The Imaginative Paper Shop
This was a project that was done during the second year of my university studies. As a group we were tasked with selecting a brief from a list of briefs that were actually for student competitions, which we then had to fulfil and send away as an entry to said competition. The brief I selected was part of the 'You Can Now' student awards, and was set by the company Fedrigoni, who specialised in paper creation and selling. In short their brief allowed me to create any physical outcomes I wanted, as long I was was making the public aware of the new space that they were opening in the London Graphics Centre. I had never worked on a competition brief before, and was a little nervous about sending my work for judges and other creatives to view, even so I set about starting the project
The first piece I created was a poster, that could be hung in museums etc. or just anywhere that creatives would be able to view it. I didn't want to just make a poster though, Fedrigoni was looking for outcomes that showed what paper was capable of, and as such didn't want a piece that used a lot of print based work. Instead I decided that the main piece would have large cut and fold out letters, with just the logo and location actually printed onto it. The one thing the piece was missing was colour, I didn't just want the black of the ink and the white paper to be the only thing people saw. This explains why I decided to have multiple layers of colour behind the front sheet. In trying to show the 'paper isn't just white', I used coloured sheets of the same size, with the same letters cut out, each popping through the gaps, so the poster had a more three dimensional look. I honestly feel that these coloured segments showed that there are a million possibilities of what you could do with paper, even if you did start from a white canvas.
As much as I personally love the poster, it wasn't the only creation that came out of this project. Mentioned at the beginning was the idea of invitation, which lead to me creating some invites of my own that could be used to invite customers to the opening of the space, or even to events that might be held at a later date. Again however, I didn't want these to just be plain pieces, I wanted to show that paper had something different to offer. This lead to me creating my own invite holders, which would have a message on cut out on the front, hoping to entice whoever received it to want to look at what was inside, I settled for the messages 'Come On In' and 'An Evening With', as they didn't fully explain what was inside the holder, but I felt gave a sense of wonder to the receiver. What was inside? Was it important? All questions I hoped they would asked themselves if they did indeed get one of the invites.
The invites themselves would be coloured, that way the message cut from the holder would shine through clearly, and the colour would hopefully be more intriguing, luring people in once more. The use of colour also meant that events could be coloured coordinated, for example I used yellow for the opening of the space, and blue as the colour for a fake event I created to show my idea. As for the text, well it would be easy to read, and clear to understand, I wanted to give the impression that buying with Fedrigoni was simple, and having a busy invite that readers would have to decode wouldn't have given that impression. I decided that the main point was the location of the space, and as such this was written in a bold font, just to show that it was a little bit more important than the rest of the information. These invites would slip easily in and out of the holder, and were only A5 sized, as to make them effortless to carry to and from the space should recipients need to.
The final creation in this project was a little something that came when I received some paper samples in the mail. The samples I got were A4 size, which I found strange considering if I didn't use them, they would just go to waste. As well as this Fedrigoni stated that they were a company who wanted to help save the planet, so I decided to create a different way of delivering sample paper. Again I created a little holder, just a bit bigger than a credit card, which would have the Fedrigoni logo cut out of it, reminiscent of the invite holders. Inside would sit a number of sample paper cuts, which were the size of a credit card. These would have the name and weight of the colour on them, and were various colours, just to keep with the theme of colour showing through white paper. I felt that if someone found a paper that they liked, they could then simply put this sample piece in their wallet or purse and show it to a worker at the store. If I was receiving a paper sample I would want it to be something I could easily take to the shop, and I thought that it would also benefit the customers of Fedrigoni too.
All in all I was pleased with the outcomes that I had created, and I truly felt that they answered the brief in a suitable manner. After seeing what I had created, I wasn't as worried about sending them off to be judged, as I was quite proud of what I had made. I hoped that I would get the feeling more often, the more project I worked on. But at least I can say it was a start.
