Alexandra Davis

This project was to create a well-designed kitsch package that allows you to see the product (ie a cutout or window). This project must be printed on one side, however, there are no color limitations. I view kitsch as a product that's a bit silly and out there, something that's not particularly "mainstream" (though I'd consider "Liquid Death" mainstream and kitsch).

Research and Brainstorming

Brainstorming - General ideas

Brainstorming - Names

Initial product Pinterest research.

Windowed packaging research.

To get started, I first looked at some examples of kitsch products, mostly from Obvious Plant, to get a feel of how silly and weird I could be. Once I got a good amount I started to look a bit more into packaging, mostly windowed packaging, to see how to work around the window, and just to try and think of some interesting dies or ways to incorporate a window.

Once I had a better idea of the direction I wanted to go in, I started to brainstorm names and did a bit more guided and focused research and inspiration snooping. My top ideas were an anti-anxiety thing that would just be weighted cats but in a style that it was prescribed to you, a "corporations are people" clown costume, an alcohol of some sort, and a ghost box (I really liked the idea of selling nothing).

Sketches and Doodles

"3D" sketches

Flat sketches (attempted, then given up)

Company name doodles

Parent company doodles

For my doodles, I first did "3D" renders of them, because my brain just cannot think of the flat product first. I wanted to try and get down at least two different types of packaging for each of my ideas, then I moved on to trying to make flat versions.

I was feeling really frustrated with trying to picture and draw dies and ended up just moving on by finding and settling with a pre-existing die-line and altering it as necessary (why I didn't do that in the beginning? I was trying to be big and bold and creative to think of my own unique shape, but spent a lot of time doing stuff that didn't actually end up feeling all that helpful or groundbreaking).

Thumbnails - Flat

Porcher's carton thumbnail

Porcher's bottle label thumbnail

"Corporations are People" clown costume thumbnail.

Ghost box "Umbra" thumbnail

Example of clown meme.

At this point, I still felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I had a hard time even just sitting down to start. What ended up getting me to start, was just convincing myself that I'm actually still just sketching and doodling, it doesn't have to be good, it just has to be something, and have a layout of some sort.

Coming up with names is so hard, for the beer I ended up just using a random name generator, and went until I found something that sounded suitably yeasty and bready: "Porchers." I struggled with Porcher's a bit because as I kept going, I kept having different ideas of how to incorporate the bread (I wanted to go really bread-heavy with it.) But just kept trucking on, trying not to erase and just reminding myself they are changes I can make in the next stage.

For the clown costume, I named it "TruColors" just because it felt silly and funny, with a slogan something like "Show your true colors!" and your true colors are just that you're an absolute clown. I wanted the side to be the classic clown meme, but to be it instructions on applying makeup and such (as the original meme was taken from) but of course, I'd have to still make it my own.

For my ghost box, my idea stemmed from "how can I sell someone nothing?" and so I thought of selling a ghost, to "get haunted for real!" I chose "Umbra" as the name, as it means shadow in Latin. I really struggled with this layout, I loved the idea, but just struggled with the window I think. In class review suggested leaning more into a My Little Pony vibe, but for a demon, just to help push it a bit further.
Though I look back on it and think "oof" it's fun to see all the little bits that still carried over through the stages, but evolved! (Particularly the malevolence meter, which had to stay somehow.)

Thumbnails - DummY

Blank dummies

I did print and make dummies of some dies I had chosen, just blank and as big as I could get on just a letter-size page. To get a bit of an idea of where I was going, and that's pretty much where that train of thought stops. I apologize for how pitiful and crushed they look. The transport didn't go so well for 'em.

Because of how unmotivated I was, I just couldn't convince myself to use my pens or markers, and that bled over into convincing myself that it was pointless to assemble the dummies if they weren't fully penned. Looking now, I see that's a bit silly of me, and I should have just assembled them even just as the pencil sketches they are.

I realize I could do that now, as I'm sitting here writing this after the whole project has been due, but it feels a bit like cheating to me. It also defeats the purpose of assembling dummies early on anyway. The time to learn from my thumbnail dummies has come and gone, and that is actually a shame.

Intermediates - FLAT

Porchers carton intermed

Porchers bottle label intermed

Porchers proof of concept (toasted bread idea, to help envision the hand compt)

Doodles on trying to make a cute demon mascot and simple imagery to make into a pattern.

My Little Demon intermediate

It took me forever to sit down and get this part done. I wasn't feeling great about the ghost box idea and felt like it had a million things to solve. I know it could technically be just a really nice type layout and not be image-heavy, but my thumbnail just wasn't that inspiring and I never feel confident about drawing things.

(I'm really out here getting an art degree and someone will say "hey, you should make art for this thing" and my gut reaction is always "why the hell would I do that? I'm not an artist!" it's a me issue, but golly, I'd like to get over that reaction and have more confidence in my work. It's easy to have confidence in my work retroactively, but never in the moment.)

