Creative Media Production 2013 1

Recipe Card Evaluation

Chloe Stead

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Producing Print Based Media

Visual LanguageHow have you chosen to set out your designs and why? (Reference layout, image/text ratio, busy/simplistic etc)

Our recipe cards are full of small details that make them realistic, making the design seem quite busy. Depending on the recipe and how many ingredients there are and how many steps there are, there could be a lot or only a little text. Mostly there is more text than images. We have used the margins from the background image of a lined piece of paper for the text but let some of the images run over to make it more realistic. We also tired to fit the text to the lines of the lined paper, though sometimes found it a challenge due to space. We used paragraphs to break up the text to make it easier to read. The title was always at the top of the page, as with school work that was always where the title would go, making the card more realistic. Having the title at the top was not just to make it look like school work however, as it was also to make the name of the recipe clear and obvious. On every card the banner and logo when at the bottom of the page. Our designs are definitely busy, though the text is readable and it isn’t overpowered by details and images. On each card there is a different amount of text and images depending on the recipe and how

many high quality images we could get, but mostly there is more text than images.

Visual LanguageDiscuss the contents of your final images and reflect upon decisions made. (Content used- image/text/graphic, use of colour, original or stock images. Compare to existing products.)

We used small details such as ink splodges, tea-stains and some little illustrations to give the card a more home made feel. We also made the brand strip look like ripped paper to fit with our theme. We put images of tape across the edges of the images we used to make it look as if they had been stuck on to the page. For some of our key information such as vegetarian or vegan suitability and serving sizes we used an image of a school blackboard and places the text on top in white to make it look as if that section of text was written on the board. This makes the information stand out, and adds some more detail to the theme. The images we used sometimes had a background and sometimes the background was cut out on photoshop. Almost all of the photographs we used were Taken by us, though 3 of them were stock photos. On a lot of the photos we used a drop shadow to make it more believable that the photos were stuck onto the page. Non of our photographs were too busy in order to draw attention to the food rather than anything else.

Visual LanguageDiscuss the semiotics and connotations created from the content you have included. (What meaning or suggestions are created from the images/colours/designs you have used? You could reference how they were used in products you look at during the project.)

Though our green brand strip was influenced by the colour of the clients logo, it also has other connotations. You could associate it with environmental politics, or the Green Party. It could also be associated with green vegetables, which people often stereotype vegetarians and vegans as people who eat a lot of those. The messy illustrations, small added details and the hand written looking font have connotations of children. The tea-stains will be a familiar sight to anyone who ever did homework. The ink splodges could make you think of broken biros from being chewed at by children. The blackboard used to contain some of the important information has strong connotations of how schools were when our audience was at school. We tried to come up with recipes to use that would remind people of being back at school such as shepherds pie and rice pudding. The text is written in a font that looks as if it has been hand written by a child, which could persuade our audience into believing that these recipe cards are really someone’s school work.

AudiencesCreate an audience profile of your chosen demographic(Age, gender, psychographic, geodemographic, NRS Social Grade, hobbies, sexuality [if appropriate] etc)

Our audience would be people who have left school, probably a long time ago as these are the people most likely to feel nostalgic when looking at the cards. This could be adults aged 25 and up. Though anyone of any age who has left school could feel nostalgic and enjoy the cards. The audience could be both female or male as the cards are not particularly aimed at either. Any member of society who has attended school would be able to appreciate and understand this card, though those who haven’t, such as Travelers or forging adults now living in Britain may not so much as they will not understand some of the references. Children who are in schools now may not be able to appreciate these cards either as they wont feel nostalgic. They also may not understand some of the references as schools are very different now to how they used to be, for example they may not understand what the blackboard is as they no longer have blackboards in most schools. Other people who may not enjoy this card so much could be those who didn’t have a good school experience. These people may now be working class members of society, possibly because they have missed a lot of school so didn’t get enough qualifications. The NRS social grades place the working class and middle class into 6 categories, A B C1 C2 D and E. A-C1 is middle class and C2-E is working class. Our audience is perhaps in the A-C1 area making them middle class. A sociologists study showed that working class people tended

to have a “live for the moment” attitude, where as middle class people tended to think more about the future. This might mean that our audience is more likely to be interested in exercise and healthy eating. They are also probably more driven people, succeeding in work life, their social life and their love life. We also know that our audience might be into healthy eating as a vegetarian and vegan lifestyle is usually considered more healthy. Our recipes are fairly healthy, with some exceptions such as the rice pudding. I think that our audience would typically be vegetarian or vegan as they will be the people most inclined to go out and seek vegetarian and vegan recipe cards. Though I think that anyone that in interested in cooking could enjoy this recipe card.

AudiencesHow have you constructed your work to appeal to this audience? Include an annotated copy of an example of your work to help illustrate how you have done this.

