As a group of 5 people we decided to work on an app that helps you make the right choice in case if your "not sure what to do?"
The idea of "ASK ALVIS" came from our previous unsucceful idea of an PIRATE app that gave you ratings for any local places liek restaurants, bars etc...
The ALVIS is aparrot in a cage that once shaken with a smart phone like iphone it would then tell you to do soemthign interesting or go somewhere locally. The idea was to create a simpel app where all you do is click and shake the cage and teh results would be presneted to you within seconds.
The role I had in this project was split between creating ideas, developing concept of Alvis etc. However my main interest was graphics because looking back at our previous app idea "PIRATE" we had a decent idea but because we could only communicate through speech we couldnt create enough interest within the public.
This time I wanted to change that and create a few simple visuals of how ALVIS would look like, how the app would operate etc.
I had to design a few screenshots of the iphone and Alvis app within it and how easy it is to use. Simple vector designs done in photoshop was the best way to go and luckly I had a few base images done in my previous project that I could recycle and reuse to save time.
During this project I learned that creating an app is not as easy that I would of though. However I could see that my collegues that been doing research into competitiona and finance and I also found that it would not be as cheap as it would seem.
When we came to present the idea I woudl of though that through the time we spent researching and preparing for the presentation we covered it all and expected to be succesful but unfortunetly there were still things that we did not consider like what woudl happen if ALVIS tells you to go to a place that you dont wonna go?
As a project that helps you develope your business skills and find out what sit like if you tried to actually create an app or pitch a business idea it would quite difficult on your own so a team of people that you truest is needed.
Sunday 12 June 2011
Thursday 28 April 2011
The Body Shop Week 4
Week 4
Group tutorial discussing what we going to do next. Shared ideas between each other and
got some feedback from the tutor. One of my group members created a series of paper
pages by hand. I think it could of been done the traditional way when you rip used paper
apart and then you glue it all together. She suggested to use that for packaging but I had
an idea to use that packaging but add plant seeds to it so when you don’t need the
packaging any more instead of throwing it in the bin you can throw it in the garden to for
the paper to decompose and seeds would be planted.
I presented my views about co-branding body shop with another company like innocents
or Patagonia to create one product as well as try to redesign existing men product
packaging to make it stand out from the women products. When i say about redesigning is
to make it more more rough in shape and material... So for instance a fresh toilet water
bottle or packaging you buy the product in would of been made from stone or stone like
texture to give it more rough and natural feel.
Decided to start working on the packaging and bought whole lot of kitchen utensils to look
at which ones could be used by body shop and which ones could be modified to fit to body
shops theme. Spoke to my tutor about them to see what I can possibly do with them. We
had some some ideas like what items could be used for a set which can be bought from
the body shop shop store that would help you quickly make a fruit salad for instance.
Need to look at some ready sets that you can buy to prepare a meal or grow your own
food. Those are the things I will be looking at to make. Will search the web first to find if
there is anything like it already in the market and tomorrow should visit stores like john
louis, marks and spencer and waitrose. Those are the places that would be very likely to
sell those sort of items.
I have decided later to start working on a beginners set for growing your own herbs. I
though herbs would because they don’t take that long and can be used for your own food.
Grow your own fruits would definitely take more than a year compared to growing your
own chive which takes about 5 weeks. I bought different types of packaging of yoghurt that
had interesting simple packaging. Got my hands on a simple Homebase grow your own
herbs set that I though about adapting to fit Bodyshop set to. The thing about the
homebase packaging for grow your own set was that it had three plant pots which seems
fine for the £6 price tag but I though about making a single pack for bodyshop.
Once I had a few prototypes of different packaging done with simple instructions on how to
plant it and take care of it I went to the Oxford street flag ship store again and speak to the
employees there and see what they think. The feedback I got back determined that some
of the packaging I had done had too much material used and not enough colours. There
was however one that they favoured for its simple design that I made form cardboard. My
next step was to work on that one and add some simple graphics that have the same style
as the existing body shop products. I took a few pictures of the Chive and found the same
text used by the bodyshop. Photographs of the final products were taken and presentation
was complete.
Group tutorial discussing what we going to do next. Shared ideas between each other and
got some feedback from the tutor. One of my group members created a series of paper
pages by hand. I think it could of been done the traditional way when you rip used paper
apart and then you glue it all together. She suggested to use that for packaging but I had
an idea to use that packaging but add plant seeds to it so when you don’t need the
packaging any more instead of throwing it in the bin you can throw it in the garden to for
the paper to decompose and seeds would be planted.
