AWESOME FOOD TRUCKS!!
Oh and also, here are some links to two totally awesome food trucks we found today, The Grillenium Falcon and Guactruck!
The Grillenium Falcon:
Annie’s Sammies
As I mentioned last week, I am so excited to be designing my (imaginary) sandwich truck, and couldn’t be more thrilled that my colleague, Michelle Booth, has decided to team up with me to design the mobile app. Michelle has already been my unofficial creative advisor on this project since the beginning of this quarter and I already am over-the-moon appreciative of her keen eye for detail. (She argues with me about this regularly. And I tell her to shut up. This is becoming our routine.)
We have made quite a bit of progress in the past week. On the weekend, we got together and compiled and analyzed the data collected from our sandwich survey (thank every single one of you for participating! It made a big difference to the research process). Michelle designs and paints roller derby helmets on her very few off-hours, so we sat in her basement workshop and she painted glitter onto helmets while we figured out the nitty gritty of the menu. Then we jammed out a bunch of heavy braining on how the app ordering process would work, incorporating ideas on how the back end would respond and process orders. Then, we took a beer break, during which we decided upon having two windows: an order window and a pick-up window, and one cash register situated somewhere between them. We came up with a plan for how employees would prepare food and even where food stations would be located inside the limited space of the truck. If I have time, I am thinking about drawing up a floor plan of the truck as part of the truck design part. I feel like we covered a lot of ground. We even discussed what the sticker would look like that would label each order. Some visuals of that process are included in the slides below.
I am happy to have a team member who is as excited about these little details as I am. We had a couple of heated debates over meat and cheese pairings. It got intense!
Ever since last year, I had been looking for an excuse to get some more practice doing food photography. I really love it! I mean, it’s stressful because I’m always afraid I’m going to screw something up and waste food, and something weird always happens, but that’s sort of part of the fun. The funny part about this is, I remember when my packaging design teacher last year told me that I should take my own photos of pancakes for my River Hog Flapjacks box, I was so stressed about it. Doing my own photos seemed ridiculously difficult. And photos of food??? What did I know about that? I was totally expecting to screw it up, but the results actually turned out well and I really enjoyed it. So anyway, here we are almost a year later and I finally got to do it again! So, I am super proud to admit that the photos below of the BLT and the tomato basil soup were done by me (the iced tea shot, however, was not done by me. I found that one on the internet. But I felt like it matched the look and feel of what I have been trying to accomplish, so I included it). I am planning a second photo shoot this weekend and am very much looking forward to it.
The coming week will be all about further development of the app and the menu. We have task flows and wireframes for the app, and will keep working to flesh those out, and as always, lots of user testing. The hard copy menu will be finalized and styled this week as well. Here are some slides showing this week’s progress:
Annie’s Sammies
Big news for Annie’s Sammies today!! Michelle Booth has been officially added to the Annie’s staff, as we have decided to team up on the app design portion of this rebrand, which I am stoked about.
Logo is almost ready… just working on some illustrative elements. Based on my research, I decided to take a typographic approach. I feel like the logo still needs work, but will develop over the course of the project. Here are some sketches:
As for the menu, I have never designed a menu before, so it was a fun challenge for me. I have the dimensions and most of the basic elements figured out and sketched. The menu will be 4.25 X 11 double-sided, so printing will be at a standard size. (The app will feature an abridged version of the print menu with breakfast & lunch “combos”).
Here’s an earlier sketch:
And a more refined sketch of the menu plan (this sort of reminded me of doing a wireframe for a menu!):
The P.O.S. system will be run from a tablet which will fit into a wooden stand that will be manufactured by Tinkering Monkey. Photos below.
Payment options:
– Square Wallet App – 2.75% of all purchases – in-app payment is encouraged, but the following options are also available:
– Cash (all prices are after tax, so all round numbers. No change.)
– Credit & Debit
Tinkering Monkey P.O.S.
Square Wallet App
– dongle attached to an IOS or Android tablet
– App will alert workers when the customer is near and when they should start preparing their food.
Product photography will commence this weekend.
That’s all for now! I am super stoked about this assignment!
If you dissect a bird…
We had an open poster assignment over the winter break and I tried so many different ideas but I felt they all looked weird / failed in some way. This is one of the ideas I came up with. I love Sylvia Plath, and was excited to do something to honor her writing. In the meantime, I will keep working on those other posters and see what I come up with!
Fairer Than Death
Last Wednesday, we were given the following (terrific) design exercise. Give it a shot, it was a lot of fun!!
Today’s Graphic Design Exercise by Alex Griendling
It really is quite genius.
He says “I do these as experiments, and use the below formula. It doesn’t matter if the finished design is any good or not, only that I’m challenging myself to think on the fly, and develop an interesting solution to the problem presented.”
Here are the rules:
1 – Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random” or click
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 – Go to “Random quotations” or click
www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click
www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 – Use photoshop or similar to put it all together. Your finished piece should be 11″ X 11″ trimmed and put on the white board.
You have one hour…..ready, set, GO.
*****
My random article was about Crystal Township, Michigan, and my random quotation was
“Life isn’t fair. It’s just fairer than death, that’s all.”
from the Princess Bride.
For the picture, I chose a photo of a cow from flickr.
And here’s my album cover! It was so much fun to make!
Special Topics – Annie’s Sammies
As you may already know, I love sandwiches. I also love cooking for people. Making people sandwiches is one of my favorite things. In fact, now that I am poor again, I have been using my sandwiches as a form of currency in the past few months, and I am not ashamed to admit that I have grown a sort of cult-following of sandwich appreciators (I have at least two major fans, or perhaps even more than two).