So naturally, I sat down to work on the ghost box first, since I felt more excited about Porchers. I ended up changing it to "My Little Demon" to lean a bit more into cutesy My Little Pony vibes and away from the darker gloomy dusty be-haunted-by-a-cranky-old-white-dude vibes. I looked at Pinterest for some "cute horror" and "cute demon" to help get some sparks ignited, as well as hot sauce bottles to build upon my "malevolence" meter idea. I did end up taking a lot of things from my thumbnail (thank goodness) but definitely built and improved upon them! I struggled with figuring out what to do with the little bits above and below the window, I think I solved it pretty okay though!

The struggle came again when after I finished My Little Demon, I felt so proud and awesome (especially since I trudged to the table to get it done in the first place) that now I didn't feel as confident about Porchers. On the bright side, because I originally had so many thoughts in mind of Porchers, I was able to get the intermediate done much quicker. I wanted to make the handles look like bread (I know the die doens't reflect that very well, but I knew and that's what counts) and I added some crumbs to the top of the carton as well.

INTERMEDIATES - Dummy

Oh the importance of dummies! I'd have been so screwed (well really, just inconvenienced and cranky because of it) if I hadn't done proper dummies by this time. So much easier to be less mad when you DIDN'T print something out full size just to find out you goofed.

I had changed the depth of the My Little Demon box, but when I did that, failed to change measurements for the top and bottom, so it wasn't able to close properly. Also on the lid, it needed to be flipped. In my head it was supposed to be right facing for when you open it, after I put it together it was like "Oh, that's silly, if it's on a lower shelf you wanna be able to see it, not for when you're opening it." Sometimes you do something, and the outcome is so obvious that you're not sure what you thought was gonna happen.

For Porchers, when it was all assembled, the printed side of the handles actually faced each other, instead of outward. My solution was just to cut a slit so they could criss-cross over each other, and in turn, it actually made it ever so slightly more structurally sound, and we'll take as much of that as we can get!

Final Hand Comp - Flat

Far too big for the scanner, you'll have to settle for this! For my dummies, I did scan it, but as I was assembling it in many pieces, it was okay, but trying to piece the scans together for a good-looking flat, is a bit harder. I felt much more confident going into this part, but just the size of it made it a bit tedious to pencil it, pen it, then marker it. Because of that, I opted to not complete the large panel of pattern, as I felt the small side panel was a good enough indication for what I was going for. For my dummy though, I snipped out two rows of the pattern in photoshop to make my full pattern panel so the dummy would still get it, as it IS still an important part.

Final Hand Comp - Dummy

At this point I had also found a jar and ordered a figure, so I finally had a little demon to base the profile picture on! The jar I had found was glass though which presented an issue with the structural integrity. In the "real world" (I hate, that, I know what it means, but I still hate it) it wouldn't be such an issue to build a box that can house a heavy figure and heavy glass jar, but it's harder for me. So I started looking into some plastic jars, which meant I would have to remeasure again but would hopefully save me a lot of heartache.

Computer Progressions

First computer prog

First computer prog dummy - front

First computer prog dummy - front/side

First computer prog dummy - back

First computer prog dummy - back/side

When I first got to this point, I was feeling really great! I found a plastic jar, and figured out how to fit my figure in it well (after breaking it, which my dad quickly helped repair) and just solving that little part of it really helped motivate me to make something awesome.

Then shit just kinda hit the fan, not really in terms of issues with the project itself, but issues with life. My dad had fallen off the roof and I had watched it happen and just the whole thing was really scary, so the whole weekend was just making sure he was okay, and it just became really hard to even want to work on it.

I'm thankful for how tight I had gotten on my hand comp, so it made layout easy, but there were elements that just needed TIME to work on, mostly the illustrations, as I wanted them to be digitally drawn so I could make it as symmetrical as possible. Because of this, this first output has quite a bit of placeholders. Mostly with large portions of text but also with profile picture of the demon on the side.

Second computer prog

I never printed out this final black and white computer prog, but I'm extremely thankful for all the feedback I had gotten from class, and I'm glad I finally found the energy to create the demon for the side. At this point, it's just a rush to get color done.

Color Studies

I did play with the color quite a bit with the pattern, but I was in just a panic rush to get it done I didn't particularly think to stop and document the things I felt like were clearly not working. I'm not in love with the color, clearly more color studies are needed, but for being in panic, it's not the worst decision I've ever made.

Final

And so we finally made it here, after a bit of a struggle. Everything in me wanted to just let myself turn everything in late, it was actually my therapist who convinced me to work my ass off to turn something in on that Wednesday because "when you have a client, a due date will come and you'll still have to turn up with what you have and pitch it well" so I met her half-way by agreeing to strictly focus on the project itself, and put the website work on the back burner to turn that portion in late, instead of the whole thing.

So, my apologies for getting the website work to you so late; it made it to you with minimal crying though, which is what counts!