OUGD603 EXTENDED PRACTICE: UK GREETINGS - INITIAL IDEAS & SURVEY

To come up with an idea for the theme of Modern Love, following on from the initial primary and secondary research, I creating two mind maps, one thinking about the aesthetic style of the cards, and the other thinking about exactly I mean by "Modern Love", who is my target audience.

Following on from these mind maps, I decided to do some initial sketches. I also decided to go down the character route, as I thought this would be the most logical way to create gender neutral anniversary cards, whilst still having people in them. I wanted to take these characters down a very simple route, one which tried to steer clear off everyday objects, as these are quite common amongst current cards on the market.

This idea wasn't working, as it was too broad, so a mind map was created thinking of the phrase "we go together like..." as this is a very simple, romantic phrase which can be associated to a whole range of people. These things were thought of from myself, two things that work best in pairs, but the internet was also used to come up with some of these as well.

Following on from the above spider diagram, these objects were then drawn out, to see how they would look together, and how I could interpret them into drawings. Some of these worked quite nicely (cactus and balloon, salt and pepper), but others didn't (hugs and kisses).

Symbol Development
The idea using the male and female symbol as people was developed further, using marbelling as a fill pattern for the heads, to inject a bit of colour without going down the male and female colour route. These are really simple but effective designs, and can be easily adapted for any gender or sexual orientation couple.
A flaw with this idea though was that it’s success came in it’s simplicity, but this meant that it was difficult to come up with 4 separate designs or situations which were different enough not to be mistaken as the same one, without appearing too complicated or cluttered.

I was a little stuck on what to do for the designs for these cards, so I decided to create a survey asking people about anniversary cards, as they are a very personal thing, and this will also inform the direction of this brief.

The questions:
1) I am... (male, female, transgender, other)
2) My age is...
3) I am... (heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, other)
4) Are you in/have you ever been in a relationship?
5) Who would you buy an anniversary card for?
6) What do you look for in an anniversary card?
7) How much thought do you put in to choosing the right anniversary card?
8) Where would you look to buy an anniversary card from?
9) Do you think there is enough variety out there for LBGT+, inter racial, unmarried or young couples?
10) Do you struggle to find an appropriate anniversary card that suits the style you're after?


This survey should hopefully allow me to find out what people think of anniversary cards in general, and there opinions about the variety for LGBT+, inter racial, unmarried and young couples, which is the main area I am looking at as my target audience at the moment. This will definitely influence the direction this brief takes, as the people get what the people want.