So, for winter quarter of Special Topics I have decided to do some more branding. SANDWICH BRANDING!! My favorite kind of branding!! I am going to create a brand for a (pretend) sandwich truck that sells breakfast and lunch sandwiches, homemade soups and possibly some dessert items such as cookies and muffins. To be honest, this is a project that has been taking up real-estate in my imagination for quite some time now. PLUS, this project will tie-in nicely with my upcoming app assignment, where I will develop an app that you can use to pre-order lunches, among a few other things… stay tuned for that part.
My experience with food trucks at lunch time in Vancouver is that I spend most of my break standing in a lineup. The app will allow customers to order their lunches in advance, avoiding long lineup and will streamline the order process. In my research I have not found any food trucks in Vancouver that are currently doing preorders by app.
Here’s the first draft of the mood board / style tile for Annie’s Sammies (name subject to change):
These style tiles usually go through a series of iterations before I settle on my look and feel for a project, but this gives you an idea of what I sort of want it to look like.
I have written some sample copy for this as well.
Some sample copywriting to further indicate client’s style & positioning:
Not your mother’s sandwich shop. But pretty close.
At Annie’s Sammies, we aren’t gonna pick up your dirty socks. We aren’t gonna clean your room, or do your dishes, either. What we will do is make you a good sandwich. Are you hungry? Good. Let’s eat.
I’m sure your mom would agree that you screw around too much. Don’t get any further behind. Get your food and get on with your day. Your mom will thank you for it.
Made from scratch sandwiches, crock pot soups, and other warm stuff to keep you going.
What I am aiming to accomplish this quarter:
– logo design
– signage / food truck design
– menus
– sandwich packaging & possibly napkins
– soup containers
– paper bags
– app (for Web class)
You Can’t Get Drunk on Butter Tarts
When a friend of ours from Vancouver, T. Paul, passed away, I hadn’t been to a funeral or memorial in a very long time and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I didn’t know whether it would be dressy or casual. I didn’t know if there would be a formal presentation or if we would just all hang out or what. It took me a long time to get ready that day.
The memorial was hosted at a friend’s home, and the attendees were each asked to bring an item to share. I didn’t know what to bring, but I had never tried to make butter tarts and I thought they would be perfect. I got all the ingredients together and made a huge batch. They weren’t just good — they were a miracle! I felt like a domestic goddess! I was so proud of myself for learning how to make them for the first time! I was super excited to share them with my friends.
On the morning of the memorial, I carefully packed them into a big huge box and waited for my ride to pick me up.
At the time I didn’t own a car, so my friend, Bill McNamara, offered to carpool. I was the last person to get picked up. As I was cramming myself and my huge box of butter tarts between two other people into the back seat of Bill & Diana’s 2-door Volkswagon Rabbit, Bill said, “Whatcha got there, Padge?” To which I proudly exclaimed, “I made Butter Tarts!” Bill raised his eyebrows and without skipping a beat, he said “You can’t get drunk on butter tarts, Padgett.”
Recently, a staff member at my school (who happened to be Canadian) suddenly and tragically passed away. I was asked to bring a dessert item to share at his memorial. The choice was obvious! I had to make butter tarts. I told my classmates the story above and Izzy and Kim made this for me! What a thoughtful and amazing present 🙂
Renton campaign – Final
We had a lot of fun working on the Renton campaign. Thanks again to Elizabeth Ogle for her awesome help with the photography, cinematography and editing!!
So, without further adieu, I could not be prouder to introduce the final TV commercials for the Renton campaign!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKruYTnRPrY&w=560&h=315]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUq5QKCVq-8&w=560&h=315]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y11mNfaLcko&w=560&h=315]
As you can see, I also did a logo redesign using typography and graphic elements that mimic the History Museum building.
And here are the final posters…
That’s it for now!! What a fun project. I can’t wait to do more!
Generational Health First – Logo revision
At the client’s request, I have completed a further iteration of the final logo, with some small structural changes:
This will have to be all the work we do on the logo for now, as we will be focusing our full attention on building out the website. I have been uploading some content provided by the client and will continue to structure and style the site over winter break. For now, we have been working on the Home and About pages. I am happy with how the homepage is building out so far, but am having a couple of structural issues with the advanced custom fields for the About page. I suspect with a little help these issues will be easy enough to solve.
Styling a homepage from a theme is a big learning curve for me and continues to have its challenges. I knew this would be a challenge from the beginning, but progress has been slow.
Here’s a link to the homepage: leannepadgett.com/ghf
Souvenirs Movie Poster
This is a movie poster I created for ad class. We were asked to come up with a one-word title that was a noun and use photo and illustration. In my brainstorming process I came up with way too many words (I love words) and ended up with a short-list of probably 15. I couldn’t make up my mind which one to use. On the day of class, I decided on the spot that it would be a movie called “Souvenirs” and it would be about hoarders.
I had a lot of fun curating the objects on the “shelf” and coming up with a graphic solution for this poster. Turns out maybe I’M a hoarder because I found most of the items in my junk drawer at home (including the teeth), and the “wallpaper” is a piece of paper I had bought for another project from last year. The composition was photographed together in cool, very late (bordering on too late) afternoon light, using a piece of tin foil as a reflector. I then used Illustrator to manipulate it to look like a painting, and added the finishing touches in Photoshop. I was hoping to achieve a “paint by numbers” look, as if these objects were precious to the collector, but trashy and a little creepy to anyone else, to whom these items didn’t carry the same emotional attachment.
What surprised me the most about this project was the emotional connection I had with the composition. It took me several hours to curate the objects and several more to compose them in a way that I hoped would show the character of the collector. I sat for a long time looking at it and even left it for a day before photographing, allowing time for a few final adjustments. I even told my roommate that looking at this composition made me feel sad. I really hope that sentiment is translated to the viewer.
And here is a “the making of” photo 🙂
