooking workshop

This week I planned and organised a last-minute cooking workshop with a couple of people I already knew, to help me develop and design the event. I sent out invitations (above) and spent time working out what recipe to use, what I needed to bring, where to have the workshop, etc. The exercise of organising the event was beneficial in itself - there was a lot more to it than I anticipated. During the workshop I found it easy to see what areas needed improvement - especially documentation! For the next one I will get someone else to run the workshop, and document it myself instead of taking part.

We made leek and potato soup - seasonal - and I provided homemade bread to have with it. I'm planning to hold another improved cooking workshop soon.

This week I also spoke to Pete, one of the Goldsmiths computer technicians, about the website. He showed me some work by an MA student that was really helpful - I can make short films showing how the website links with community interaction, in order to demonstrate it, rather than making a half-working website. He also liked the hand-drawn graphics I originally started with.

Below, I've started to storyboard scenarios that could become films to explain the cooking workshop:
In addition this week, I also went to see Mathias & Rachel of Loop.pH, who I worked for last summer as an intern. They had some brilliant feedback and advice for me in relation to my project, and offered to help with the web side of the project. They showed me a lot of really interesting and relevant work that they had come across, which I'll be looking at in more detail and posting about on here. Thank you!

Together with my mentor tutorial today, it has been great to hear advice and feedback from a range of people this week. I've got a lot to get on with over the next two weeks - lots of references to look up and research, I need to work on the aesthetic of the website, make a few short films that demonstrate the depth and breadth of all aspects of the site, and organise another cooking lesson. Here we go!

Sustainable Restaurant Association

I found this article on the guardian website just now. Last week the sustainable restaurant association was launched in London. "The brainchild of, among others, Henry Dimbleby of the seasonal fast food chain Leon, restaurateur Mark Sainsbury and Giles Gibbons of the corporate social responsibility consultancy Good Business, the SRA is an ambitious project. It wants to get as many of Britain's 30,000 restaurants as possible to become members by ticking a set of sustainability criteria listed under 14 specific areas. They cover everything from the ethical sourcing of ingredients, through water usage, energy policy, responsibility to staff and the community to the mundanity of things like packaging and paper recycling." However, all a restaurant needs to join is to fulfill 3 out of 100 of the criteria, which makes MacDonalds eligible.

Following the post, there are plenty of comments from people on the article. This is particularly interesting to me because I imagine the website as also being a place that can recommend sustainable restaurants for people to eat out at.

(Posted by Jay Rayner Tuesday 2 March 2010 11.50 GMT guardian.co.uk)

See the article here.

Brit Insurance Designs of the Year

Went to see this exhibition at the Design Museum yesterday, it was brilliant! Lots of really interesting work, a couple of things that were relevant to my own project. Former Goldsmiths students from two years above me were nominated for 'The Incidental'. The exhibition design itself was really nice, and I found it inspiring for our degree show. The room our show will be in has no windows and lots of pillars like this, and it made me see that it is possible to create a really interesting show in a space like this. Also, by grouping the projects in categories, like 'sustainable' or 'conceptual' the many varied things on display make sense. I thought the exhibition design was great.


After the Design Museum I went to Spitalfields to pick something up. Saw these bunnies (part of the east festival I think) and thought they were really funny.

I had a helpful tutorial yesterday with a different tutor to normal. She suggested someone I could speak to about making the web design easier, who I'll see on Monday. Once I've got some advice, I'll set myself a deadline to finish the web design, and then leave it for a few weeks and come back to it with fresh eyes.

In the meantime, I'm mapping and exploring possibilities for local interaction, as a result of the website. I'm going to organise some events that would happen, like cooking lessons, and record them as part of the project, as films or photos.

Today I also sent letters to some major supermarkets and to Defra, explaining my project and finding out if they were interested. It would be brilliant to make this project real.

Wire frame mapping and key image

I've been using post-it notes on my desk to build up a wire frame map of the website, which I've then written out in full (above). I've found this really challenging - especially thinking of appropriate titles for each category of the site - I'm still not happy with the words!

Below, you can see an example layout of a page, which I've made using InDesign. I'm thinking more about layout and content than colour at the moment - these colours are quite boring and probably not appropriate.

To help me define my project, ready for the degree show, I've started a weekly task of summarising it in 100 words or less, and picking a key image which explains the project. This week's words:

The aim of my project is to make consumer food choices easier and simpler, while considering welfare, ethics, food miles, nutrition, budget and location. I am designing a website to help people eat sustainably, which will include a healthy, ethical, seasonal, cheap meal planner, and will feature community cooking workshops and volunteer schemes.

I've also been looking at some interesting websites:

Seed to Plate

I like the design of this site. It's all about growing food.

Food For Kent

'Order fresh, local produce online' - not sure how local the produce is though - not specific enough. Not clear where imported produce comes from.

Guerriilla Gardeners of Elephant & Castle

Online community. Watch the movie!

Guildhall Library

This library has a whole collection just on food - old fashioned cook books, etc. I want to go and visit.

Garden Museum

'THE GOOD LIFE...100 YEARS OF GROWING YOUR OWN' is the current exhibition. Finishes on 7th March so not sure if I'll get chance to see it.

Fight Supermarket Power

I didn't get the chance to go to this free conference by 'War on Want' on Saturday - I saw it advertised in Time Out. Would have really liked to go. The description reads: 'Join War on Want for an inspiring day of debate, discussion and practical workshops on building local alternatives; workers fighting back; stopping the sale of Israeli settlement produce; and who controls our food.' The War on Want website looks excellent anyway.