I presented my views about co-branding body shop with another company like innocents
or Patagonia to create one product as well as try to redesign existing men product
packaging to make it stand out from the women products. When i say about redesigning is
to make it more more rough in shape and material... So for instance a fresh toilet water
bottle or packaging you buy the product in would of been made from stone or stone like
texture to give it more rough and natural feel.
Decided to start working on the packaging and bought whole lot of kitchen utensils to look
at which ones could be used by body shop and which ones could be modified to fit to body
shops theme. Spoke to my tutor about them to see what I can possibly do with them. We
had some some ideas like what items could be used for a set which can be bought from
the body shop shop store that would help you quickly make a fruit salad for instance.
Need to look at some ready sets that you can buy to prepare a meal or grow your own
food. Those are the things I will be looking at to make. Will search the web first to find if
there is anything like it already in the market and tomorrow should visit stores like john
louis, marks and spencer and waitrose. Those are the places that would be very likely to
sell those sort of items.
I have decided later to start working on a beginners set for growing your own herbs. I
though herbs would because they don’t take that long and can be used for your own food.
Grow your own fruits would definitely take more than a year compared to growing your
own chive which takes about 5 weeks. I bought different types of packaging of yoghurt that
had interesting simple packaging. Got my hands on a simple Homebase grow your own
herbs set that I though about adapting to fit Bodyshop set to. The thing about the
homebase packaging for grow your own set was that it had three plant pots which seems
fine for the £6 price tag but I though about making a single pack for bodyshop.
Once I had a few prototypes of different packaging done with simple instructions on how to
plant it and take care of it I went to the Oxford street flag ship store again and speak to the
employees there and see what they think. The feedback I got back determined that some
of the packaging I had done had too much material used and not enough colours. There
was however one that they favoured for its simple design that I made form cardboard. My
next step was to work on that one and add some simple graphics that have the same style
as the existing body shop products. I took a few pictures of the Chive and found the same
text used by the bodyshop. Photographs of the final products were taken and presentation
was complete.
The Body Shop Week 3
Week 3
As individuals I had a conversation with my tutor about the research... Showed him my
findings. We compared the the experience of buying an expensive car like Ferrari, that it
takes a year for a car to be built and once it is built you have an option to pick it up from
the factory and travel all the way back home and all the expenses of food, hotels would be
paid by the Ferrari company itself. This is an example of great service because for one it
saves money compared to shipping the car but it also gives this experience of brand
values sowing that the company cares considering it will pay all the expenses of travel
back.
As a group we had meet up early this week to travel to a flagship Body Shop store in
Oxford street to do a few interviews with the people that work there. Once there we sked
people questions like how would a body shop holiday look like or what would a body shop
meal be like. I found that the answers were relating body shop to a natural place like an
jungle or island with a lot of their products being a in a hotel available for customers. A
meal would be a fruit salad something natural and vegetarian because they stand against
animal testing therefore a meal would contain no animal meat. Also we noticed that the
body shop as a cosmetic store doesn’t promote beauty too much within advertising and its
employees. We went there as a group and we did expect the people who work there to
look like models just the same as you would see if you entered a store of CHANEL or other
high end brands that promote beauty. In this case however. We came and saw normal
people each one of them explained how much they like working for body shop because
they like how the company operates and the brand values.
Spoke with the tutor about the research i did last week from the visit in oxford street body
shop stores. Presented to him that i got some info on opinions of the employers about the
brand values. Some interesting findings i got was that although body shop is cosmetics
store people that work there are all different... They are not super good looking shop
assistants they are however ordinary people which shows that body shop is not about
looking really good.
the tutor also suggested to do a mood board... Find images of what body shop is and is
not in different themes. For example image of body shop being a fruit salad is what you
would expect and not a greasy burger from your local fast food. Its images that you think
would be. Once that was done I had a better understanding of what body shop would be
like in different fields. This makes me want to think about products or services I could start
working on or adapting to fit Body Shop style.
As individuals I had a conversation with my tutor about the research... Showed him my
findings. We compared the the experience of buying an expensive car like Ferrari, that it
takes a year for a car to be built and once it is built you have an option to pick it up from
the factory and travel all the way back home and all the expenses of food, hotels would be
paid by the Ferrari company itself. This is an example of great service because for one it
saves money compared to shipping the car but it also gives this experience of brand
values sowing that the company cares considering it will pay all the expenses of travel
back.