Our audience would typically be middle class adults aged 20+.The theme would appeal to our audience as its all about reminding them of being back at school. This would appeal to the middle class as they probably did better at school, and were praised by teachers, liked by other students and got better qualifications. Therefore having a generally good school experience and having good memories of school. The photographs we have taken look more appropriate for adults as well. We haven’t used too much colour on the photos. The photos are simple an high quality making them more suitable for our audience. The food is also all presented well and quite formally. Rather than doing actual traditional school dinners we did a vegetarian/vegan, more delicious take on the old school dinners, making the food more appealing to the audience. Though the theme was about making you feel like a child back at school, the language we used wasn’t child like, making it more appropriate for adults. Our recipe cards would appeal to vegetarians,vegans and non-vegetarians/vegans as the food is Suitable for everyone, and the fun theme may convince the non-vegetarians/vegans to give it a try.

Cultural contextWhat did you use as your design influences and why were they chosen?(What existing media products influenced the final look of your work?)

I haven’t looked at any other cards that have particularly inspired me, nor have they influenced our design idea. Though we have been inspired and influenced by school, and how school used to be when our audience was there. For example we used images of blackboards which used to be used in schools for some of our text. The colours of our text and the ink splodges were inspired by the blue biros we used for writing in school. Another of our influences has been our client the vegetarian society, which has inspired the use of the colour green on our cards. We used green for the brandingstrip at the bottom of the page to remind people of the brand, but we continued it inside the hole-punched paper to make it look realistic as if the page was on top of a green surface. We managed to get some inspiration from the Vegetarian society for our food photography. As Photographing food was not something I had ever done or looked into particularly I needed some inspiration to show mehow to do it. The photos I took followed some of the conventions of food photography, such as taking the

photograph close up rather than from far away in order to get the clearest picture of the food.

Cultural contextDo vegetarian products have a specific design aesthetic and how does your project reflect/contrast this? Why?

I don’t think that vegetarian or vegan recipe cards have a specific design aesthetic. It varies depending on the target audience. It can also vary depending on the cards theme, such as foods from around the world or Christmas. Though one thing that most vegetarian or vegan products have in common is the use of the colour green, as seen in the two examples below taken from the vegetarian society website. On our recipe cards we also used the colour green for our branding strip and inside the holes in the page. The colour green often represents nature and the environment, which is why I think it is often used on vegetarian and vegan recipe cards. Although these example cards were made by the vegetarian society, and their logo is green so this could be anotherreason it has been used.

We were inspired by this use of green, and used it for our branding strip and inside the hole punches inside the paper to make it look as if the paper is lying on a green surface. However we didn’t use the colour green specifically to represent nature or the environment, but to represent our client. One other thing that most vegetarian and vegan recipe cards have in common is their style of photography. Typically, food is photographed close up to the food to capture a clear image of it. They also have the camera set to a very small depth of field, making the background appear out of focus, but the food close up to the camera remains in focus. This is to highlight the food.

Finished productsDoes your finished product reflect your initial plans? How? If there are any differences, describe why changes were made.(You can use visual examples of flat plans and finished products to illustrate this

Looking at our first style sheets and flat plan, we tried to stick to one specific style sheet for our design, though we seemed to end up using a combination of a few of the sheets. For example we used the colour scheme from one style sheet and the font from another. We also decided on one particular flat plan to use for our recipe cards, however we ended up changing a few small parts along the way.

We also decided on one particular flat plan to use for our recipe cards, however we ended up changing a few small parts along the way.

We were originally going to have the vegetarian society logo at the top of the page, though due to what was asked of us in the brief we had to place it at the bottom. We also didn’t necessarily place all our images in the places we thought we would originally, this could have been due to the quantity of photos we took. Though we kept all the places the text would go the same, so the changes don’t appear too drastic.

Looking at the test cards we did, we ended up keeping all the text in the same place on our finished cards, though some of the font sizes are a little different. In our finished cards we used an image of a blackboard to section off some of the text where as on the test cards we just made a box around it. The text we sectioned off on the text cards is also different to the text we sectioned off on the finished cards. We also usedbullet points that looked like ink blobs on the test cards, but we didn’t use those on the finished cards.

Finished productsDoes your finished product match what you were set in the brief? How?

The brief stated that we needed to include a branding strip with their logo on the recipe cards. They wanted interesting and creative designs, with a set theme so it was clear that they were a set. They wanted to have cards with a front and a back. All the food needed to be suitable for vegetarians, and some for vegans. Recipe cards needed to include vegan or vegetarian suitability, serving number, preparation time and cooking time. The ingredients needed to be listed in the order in which they are used in the method. We needed to use metric rather than imperial measurements. We should have left a space between the number and spoon abbreviations but not between the number and metric abbreviations. We should have left out the degrees symbol and the term ‘mark’ when referring to cooking temperatures. We should have also left a space between the word ‘Gas’ and the temperature but not between the temperature and the degrees measurement abbreviation. The method points should be numbered but not the ingredients.

