INTREPIDATION
Oscar Ling-Cottey
BA Illustration & Visual Media
Year 3
When you are faced with the possibility of creating practically anything you want, it can seem impossible to know where to start. What usually helps me is making mind maps to get my ideas out of my head and onto pages in front of me to create sketches from. Mind maps have always been conflicting to me because I like order and structure in whatever I do, but mind maps are often messy and chaotic, so when I make one it feels wrong, yet it works for me. Of course, I could make a neat and tidy mind map, but as a self-proclaimed perfectionist, I know I would spend far too long on the details when it is the ideas that are the most important factor. To me, this shows that we all need a little chaos in our lives.
I considered many ideas in my mind maps for this project, such as making a comic book, projection mapping, an installation, furniture, to name a few, and while it may not come across this way in the photos you see to the left, I wanted whatever outcomes I made to relate to ONE BAD DAY.
So, what is ONE BAD DAY?
Essentially, ONE BAD DAY is an idea I conceptualised that conveys togetherness through the notion that we all have at least one bad day in our lives. No matter who you are, everyone has tough times, which creates a sense of relatability. Subsequently, I turned this idea into a brand.
In its current state, ONE BAD DAY predominantly exists as minimal illustrations on my Instagram page (@onebadday_official), depicting my brand mascot, 'Obdob', going through unfortunate circumstances that could typically be the catalyst to a bad day. You get an idea for how Obdob is feeling in these moments, but you do not necessarily feel bad for them as there is an unspoken comedic quality to seeing someone other than yourself experience an inconvenience, such as dropping your ice cream, being chased by seagulls, or, on an exaggerated level, being abducted by aliens.
I purposefully opted for a simplistic art style as it makes the imagery easy to view and understand for any age. The combination of black and white makes for a bold and contrasting image, while the minimal use of colour in each illustration helps to draw the viewer's eye to the primary subject matter. I also ensured that Obdob was devoid of any race or gender to promote inclusivity.
It is my intention to market ONE BAD DAY on a global scale, and I hope that by making my final university project about my brand I have made the necessary start towards making this happen. One might say I am too ambitious, but that ambition is what drives me to succeed.
One of my preferred ideas from my first mind map was to explore product design as it is a type of design that I have been interested in pursuing for a few years but have shied away from because it was always beyond my expertise. However, based on my working performance from previous projects, I have found that my best outcomes derive from pushing myself out of my comfort zone, so this is exactly what I intended to do for this project.
As an initial step for my research, I took a self-initiated trip to the Design Museum to look for product design inspiration. For part of my trip, I visited a new exhibition titled, 'Objects of Desire: Surrealism and Design', which explores the conception of the surrealist movement in the 1920s and the impact it has had on the design world ever since. While surrealism is not my favourite form of design, I was intrigued by the objects that had a strong focus on both form and function and took photos of them to use as potential inspiration for my own work. At this point, I was unsure what product I wanted to make, but the one thing I was sure about was that I wanted my product to be useful, not just be something someone buys on a whim and then shoves in a draw to never be seen again.
As one of the outcomes for this project needed to be something you could sell, I figured that t-shirts would be a sensible choice as it aligned with my intentions to sell clothing through my brand. Since my mid-teenage years, clothing has been an outlet for self-expression and showcasing my personality. The style, colours, and patterns of a garment can greatly influence how another person sees you, and as upper-body garments are typically the item of clothing people see first (unless you are wearing a jumper or jacket), this makes t-shirts one of the most important pieces of an outfit.
T-shirts with a small graphic printed on the front and large one on the back are my personal preference whenever I buy a t-shirt for myself. In my opinion, you are getting more value for your money than t-shirts with only one print on the front since 2 prints are better than 1, right? This is the style of t-shirt I want to produce as one of my project outcomes. The t-shirts will also be predominantly targeted towards Gen-Z since I am part of this demographic and, therefore, have more of an understanding on what this generation likes in clothing as opposed to other generations.
One day while I was wandering around London, I went into Selfridges purely out of boredom. If there is ever a toy section in a store, I always wind up there because, really, I am still a kid at heart. If I did not feel the pressure of being an adult I would spend all of my money on LEGO sets, action figures, and video games. But that's beside the point... As I ventured into the toy section in Selfridges, I came across a small area where second-hand toys had been donated and were now being sold for cheap. As I mused over the hundreds, if not thousands of action figures on display, I was reminded of all the action figures I used to own as a child and how much joy they brought to me when I was growing up. I fondly remember a time when my dad went on a business trip to London, and on his return he presented an action figure of The Joker that he bought from Hamley's for me. The level of pure elation I felt in that moment is a feeling I believe every child should experience, and so from this I came up with the idea to produce my own action figures as another outcome alongside my graphic t-shirts.
As part of my research into action figures, I ventured into the Forbidden Planet flagship store to gather references on what design elements and product information to include on the packaging for my own action figures. I had a thorough look around the store and selected a few figures from different manufacturing companies to see how they compared to one another. Some of these figures were made by largescale toy manufacturers, like McFarlane Toys and Kenner, while others were made by slightly smaller companies, such as Mego Corporation and National Entertainment Collectibles Association (NECA).
Each of the figures' packaging contained a lot of the same basic elements, such as card backing accentuated with bold and colourful graphics to make the product stand out, and were also printed with a glossy finish; transparent plastic to protect the figure while also allowing the consumer to see what it looks like; a hole at the top for the product to be hung on a Euro hook; brand logos; choking hazard warning labels, and product photos of the figure. As action figures are products in their own right, I intend to produce multiple editions to sell alongside my t-shirts, and so to create an item that is good enough to sell I would need to include all of the aforementioned elements. In regards to who I would sell to, my action figures will be targeted towards 2 demographics: children above the age of 3-years-old who play with action figures, and toy collectors.
I thought it would be a good idea to create a product stand to display my action figures in the graduate show, so I wandered around central London, heading into all of the mainstream toy stores I could think of to find design inspiration. These included Hamleys, FAO Schwarz in Selfridges, the LEGO flagship store, and the Disney store. Of course, I am aware of the toy store in Harrods, but after visiting all the stores on my list I was satisfied with the amount of references I had collected.
Most of the examples I found were in Hamleys, which was to be expected with it being the largest toy store in the world. Out of the examples I gathered, there were 2 that stood out to me: the Playmobil stand, and the Barbie stand. What I liked about the Playmobil stand was the large character statue; I could easily see this transferring over to my brand mascot. Even though in principle this display type is quite simple, having something big and tall is a sure-fire method of attracting attention to your product. If I used the same approach for my display stand, whereby I had a large-scale version of my brand mascot, Obdob, I am sure this would bring in lots of footfall.
I was also attracted to the Barbie stand based on a few factors. Like the Playmobil stand, it was big but also featured cardboard cut-outs of scaled-up Barbie dolls, which vgives the consumer a feeling as if the Barbie dolls are there with you as real people. Additionally, the stand had a large-scale version of its logo at the top of its main display to clearly indicate which brand you were looking at, and even included a TV screen and interactive display for children to customise their own virtual Barbie doll. This added level of interactivity gave me ideas on how I might use similar methods for my own display.