As a group we had meet up early this week to travel to a flagship Body Shop store in
Oxford street to do a few interviews with the people that work there. Once there we sked
people questions like how would a body shop holiday look like or what would a body shop
meal be like. I found that the answers were relating body shop to a natural place like an
jungle or island with a lot of their products being a in a hotel available for customers. A
meal would be a fruit salad something natural and vegetarian because they stand against
animal testing therefore a meal would contain no animal meat. Also we noticed that the
body shop as a cosmetic store doesn’t promote beauty too much within advertising and its
employees. We went there as a group and we did expect the people who work there to
look like models just the same as you would see if you entered a store of CHANEL or other
high end brands that promote beauty. In this case however. We came and saw normal
people each one of them explained how much they like working for body shop because
they like how the company operates and the brand values.
Spoke with the tutor about the research i did last week from the visit in oxford street body
shop stores. Presented to him that i got some info on opinions of the employers about the
brand values. Some interesting findings i got was that although body shop is cosmetics
store people that work there are all different... They are not super good looking shop
assistants they are however ordinary people which shows that body shop is not about
looking really good.
the tutor also suggested to do a mood board... Find images of what body shop is and is
not in different themes. For example image of body shop being a fruit salad is what you
would expect and not a greasy burger from your local fast food. Its images that you think
would be. Once that was done I had a better understanding of what body shop would be
like in different fields. This makes me want to think about products or services I could start
working on or adapting to fit Body Shop style.
The Body Shop Week 2
Week 2
I travelled to a local Body Shop store and took a few pictures of their store inside for
reference as well as photos of their products. A lot of it is clean design and simple
packaging that doesn’t use too much materials. Graphics used on their products are also
very beautiful just like the packaging because it uses macro photography of a content
inside. I also went to a different cosmetics store near by to see the difference. The store is
called Lush and its a handmade cosmetics store. One of the first things you notice or feel
is the smell of the cosmetics which can be very uncomfortable for few moments but then
you get used to it. This can be a way to attract people to the store as well make it less
attractive. Inside the store however its a complete opposite of what body shop is, there is
plenty of hand made soaps and other bath cosmetics that really do like they were made by
hand. And one of the other unique things about the store is that most of these soaps and
cosmetics are very colourful like pastels. Their packaging on the other hand is universal. It
all uses black pots of different sizes for different cosmetic type. This is an advantage for
making it cheaper for producing large number of different size same coloured plastic
containers that can be filled with different content. Where as in Body shop each product ha
sits own unique packaging with specific colours. This makes it look like the Body shop
cares more for its packaging and makes the consumer feel special. Also Body shop store
has test product that you can open and smell the inside and try it out which allow the
customer to test the product before they buy it.
Another interesting thing I notice during different visit on another day was that another
Lush store in central London had a stand inside where people could bring their children
and make their own cosmetics by hand. I saw a group of children that were playing around
with ingredients which seemed like a nice way for the company to engage with young ones
and their parents. One of the things this shows is that the store wants people to see how
natural their products are because you wouldn’t allow your child to play with some
chemicals.
I travelled to a local Body Shop store and took a few pictures of their store inside for
reference as well as photos of their products. A lot of it is clean design and simple
packaging that doesn’t use too much materials. Graphics used on their products are also
very beautiful just like the packaging because it uses macro photography of a content
inside. I also went to a different cosmetics store near by to see the difference. The store is
called Lush and its a handmade cosmetics store. One of the first things you notice or feel
is the smell of the cosmetics which can be very uncomfortable for few moments but then
you get used to it. This can be a way to attract people to the store as well make it less
attractive. Inside the store however its a complete opposite of what body shop is, there is
plenty of hand made soaps and other bath cosmetics that really do like they were made by
hand. And one of the other unique things about the store is that most of these soaps and
cosmetics are very colourful like pastels. Their packaging on the other hand is universal. It
all uses black pots of different sizes for different cosmetic type. This is an advantage for
making it cheaper for producing large number of different size same coloured plastic
containers that can be filled with different content. Where as in Body shop each product ha
sits own unique packaging with specific colours. This makes it look like the Body shop
cares more for its packaging and makes the consumer feel special. Also Body shop store
has test product that you can open and smell the inside and try it out which allow the
customer to test the product before they buy it.
Another interesting thing I notice during different visit on another day was that another
Lush store in central London had a stand inside where people could bring their children
and make their own cosmetics by hand. I saw a group of children that were playing around
with ingredients which seemed like a nice way for the company to engage with young ones
and their parents. One of the things this shows is that the store wants people to see how
natural their products are because you wouldn’t allow your child to play with some
chemicals.
