Concept - Lateral thinking workshop

A workshop in lateral thinking.


Good is .......The English Sweetie Apple


1 What makes it good?

• Grown in English orchards
• Travels a short distance before you eat it
• Picked one day, eaten the next - 'FRESH'
• Pedigree -Cross between a Gala & Braeburn, sister of Jazz
• Sweet, Crisp & Juicy

2 Who would find it good?

• Apple eaters who want to source locally
• Sellers who want to source locally
• 'Sweetie' may appeal to children
• Sellers who want a product with a long shelf life
• Apple eaters who go for 'good lookin' apples

3.Who wouldn't find it good?

• Adults aged 21 to 50 who have learned through experience that they dislike British apples
• Sellers who may not take a risk on a new product
• Adults aged 21 to 50 who don't eat or like apples
• Adults aged 21 to 50 who buy their favourite variety and don't like change

4.The English Sweetie apple is so good it is be better than a Pink lady apple because:

• Fresh
• Not travelled between 5000 and 11,500 miles before you eat it
• Grown in English orchards
• English apples have less pesticides and fungicides due to strict regulation by DEFRA and FSA
• Its better looking
• Available between Sept and December
• It supports English orchards and ecosytems (Bees)

5 If my Sweetie apple had a profession it would be :

• An Olympic athlete
• A Super Model
• A Grandslam Tennis player
• A premiership footballer
• A Navy seal

6 if my Sweeties apple was a celebrity they would be:

• Pippa Middleton
• Kiera Knightly
• Bonnie Wright
• Gemma Arteton
• Elle Macperherson

7 If my Sweetie apple were a place they would be :

• Kent - The garden of England
• The Forest of Bowland
• Herefordshire
• Harrogate
• Palperro

8 If my Sweetie apple were an event it would be

• The London Half Marathon
• Olham Athletic beating Manchester United
• A Health exhibition
• Celebrity Masterchef

9 If your good was a product what would it be:

• IPhone 5

We then chose the 9 answers to focus and be more specific for a pin up.

Good is .... The English Sweeties Apple

1. Sweet, crisp & Juicy

2. Apple eaters who want to source locally

3. Adults aged 21-50 years who dont like/eat English Apples

4. Its grown in English orchards

5. An Actor

6. Kiera Knightly

7. England on a sunny day

8. I-phone 5

The re-thought list came out as follows:

Good is....An English 'Sweeties' apple

1. Sweet, Crisp & Juicy - Because it is 

2. Apple eaters who want to buy and eat local

3. Imported apple eaters with a favourite brand ie pink lady, Golden Delicious

4.  The Sweetie Apple is so good it is better than a Pink lady because it has not travelled 11,500 miles before your eat it

5. The profession an Olympic Athlete - Young, healthy and perfectly formed

6.  Bonnie Wright - Fresh faced, talented & Beautiful

7. The place would be Kent - The Garden of England in Autumn or Spring because Sunshine, 

8.  The event would be the London half marathon end of September- Promotes heath, wellbeing & fitness

9.  The product would be an Iphone 5 - The latest gadget on the horizon with new improved feature- Slick, shiney and New


From this we had to identify a brand or identity or logo relating to each statement or word.

Apples more research

English fruit marketing

Design for print - Illustrator

Using software to correct specification for commercial print


Illustrator

Colour mode  - CMYK for print 

To fill a shape either select fill or stoke double click use colour picker to chose colour

Use options bar to chose preset swatch colour

Use the CMYK sliders on the colour picker

Can use the swatches pallet menu to delete swatches or simply select all and delete all

Or select all unused colours / delete

Important not to use Registration black for colour work as 100% CMYK which will result in too much ink on paper

To add a new swatch - select colour on Colour pallet , click on menue, create a new swatch

OR

Directly from the Swatches pallet

The Global box on a colour if ticked can be useful.  If you change the % of CMY or K every area coloured with that colour will change colour

Another advantage of a Global colour swatch is you can also change the tint. 

