The 'Frijj Milkshakes' new Packaging soon to hit the shelves...

Having a browse through the latest edition of Design Week that lay on the shelf in the union shop, I came across this article about the new packaging of the Frijj milkshakes. The company Design Activity were given the project about three months ago to redesign the packaging for Dairy Crest's milkshake Frijj. The brief was to adjust the colourways across the range of milkshakes to reflect the natural make-up of the product.

According to the creative director Pat Starke, the packaging is now easier to recycle, with a zipper device at the back to peel off the wrap. The typography on the packaging has also been altered to give it more character. It seems now that many companies are becoming more and more aware of the current environmental issues of this day and age. Ultimately, like with most products on the shelf, it is the packaging that accounts for a lot of the waste, that pollutes the environment we live in today.

I definitely take my hat off to the company Design Activity for this one.........coming up with such an idea that is not only easier to recycle but also reflects the character of the milkshake itself. I look forward to seeing it on the shelf, despite having never actually tried a Frijj milkshake before. Having read about the new packaging though, it certainly makes me want to try it, if not just for the packaging, then to definitely take the taste test.

Environmental issues & creating an e-card

A project that I am doing for one of my modules this term requires me to create an e-card. ........A what?? Some of you may ask.........yes an ecard......you know one of those cards that maybe you sometimes receive via an email and you pretty much just press delete straight away. Anyway, I have decided to look at environmental issues within the office workplace. In terms of the specific target audience for the e-card the receivers will be the actual workers within an office........ in other words people working in the office environment. As for the people who I intend targeting to want to send my e-card, they will be those responsible for environmental issues within the office workplace. So in other words people who look at making the office environment more environmentally friendly.

I came up with the idea of having an animation of a bin alongside an image of the world and a thermometer next to it. The audience would be able to fill up the bin by clicking on the FILL button and as the bin became fuller, it appeared more distressed and so too did the world. The temperature of the world on the thermometer would also gradually increase the more full the bin became with paper. Here are a few images of the bin character I have created. As you can the bin is very happy that is empty and so paper is not being wasting but infact recycled.





As the bin starts to fill up, he becomes more distressed because it is obviously harmful to the environment.



A little bit more paper........ and you see he starts to get hot under the collar..........he is not a happy bin at all!



Again a bit more paper...........the bin is nearly in tears.



And full to the brim.........the bin is thinking is it too late to save the environment now.

My idea needs to be more target audience specific.........the cartoon image of the bin targets a younger more teenager specific audience rather than older say twenty years and over office workers. I thought I would share my cartoon bin with you on my blog because I think he's quite cute. What do you reckon?

Leeds Bin Collection Crisis = OVER!!

After about two months of living in our lovely new house in Headingly, the bin strike, which has been ongoing since we arrived mid September has finally come to an end!!!! This Monday, it was officially declared overrrrr.......well....we shall see tomorrow if they actually come and take the rubbish that has been invading the end of our terrace. There have been times where I have walked to uni and either had to walk on the road just to avoid the bins or actually nearly heaved as I have passed the stench of ......the disgusting bins.....EWWW!

As you can see from the photo I took above it isn't a pretty sight. But to be fair, I don't really think this photo does justice the state that the streets got into. It wasn't just the fact that there was so much rubbish, it was the fact that rubbish became strewn across the roads obviously having been routed in probably by foxes or whatever/whoever else likes to route in bins.

In a way I feel that maybe it has become slightly the norm....and only slightly......to see this rubbish everywhere, considering that since I moved into the house the streets have been suffering like this. But I can safely say that I won't miss it at all. Let's just hope that after this little blog the bin men DO come tomorrow (touch wood) and I'm not going to have to tell you that it was infact a lie that it was over. Imagine if the bin strike never ended?! ......Imagine

Amedeo Modigliani

I looked at the artist Modigliani a few years ago when I did my art A Level controlled test. From the choice of topics that were on the examination paper, I decided to look at 'elongated form'. To begin with, I researched into a variety of different artists that particularly looked at and studied this sort of form, including Giacometti and also Modigliani. These two artists were my main influences for reaching my final outcome, which was fifteen hours work under controlled examination conditions.

I always wondered whether it was fair that students carrying out an art examination should be under the same sort of conditions as other subjects. I mean, how could you possible copy someone elses work in this sort of situation.....it was pretty much impossible.....particularly the fact that you were given the exam paper four weeks beforehand. You had that length of time to carry out extensive research in order to fully prepare for the fifteen hours (obviously spread across a few days rather than all in one go!) I mean I suppose you wouldn't really know what I'm going on about unless you actually studied, or knew somebody who was studying, art. What I'm trying to say is we could have at least been allowed to listen to our ipods or something.....not too loud though, obviously!

Amedeo Modigliani was primarily a figurative artist, who mainly worked in France. It was these kinds of work, which I became fascinated by whilst researching him. The figures he drew were beautifully elongated and the facial expressions were simplistic yet complex in a sense that it was quite difficult to tell how the person being drawn was feeling. Their expressions were fixed and all very similar. Here are a few examples of his work



Jeanne Hébuterne in Red Shawl - Amedeo Modigliani



Portrait of Jeanne Hébuterne (1898-1920), Common-Law wife of Amedeo Modigliani, oil on canvas - Amedeo Modigliani



Jeune fille au corsage a pois - 1919 - Amedeo Modigliani

As you can see from these examples beautiful elongation of the entire figure. The nose and neck and particularly exaggerated with elongation. The other facial features such as the eyes appear very tiny and delicate almost like small incisions and the mouth is also small, not really exaggerated in comparison to the nose. I became very much aware of Modigliani's style during the weeks leading up to my fifteen hour practical exam. Here is my final piece.....take a look....hopefully you can see the link and the influence of the artist Modigliani.