The Body Shop Week 1
The Body Shop project
Week 1
New project was given out to us once we handed in the market project earlier in the
morning. The new project brief had been sent through email and it tells us to work in
groups on initial research on a choose brand of our choice. As a group we had to choose
between HSBC or The Body Shop. We choose the body shop because we visited the store
a few time so we knew a bit about it and in general its an interesting natural place with
values towards the world and customers.
we discussed what body sop stands for, like it creates natural products, simple packaging
very pleasing simple colours and in general it is a minimalistic place. It also stands against
animal testing during their cosmetics production.
sent out an email to the customer service asking some info about the tour around The
Body Shop factory in England. ,y tutor mentioned that he had been on one of these tours
and it could of benefited the group to have a closer look at how they make their products
Before the lecture on Wednesday I travelled to Canada water Body shop store, looked
around to see closer what their like. Their use of colours for all their products reflects the
content for example mango butter content is pale yellow but the the packaging itself is
strong yellow. I later asked my friend who visits the body shop quite often and she said
that she can recognize the content from the packaging so this seems like an interesting
way to make it easier for the customer to find what they are looking for.
lot of heir products are made in England but i noticed all their accessories are made in
India and china which seems like the most standard thing to do and it makes body shop
look like any other store that uses those countries for mass production.
Week 1
New project was given out to us once we handed in the market project earlier in the
morning. The new project brief had been sent through email and it tells us to work in
groups on initial research on a choose brand of our choice. As a group we had to choose
between HSBC or The Body Shop. We choose the body shop because we visited the store
a few time so we knew a bit about it and in general its an interesting natural place with
values towards the world and customers.
we discussed what body sop stands for, like it creates natural products, simple packaging
very pleasing simple colours and in general it is a minimalistic place. It also stands against
animal testing during their cosmetics production.
sent out an email to the customer service asking some info about the tour around The
Body Shop factory in England. ,y tutor mentioned that he had been on one of these tours
and it could of benefited the group to have a closer look at how they make their products
Before the lecture on Wednesday I travelled to Canada water Body shop store, looked
around to see closer what their like. Their use of colours for all their products reflects the
content for example mango butter content is pale yellow but the the packaging itself is
strong yellow. I later asked my friend who visits the body shop quite often and she said
that she can recognize the content from the packaging so this seems like an interesting
way to make it easier for the customer to find what they are looking for.
lot of heir products are made in England but i noticed all their accessories are made in
India and china which seems like the most standard thing to do and it makes body shop
look like any other store that uses those countries for mass production.
Markets Week 4
Week 4
Presented my concept to my tutor about using these self efficient Piezo LED panels but
was only a concept and to make one it would of taken too long time and aside from time
which I was lacking I noticed that even with the capacitors and LEDs the panels would be
expensive to produce and if Market would need to supply them it might be just better to put
a series of signs pointing to it. This however would have been good at night to point
people to the market when it gets darker where the LEDs would of done a great job
attracting people to them but during a day like 8am when there is most people around the
daylight would of made the panels useless.
Never the less I still tough this electric idea would of worked well and the tagging system
form the Film Step Up was a nice and cheap way to attract attention I looked at the
pictures I took of the path form London Bridge to the Borough Market and I noticed there
was a traffic lights button which a lot of people interact with. I though about designing this
little cheap device that would have been connected to the traffic light button so when you
press it it will also point you to the market. This would have been more of a guerilla style
advertising system so it would be against the law to fiddle with the traffic lights as its
dangerous and on the other hand there is only 3 sets of traffic lights aon that path from
station to the London bridge so it would not make the best way finding system to show
where the market it.
Considering the time frame I decided to look at an app for a smart phone since everyone
has a phone these days and smart phones are becoming more popular. I spoke to one of
my tutors about it and he suggest I could look at QR codes and augmented reality to see
how it would work with the phone. A QR code is a similar to bar code which contains a
message a text or a numbers. This is a very simple way of generating messages and I
though about positioning these QR codes around the area like the ground, ceiling and
walls and allowing people to scan them to point it towards the market,
The concept I ended up with was that a QR code would be placed on the ground right
outside the London Bridge Station and anyone who has a phone with a qr code reader will
be able to scan it and an augmented reality arrows will pop up showing where the Market
is. Also another concept I added was an official London borough application with an option
inside where you choose a stand type like for example apple stand or fish stand. Once
selected the application will tell you how close you are to it and what direction you have to
go.