SPOT colours

A single ready mixed colour applied using its own printing plate,

1.  often used when a colour outside the CMYK colour gamut is needed.  
2. Cost - ceaper to use a 2 colour print job 
3. Corporate/brand colours which are not mixed so consistancy across literature

Colours can be depicted using Pantone reference numbers which are different for difefrent stocks ie Coated, uncoated, metallic

To access Spot colours use the Swatch menu

Swatch library

Colour books - Pantone

Pantone solid = Spot colour

Pantone process = CMYK

Select small list view from the menu

Can use the find field to search a specific ref. no.

 Always keep the Pantone spot colour correct ref no. so can be identified by a printer.

Saving the pallet

Swatch menu save library as AI (other illustrator file)

Ensure saved in home folder 

Choose in Swatch library (User defined) or look in another library

Can save as .aes format to use in Indesign and Photoshop

Printing with Spot Colours at the Commercial printers

Produce separations - Individual positives

For a grayscale PO

Use 'Output' option

Mode - Separations (Host based)

What is good - Concept & Rationale

I have focussed from English apples even more, to a particular variety called a'Sweetie' apple.  This apple is being introduced to British orchards Nov 2011 with the first harvest Sept 2012.


So the concept will be Good is.... The English 'Sweetie' apple.


As I have carried out the research it has struck me that the apple 'success' stories have had not just huge promotion but have also had a brand/identity.


The rationale will be designing a Brand/Identity for the English Sweetie Apple which has the potential to compete with the imported 'Pink Lady' brand. This may include considering the Packaging and Promotion as well. 


What am I trying to communicate?
Introduce a new variety to the English market which can hold its own against imports and the fact it has not travelled up to 11,500 miles before you eat it.


What do I hope to achieve?
Change learned behaviour and buying habits towards English apples


How will I use Design and print?
Design a 'logo' and strapline that represents the Sweetie brand.  Use this to create promotional information and packaging.  Investigate innovative food packaging as another promotional tool when introducing a new product to the market.  Educate and inform


Audience?


Well educated aged 25 - 50 years old.  




What is already out there and how can I use this?


I have started researching Le Crunch for French Golden delicious and Pink Lady.  Pink Lady launch their apples into a country with huge campaigns and I am going to look into this more closely.  there websites are selling a lifestyle not just an apple.  Identify precisly what people like most about Pink lady apples.  I have also found some interesting international research carried out by a NZ apple cultivator about why people buy apples.  I am going to consider this more closely to see if this can inform my outcome.
Current convention is to label apples and the labelled apples seem to say 'premium' to people... 






































  

fruit packaging - what is out there?

www.adare.com

The success of the Pink lady Brand

2010 Pink Lady campaign

Simple strapline:

Laser etching on fruit

An article introducing the idea in America

The technology was invented by Greg Drouillard, the director of research technology for laser development for Sunkist Growers Inc., in Sherman Oaks, Calif., according to the Packer, a trade publication for the packing industry. Time called it one of the best inventions of 2005
.

"It can print anything," Drouillard tells the Packer. "The criteria of what determines what you're printing are how fast the product is moving on the packing line and how big the product is. How much of the tomato do you want to cover with information?"

Narciso says their tests of the technology shows that it can print on just about any fruit and vegetable.

The comments on the website are also quite revealing .... US people don't seem t like this idea!

An article from 2005 Gives background to traditional labelling with downsides.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/19/dining/19fruit.html?pagewanted=print

A humorous take on using laser etched food instead of the Business Card.

Food Standards Agency info about label adhesives

Apple packaging

What's currently available?