This is an oil painting of my sister Emily- 2007- Rebecca Roche

My Portfolio

I have recently set up my own portfolio online to run along with my blog right here. I have included a selection of work, including some that I have done at university, as well as work that I created during my A Levels and Foundation Art course.

Please feel free to take a look at it and leave comments either on my blog or simply get in touch and email me!

To view My portfolio, simply click on the link to the left in the toolbar.
Here is the website http://www.finalcrit.com/design/rebeccaroche

I will be adding more work in the near future.... so watch this space!

Airbrushing and the 'Perfect', or 'not so Perfect', Lifestyle

I was watching the news a few nights ago on ITV, a rare occurence at that.......my flatmates usually have control of the XBox, to find that devastating floods had struck parts of Cumbria, a British woman Lady Ashton had been elected as the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and Kate Moss, world famous supermodel had spoken out in a recent interview causing controversy and outrage, having said 'that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.'

Well in my opinion....I really don't think so....However, this made me think about the lengths that designers, of magazines and internet websites, go in order to create a perfect image that they want to include in a publication or webpage. Just imagine, after a long day in the studio taking photograph after photograph with the aim of promoting whatever it is they are doing, the image is far from complete. I'm not saying all designers do this but there are quite a few.

Here is an example of the front cover of a magazine that shows the original photograph of a woman posing. Then there is the image on the front cover of the magazine that has obviously been airbrushed probably using the application 'Photoshop'. As you can see, there are distinct differences between the image of the woman in the photo and when she is appearing on the front cover of the magazine. Everything has been made to appear slimmer, such as her face and cheeks, giving her a more prominent jaw line, as well as her arms, which have also been made to appear thinner. If you compare her lower half and how her legs are crossed underneath her garment, a difference in size is also noticeable. They seem a lot slimmer than in the original photograph.



The comment made by Kate Moss seemed to cause a lot of hype in the media, due to the fact that she is a celebrity that will and does influence the younger generation and probably older generations aswell. People in this day like to buy into a particular lifestyle, whether they are influenced by various products and brand names within a market or very much influenced by the behaviour of celebrities that they may look up to and idolize, this is still categorized as a sort of 'lifestyle'.

In a recent article "France considers Warning Labels for Airbrushed Photos' from http://www.time.com it said........

'The drive against airbrushed photos is being headed by conservative parliamentarian Valérie Boyer, who says the widespread use of digital technology to alter images is feeding the public a steady visual diet of falsified people, places and products. This artificial reality leads people to expect perfection from themselves and the world in an impossible way, she says......
“When writers take a news item or real event and considerably embellish it, they are required to alert readers by calling the work fiction, a novel or a story based on dramatized facts. Why should it be any different for photograph… It’s creating parallel worlds: one in which everything in ads and photos is gorgeous, slim, chic and what we aspire to, and our daily reality of imperfection, normality and frustration that we can’t be like those other people who — literally — don’t exist.”'

So what do you think about this issue? Should photographs be published with warning signs if they have been airbrushed to show the audience that they are not real life images but infact have been altered to appear 'perfect'. In my opinion, I do not think that this would make people less likely to want to buy into such a lifestyle. I do think however, that such images effect particularly the younger generation of this day and age. Maybe the only way to stop such influences is to ban airbrushing of images and use of dangerously thin models in advertisement.....but somehow I can't see this happening in the near future.

Paradise on 'The Beach' & You've Gotta Love the Heat

I first watched 'The Beach' in my first year of uni, sitting in halls with my flatmates enjoying one of many a dvd night in, with a hot chocolate, snuggled underneath our duvets. Cosy don't you think? Yes it was.....we didn't have to worry about how long we were going to put the heating on or anything like that as it was all included. Not like now the house that we now rent in second year. Sadly heating = two hours a day. Booo!

Anyway, this year I brought it out again to find that I loved the film just as much as I did the first time I watched. I could actually watch it over and over again, and no not just for Leonard Di Caprio....although he is obviously one of the reasons. I love everything about it, the storyline, how Richard the young American backpacker sets off in search of the secret island of paradise off the coast of Thailand. Along the way he meets many interesting people, some who are crazy and some that he remain in touch with and become good friends! I for one would absolutely love to go travelling and think that The Beach is the ultimate film to set off your imagination and long to be adventurous.

There are many famous and not so famous songs that feature in the film, such as the All Saints Pure Shores, which yes I am a fan of. Leftfield's Snakeblood song, which features at the beginning of the film when Richard is amongst the hustle and bustle of the busy city of Bangkok. Then there is the song Porcelain by Moby, which I think is an amazing song. It very much has a sort of feeling of moving on but with a good vibe to it, as if you have reached an ultimate goal and the feeling is quite difficult to describe. I think it fits so well with the scene of reaching the paradise island. If you haven't seen the film then go ahead watch it! If not for the storyline and soundtracks but just for a bit of Leo!

The lyrics, "I never meant to hurt you, I never meant to cry, So this is goodbye, This is goodbye" gives the impression of sadness in a way but has quite a peacful feel to it. It's as if acceptance for something is being expressed within the song. In a way it is like how our house have now accepted that it is ok to have the heating on for a little bit each day! With the piano rhythms and pulsating string samples and then wandering solos by Moby all in all a beautiful song I think......wouldn't you agree? Here is the video...have a listen for yourself.