Presented my concept to my tutor about using these self efficient Piezo LED panels but
was only a concept and to make one it would of taken too long time and aside from time
which I was lacking I noticed that even with the capacitors and LEDs the panels would be
expensive to produce and if Market would need to supply them it might be just better to put
a series of signs pointing to it. This however would have been good at night to point
people to the market when it gets darker where the LEDs would of done a great job
attracting people to them but during a day like 8am when there is most people around the
daylight would of made the panels useless.
Never the less I still tough this electric idea would of worked well and the tagging system
form the Film Step Up was a nice and cheap way to attract attention I looked at the
pictures I took of the path form London Bridge to the Borough Market and I noticed there
was a traffic lights button which a lot of people interact with. I though about designing this
little cheap device that would have been connected to the traffic light button so when you
press it it will also point you to the market. This would have been more of a guerilla style
advertising system so it would be against the law to fiddle with the traffic lights as its
dangerous and on the other hand there is only 3 sets of traffic lights aon that path from
station to the London bridge so it would not make the best way finding system to show
where the market it.
Considering the time frame I decided to look at an app for a smart phone since everyone
has a phone these days and smart phones are becoming more popular. I spoke to one of
my tutors about it and he suggest I could look at QR codes and augmented reality to see
how it would work with the phone. A QR code is a similar to bar code which contains a
message a text or a numbers. This is a very simple way of generating messages and I
though about positioning these QR codes around the area like the ground, ceiling and
walls and allowing people to scan them to point it towards the market,
The concept I ended up with was that a QR code would be placed on the ground right
outside the London Bridge Station and anyone who has a phone with a qr code reader will
be able to scan it and an augmented reality arrows will pop up showing where the Market
is. Also another concept I added was an official London borough application with an option
inside where you choose a stand type like for example apple stand or fish stand. Once
selected the application will tell you how close you are to it and what direction you have to
go.
Markets Week 3
Week 3
Last week I left of with the tagging system from the film I saw and I knew that the batteries
will eventually die out so I would need to find an alternative to the power source so I
decided to look into alternative ways of powering the lights. That is when it strike me that
there was a project I was involved for a short time which used floor panels that would have
been powered by people by just walking on them This is called PIEZO electricity and
theses are little crystals that produce small amount of electricity when compressed. An
example of this technology is used in everyday life object we all have, lighters have them.
Models where you just press the button and light it up. I bough a few Piezo discs from
Maplin Electronics to play with the and see how they work. As it turns out it does produce
electricity when tapped or pressed but not enough to light up an LED so it can attract your
attention to it.
I did more research into this Piezo on the internet and I found a youtube video showing
how one person manages to store the piezo electricity in a capacitor which is connected to
a LED which uses this energy to light up bright. I replicated the circuit used for that it and it
work the way it did on the video.
This was the first time I was involved with electronics in my project and I learned some
basic things like how capacitors work, what a diode us and how it works as well as the
Piezo electricity which is literally fee energy. From that I came up with an idea to create a
series of panels with piezo discs inside with capacitors and LED lights. These panels
would have been replaced with the concrete pavement down London Bridge and when
people walk on them as this are as it is very busy the energy would have been stored in
the capacitors and then used by the LEDs which would light up and show people the way
to the market.
Last week I left of with the tagging system from the film I saw and I knew that the batteries
will eventually die out so I would need to find an alternative to the power source so I
decided to look into alternative ways of powering the lights. That is when it strike me that
there was a project I was involved for a short time which used floor panels that would have
been powered by people by just walking on them This is called PIEZO electricity and
theses are little crystals that produce small amount of electricity when compressed. An
example of this technology is used in everyday life object we all have, lighters have them.
Models where you just press the button and light it up. I bough a few Piezo discs from
Maplin Electronics to play with the and see how they work. As it turns out it does produce
electricity when tapped or pressed but not enough to light up an LED so it can attract your
attention to it.
I did more research into this Piezo on the internet and I found a youtube video showing
how one person manages to store the piezo electricity in a capacitor which is connected to
a LED which uses this energy to light up bright. I replicated the circuit used for that it and it
work the way it did on the video.
This was the first time I was involved with electronics in my project and I learned some
basic things like how capacitors work, what a diode us and how it works as well as the
Piezo electricity which is literally fee energy. From that I came up with an idea to create a
series of panels with piezo discs inside with capacitors and LED lights. These panels
would have been replaced with the concrete pavement down London Bridge and when
people walk on them as this are as it is very busy the energy would have been stored in
the capacitors and then used by the LEDs which would light up and show people the way
to the market.
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