Chelan Fresh Marketing

Enter the Grapple which is a hybrid of the Washington Apple and Concord Grapes. The Washington based creators of the Grapples claim that eating grapples gives you all the nutritional value of an apple, with the sweet taste of grapes -- Though it does look more like an apple. One Grapple has 80 calories, 22 grams of carbs and 16 grams of sugar. They are a great alternative for nabbing a sweet tooth instead of other high calorie, processed snacks.

http://www.21food.com/products/double-fruit-foam-net-(packing-apple)-77888.html

http://bestinpackaging.wordpress.com/page/7/

Martin’s Family Fruit Farm Ltd, one of Canada’s largest apple growers recently designed a new packaging for their apple gift boxes. Martin’s is also setting up an on-line service enabling the customer to order apples via the website which are then delivered across Canada, with a delivery within 2 days, while the shipment can be tracked on- line by the customer.
The apples are protected in a food grade foam to ensure that the apples arrive in optimum condition which the company guarantees. The pack also includes information on the variety of apples and a recipe booklet. The gift box is packed in an outer box for shipping so the attractive high graphic gift box makes an unique nutritional gift.

Spellman Walker site visit

Jury Service came in useful for something!  The Commercial Manager from Spellman Walker was on my Jury panel.   He very kindly offered to let me have a look around the factory from Estimating through planning, pre-press, proofing to the shop floor, recycling and storage.


Their client base is mainly commercial serving Banks and Insurance companies although they also serve The Public sector, Museums and also work closely with some charities.  One client,a successful international flooring company has the ambition to be carbon zero by 2020.  To support their client they part sponsored the production of their Fairworks publication. Practically on site they recycle all their waste paper which is compacted and sold on for recycling.


To be competitive they also offer clients a storage and distribution service whereby clients can go online and order promotional material from the Storage warehouse.  They also have agreements with all the major paper merchants to stock large quantities of paper on a consignment stock basis to reduce delays on tight deadline work.  This provides flexibility; receive an urgent order on a Friday and be able to deliver on a Monday morning.


Unfortunately due to strict client confidentiality I couldn't take photographs. 


The tour started in their Estimating office, the first point of contact with receipt of a client order.  This department raises a job to calculate paper and production costs.  This is passed on to Production Planning who slot the job into the planning schedule on the appropriate press.  The job file is past through to pre-press where the design team check the files for errors and prepare to upload on their 'Prinergy' workflow system for proofing.  Areas that Designers can get wrong are omitting bleed (Spellman use 3mm), trapping (pg 126, Production manual), using spot colours which aren't CMYK, using RGB images or images which have too low resolution or too high.  


The client usually signs off a PDF proof although the Heidelberg presses are calibrated to the Epson plotters in their office.  So when a client actually signs the print proof off, what they see will be what they get.


The Planning team then set up the files imposition template on 'Upfront' imposition software and basically prepare the job for the printers on the shop floor.  The instruction contains information such as stock, a colour band, no of prints. They also define fold marks, cut marks and various other line up marks as appropriate. The aluminium plates can then be prepared to start the Offset Lithography printing (P 152, Production Manual)  


Their Heidelberg Press Hall boasts 2 B1 Speedmaster CD 102 presses, each offering six colours and a coating unit, together with 2 B2 presses – a Speedmaster CD 74 five colour machine with coater unit and a Speedmaster SM 72 two colour perfecting press. 

Heidelberg B1 CD102 

Additionally they operate a Sanwa die-cutting and creasing machine which is used for folders, pockets and complex cut-outs. Last month they added a 10 colour press which print both sides in a single run.  This offers them the ability to run high volume runs very quickly.  


Sheets of paper are delivered on pallets and are sized to fit directly at the beginning of the press.  The press is computerised and the job is set up in the system.  The printers still use colour densiometers to check and adjust colour. They also have Image checking software which colour matches to the colour bars automatically and is capable of automatically adjusting the press.  Some presses print one sided so each run will be pass through the press twice but the more recent ones are capable of double sided prints in one pass.

The guillotine machines are also programmed with various templates so the operator just needs to line the sheets of paper in the guillotines.  The folds are also created via a machine although an operator is requited to feed in and bundle them out.  The guidelines printed on the paper are essential for lining sheets so they are correctly cut and folded.  The stitching and stapling is also automated.


Although in recent years technology has reduced a Print shops workforce considerably there is still a need for a Printers eye and also operators to handle machinery and facilitate processes.




A Spellman Walker promotional calendar designed by The Chase: