All posts by : Imogen Barber

As seen in the images featured on this blog, I took upon myself to mount my A3 boards in attempt to discover new skills and understand the process first hand. I placed glue on the A3 mount board and carefully lay the edge of the A3 poster against the board and slowly flattened it out along the board for even spread and stick. I used a technique to applying wallpaper to make sure to avoid any bubble or uneven areas.

I then collected all my print material into a collective folder, as well as collecting my digital work onto a USB stick, to also be submitted at the same time, next week. My final components consist of;

1. Project Synopsis – A5 white card with portrait of self with explanation of my final project and outcomes. A3 Boards – 7 boards including, project overview (issue, solution, audience), research, final outcomes and user journey.
2. Hero Image – print A2 poster promoting Alexa smart skill.
3. EMS – Alexa smart skill (interactive), animation promoting the smart skill.
4. 3-project components – Products with coded labels (redesigned), brand guidelines, code regulations, card game.
5. Blog – As seen here I have kept up to date with the blog posts

The website for Smart Cycle has been built to be fun and engaging all while allowing customers to understand more about the services provided and learn more about the purpose of this project. As found from my research, using dark tones within digital designs allows for less energy consumption and therefore the website has been designed in accordance to this all while following the brand and being engaging.

As all project outcomes are complete, I have finalised my A3 boards and sent them to be printed in time for submission. These boards include my project overview, explaining the issue, solution and target audience. I also covered on the boards, my research, all of the final outcomes and a user journey explaining how Alexa works and how the other outcomes work alongside this skill. For the boards I created a grid structure of 6 columns, of which any text (only of the board 20%) would be placed in the first column, in the bottom left corner, as found on all 7 boards. I have attempted to cover as much of the boards with visuals to communicate and pitch the project, as it was asked we focused on 80% visuals for this submission component.

This week I began focusing on my animation. I firstly created a story board to explore the vision and visuals I wished to communicate. From this, I was able to begin building the animation by understanding the transitions and how the pictured visuals would work with each other, whether this was successful or not. I used Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and Cinema 4D to create my final animation. The images featured on this blog demonstrate some of the processes used to arrive at the final outcome. I have then uploaded to YouTube, Smart Cycle website and social medias for public viewing.

As for the Alexa smart skill, as this is finalised in terms of responses, database and interaction, I have checked the validation of this to find any errors that might occur when testing the skill. As a few issues were presented to me, I fixed these and run a new test. Once this test came back as passed, I submitted the skill to be certified and checked by Amazon’s Skill team. As the skill passed certification, it is now available in the Amazon skill store.

I have begun the creation of my A3 boards in preparation for submission. I have begun by setting up the documents in Adobe InDesign as A3 pages with a 3mm bleed, 6 columns and then created a footer section where I added the board number and title of the contents on each board. Once this was set up, I was able to create the layout of each board, each being slightly different to not lose interest from viewers, however, still following the 6-column grid.

This is our final week at University in the studio with our tutors before our submission date. It is also the day of our final presentations to our peers and tutors, of which contribute to 30% of our final modular grade. It is important to clearly communicate and pitch my project. I prepared my presentation a week prior and practiced the pitch a few times. When it came to my turn to present, I chose to include interaction with my audience to keep everyone engaged. I did this by bring an Amazon Echo with me and using two of my peers to test it in front of everyone. This seem to be successful and everyone was pleased with the outcome.

I was pleased with my feedback from both my tutors and peers as they complimented me on a precise and professional presentation. As I took two products with me, the Pepsi and Heinz, with both their redesigned labels, I presented these to my tutors, as well as using them as a prop during the demonstrating element of my presentation. The only other feedback receive from the tutors was the use of the codes on the labels as they were unsure of their readability. 

Due to this feedback, I was able to develop the code design. I decided to make the codes more readable amongst the branding and designs already used, I would use a white block that included the code in black, with the Smart Cycle logo featured next to it for clear indication of the codes use. As I have already created my code regulations and printed them, I chose to still follow the basic rules of positioning, size and colour. The only changes and additions being the white block and logo icon.

I took Alexa into University this week in order to test the skill on some of my peers as they fall into my target audience age range. The feedback and response received from this testing section were positive and allowed for feedback. My peers said this skill is useful and has a full potential to improve the recycling system as they felt it was straight forward to use and would benefit their recycling habits. The feedback I received was to provide Alexa with a response should you pause when asked for the unique code. This was useful feedback and I have decided to add a section where Alexa will tell the user where the code is commonly placed, should they pause in attempt of finding this.

The app has been designed to provide users with information to help track their cash back rewards that can be collected in stores when returning their recyclable products, as advised by Alexa. This can be done by scanning the returns receipt, where the app will keep track of the money collected. Once they reach £2, they are able to convert this into vouchers for their chosen store. The drop off section provides them with which local stores are taking part and where the reward scheme is available. As well as this, the Smart Cycle game is featured here to make the app more fun. In addition, and only available on the app, they can also play the symbols game, similar to the survey I created for my research. They will be able to select whether or not they believe the symbols means recyclable or not.

I have created my synopsis using A5 white card with my hero image featured on one side and the other side featuring a portrait of myself with an in-depth explanation of my final project and outcomes. I have taken this opportunity to promote the project and provide a full understanding of its purpose.

As I plan to apply unique codes to products, I must consider the branding and how brands may feel about the use of other colours or information on their packaging. As a result of this, I have created a regulation guide to explain to brands how to use the codes appropriately, all while consider their potential issues with adding more information. The regulations include information about the size of the codes, the colours required and the positioning depending on the product type.

I have taken some supermarket brands, these being Pepsi, Heinz and Sainsbury’s and recreated the labels used on some of their popular products. For the Pepsi and Heinz labels, I recreated the entire label for consistence and a clean finish when applying them to their bottles or tins. As for the Sainsbury’s label, this was for a pizza box. As this is a larger scale, I recreated the section with nutritional information as this is the main place where codes will be placed.

In order to promote this project publicly and make people curious and aware of the new Alexa smart skill, I have created a poster that will keep ink and water consumption during print to minimum in order to maintain a low carbon footprint. These posters are designed to be both digital and print. I aim to use the design digitally as much as possible, avoiding print when it can be in order to save materials, ink and water. This image also stands as my hero image and will be seen throughout the project in my synopsis, animation, website, app, etc.

As building an Alexa skill is ambitious and my technical skills only extend so far, I have watching tutorials on how to do so and taken the assistance and advice from one of my work colleagues who understands programming and coding. He has assisted me in researching and understanding how to build this skill and provided me with the best approaches. With his assistance, the skill has managed to be built through Alexa skill developer. Some of the images featured in this blog demonstrate some of the steps required.

I have created a database with the size, product type, brand, if it is recyclable and code to apply to Alexa’s smart skill in order for her to relay the information. This is first created in Microsoft Excel and then inputted into the Alexa skill online. This database has been designed to later be applied to other assistant technology such as Apple’s Siri or Google Home. I have also designed screen cards for the Alexa show home screens in order to provide deaf people with the same experience with Alexa’s recycling skill. 

I have also created a complimentary game that will be sent to the users connected Amazon account’s default address once they use Alexa’s Smart Cycle recycling skill. This game provides them with 4 material cards of which then can be matched to the blanks on the 15 question cards. This is a fun way of educating people on the benefits of recycling and how they could make a difference by recycling just one or more products. The game continues to be consistent with the branding, as advised by the brand guidelines.

I have created brand guidelines to explain the rules for the logo, typography, colours, icons, hero image and brand overview. The main focus of the brand guidelines is enforcing an eco-brand. In order to reduce our ink, water and energy consumption by carefully creating an eco-brand that can be trusted. The brand guidelines have been printed on recycled paper. It is important that the brand maintains a reduced carbon footprint and therefore, ensure to keep printed materials to a minimum. The brand guidelines are to instruct the use of the brand and how to maintain a substantial and sustainable approach throughout. 

This week I presented to one of my tutors and my peers again. They were pleased with the progression of the project and all agree that Alexa works well thus far. The feedback that I received was to begin creating designs for the codes and how they will be incorporated into the packaging of other brands. This is something I will be reviewing in the next few weeks. As well as this, I was asked how I thought the website could be more fun and engaging as of current it is text based and almost an overwhelming amount of information.

I have begun by testing the website further in order to understand the best utilisation of its elements and functions. I have considered new ways of making it more engaging and fun by adding new elements that might be of interest to my target audience. Another element of the website that is important is understanding whether my brand and digital platforms are available to everyone, I have tested whether the website functions well for those who are colour blind by testing how the colours and layout etc would be seen by themselves.

This week we were given an introduction and workshop into branding and how to apply it to our own projects. Our tutor began by telling us the importance of branding how it can impact the success of your project or product. As I had already began looking into the branding of my project, I understood the introduction clearer and agreed with the points being made on its importance.

If you don’t provide a consistence brand across your whole project, products, platforms and appearances, this is going to negatively impact your success as the more consistent you are, the more recognisable you will become to people. Otherwise, this can become unclear and confusing for your audience. Below are some examples of success and unsuccessful branding. 

After the introduction and allowing us to reflect on the importance of branding towards our individual projects, we looked as some physical examples of brand guidelines. We were then provided with a workshop to consider how we may present our brand guidelines in a readable and effective format so that it is easily understood by anyone. As I had previously thought about my brand guidelines, I had made a rough stylescape to gather the information into one place. However, after this workshop I am considering adapting my brand guidelines to a more interesting format than a stylescape.

As well as considering our brand guidelines format, we were asked to begin thinking and sketching out the layouts and content for our A3 boards that will be submitted as a part of our projects, explaining the projects and their purpose and aims. The A3 board will need to reflect the brand used for the project in order to show connection and consistency.

As mentioned in last week’s blog, I have been researching into how to make the Alexa Skill live and working. I have begun by entering intents and utterances. She is connected to ‘thesmartcycle.co.uk’ and soon will hopefully be able to extract information from the website and database example, which I need to build with a few examples and codes to show its process and how Alexa interacts with it.