Our cards featured a branding strip with their logo on it like they asked. I also think our cards were very interesting and creative, and it did have a set theme. All of our recipes were suitable for vegetarians, some were vegan and some were adaptable to be either vegetarian or vegan. All of our cards included a front and back design. At the top of the

We did state weather the recipe was suitable for vegetarians or vegans, and we stated the serving number. I think that almost all of the ingredients were listed in the order they needed to be used in the method, though there could perhaps have been a few mistakes. Some of the we made used imperial measurements though the others used metric. Some of the cards has the method stages numbered however some did not.

Branding strip + logo

Serving number, prep time, cooking time and vegetarian/vegan suitability

Method steps are numbered

Front and back page

Finished productsHow did the use of peer feedback help you in your production?(Reference specific examples and their final outcome in finished product)

During the planning part of this project, within our group we gave each other feedback on each others ideas. I think this was definitely beneficial because we managed to come to a compromise on our final designs of the recipe cards. It also gave us an opportunity to hear ideas we may not have thought about before. During our initial ideas development where we were choosing the theme we were going to use for our cards, we gave each other a lot of peer feedback. We each created 5 ideas and we would give feedback to each others ideas. From each of our 5 ideas we would pick 2 to develop, and then pick our favorite one. We would asses each others favorite ideas until we came up with our final idea. This was how we came to decide on our school dinner theme.

Finished productDiscuss the strengths and weaknesses of your final product regarding its technical qualities.Use box below for text or page space to include an annotated copy of your work to help illustrate how you have done this.Reference what you like and dislike about the work with consistent reference to correct terminology of tools/effects used. Reference existing products.

We needed to learn how to use certain effects on phototshop to create the look of a tare at the bottom of the page that we used for the branding strip.

We used a drop shadow on some of the images to make it look as if it had actually been stuck on the page. We also used a drop shadow under the tare in the page so it looks as if it is actually on a green surface.

Reduced the opacity of the ink splodges, tea-stains and the tape so you can see the lines and images slightly through them, making it look more realistic.

We mostly took our own photographs.

Edited photos lighting, colour and noise levelto improve the quality.

We didn’t number the method steps on every single card which if we had would have improved the cards.

Each ingredient is on its own line to make the list clear.

We tried to fit the text onto the lines on the lined paper to make it seem neater, and also more realistic.

Finished productDiscuss the strengths and weaknesses of your final product regarding its aesthetical qualities.Use box below for text or page space to include an annotated copy of your work to help illustrate how you have done this. Reference what you like and dislike about the work with consistent reference to correct terminology. You can reference existing products here and compare your work to them.

Made the blueberries look like they are actually on the page by cutting them from the original image and adding a drop shadow, adding to the cards messy look.

Date at the top of the page to make it look more like school work.

We tried to fit the text between the lines on the page to make it readable, but also realistic

The blackboard sections off important info so you can see it clearly, but it also looks fun how it looks as if it has been written on the board

Ink splodges and text are in the colour are in the colour of blue biro, making it look realistic.

Finished productsWhat skills/knowledge have you gained/developed in this project? How could these be applied in future practice?

During this project I have developed my creative skills further. Before this project I had no experience in creating recipe cards, and I had never though about what themes you could use and interesting things you could do with a recipe card. I had also never done food photography, though now I have and I have learned about what sort of lighting, colours and angles look good when taking photographs of food. I have definitely learned how to manage my time better than in previous projects, as I have managed to keep up to date with all of my tasks. I have gained further knowledge of vegetarian and vegan food from creating our recipe cards, and from creating our vegetarian factfile. Though I already had a lot of knowledge of vegetarian food, I still discovered many things I didn’t already know such as food that has animal produce in it that you wouldn’t expect.

Production processDo you believe your work is creative and technically competent? Why?(Reference specific examples (use images if this will help) of where you believe your work is particularly visually or technically impressive. Reference professionally productd work and compare your products to them)

I believe that our work is creative. The school dinner theme of our recipe cards Ithink is interesting and fun. We put a lot of thought into small detailssuch as putting a date at the top of some of the pages, ink splodges, tea stains and using little pieces of tape over the photographs which makes the card more fun for the consumer As it is realistic. School dinner themed recipe cards are not something I have particularly seen a lot of, so we had to think of all our own ideas rather than getting inspiration from Existing cards, which I think demonstrates a lot of creativity. One of my favorite and most creative aspects of our cards is the brand strip, as we managed to make it realistically look as if the page had been ripped at the bottom. The cards I think are also technically competent. We have tried to make the text as easy to read as possible by spacing it out so each line fits within the spaces in the lined paper. Another way we made sure our text Was readable was by sectioning off some important information

Using an image of a blackboard to enclose it. This is not only practical but I think very creative as it adds another fun aspect to the cards and will make the consumer feel nostalgic of their time at school. We have made sure all of our images are high quality and make the food look its best. We made sure of this by taking the photographs in good lighting and making sure the food is well presented on the plate, and also by editing the photographs on photoshop.

Production processHow effectively did you manage your time? (Could you have used time more wisely? Did a particular aspect of the project take longer than expected? Did you complete everything on schedule?)

I think we managed our time very well. We managed to meet each deadline without any problems. We during the production period of this project we seemed to find plenty of time to mess about with our designs and make a few versions. I know that I needed to start my cards again a few times in order to get the design perfect but I managed to meet the deadline for putting the final designs on my blog. Though it took us a while to get all of our photographs together we still managed well. We didn’t particularly stick to our original schedule, I think this was because we got everything done much quicker than we thought, and I think we needed to change the order we did everything a little due to the amount of time it took us to get our final photos. I think that we managed our time more effectively than if we had stuck to our schedule.

Production processIf you could repeat the process what would you do differently?

If I were to do this project again I would try to follow the brief a lot more closely. Though most aspects of the cards fitted the brief, a few didn’t. For example, we didn’t have the cooking time and prep time on all of the cards, some cards didn’t have numbered method steps, and also some of the cards used imperial measurements rather than metric. This was down to not reading the brief carefully enough. Next time I would definitely read the brief more than once, perhaps keeping it open while I was working just to check I was following it correctly. I would perhaps have communicated with my partner a little more, in order to get the best outcome for our project. We found that when we brought all of our finished products together the cards didn’t quite look like a set, and some were better quality than others. This could have been prevented if we had communicated better. If I did the project again I would much rather take all of my own photographs that use some of my own and some stock photos. Taking your own photos means that you can control the amount of high quality photographs that go onto your cards. The photos will come out looking like a set because you have taken photos of the same item of food, with the same setting on the camera and the same lighting. When using stock photos you cannot guarantee that the photos will look like a set, and you cannot guarantee the quality of those photos. This has meant that on some of my cards where I have used stock photos there are not as many photos as the ones where I have taken my own.

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Working to a brief

ConstraintsWhat constraints did you encounter and how did you consider/avoid them?

Legal: We could have had some copyright issues if we had used stock photos or photos from Google images. Some stock photos need to be paid for before you have rights to use them. Also, if we had taken photos from Google, we would have no rights to those images, and so we would have been infringing copyright law. We managed to avoid any of these issues by taking most of our own photographs for the recipe cards. For the images we didn’t take ourselves, we took them from food photography websites that had royalty free stock images. For 6 out of the 8 of our recipe cards, we used out own photographs, though for 2 of the recipe cards we took them from royalty free food photographs websites. This means that we didn’t have to pay for the rights, and so we could use them without any legal implications. The one problem with using stock photographs, is that you cannot always find what you want, and if you want to use multiple photographs, you cannot always find some that match.

In order to comply with the the current laws on food packaging and labelling, I needed to ensure that non of the information that I provided on my recipe cards was misleading. In order to do this, I didn’t provide any information which could give the consumer any impression that my recipes had any health benefits that they don’t have, or aided weight loss in any way. Though I am not selling the actual food product, these laws would still apply to me.

Regulatory: During the project, we also has to ensure that we were abiding by Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) regulations, and Food Standards Agency (FSA) regulations. When completing the pre-production techniques pro-forma at the beginning of this project, I considered some of the regulatory bodies and their regulations, and how they would affect my work. In order to comply with ASA guidelines, I needed to ensure that everything stated on the recipe cards was true, such as the ingredients and the vegetarian or vegan suitability. The ASA (advertising standards agency) states that “Commercial product advertising cannot reasonably be expected to perform the same role as education and public information in promoting a varied and balanced diet but should not undermine progress towards national dietary improvement by misleading or confusing consumers”. We have taken steps to ensure that all of our recipes are healthy and balanced. Most of our recipes contain lots of healthy ingredients, such as vegetables and pulses. The recipes feature food that contains lots of what we need, such as vitamins from the vegetables and protein from the cheese, and the pulses.

In order to comply with the Vegetarian Societies brief, I needed to ensure that all of the recipes were vegetarian, and some needed to be vegan. This meant that we could not feature any recipes in the recipe cards that featured ingredients such as meat and fish, and some less obvious ingredients such as cheese prepared with calf rennet such as some parmesan, or anything with gelatin in it such as jelly sweats. In the vegan recipes, they could not feature any of these ingredients, plus no other animal products such as milk and milk containing foods, and egg and egg containing foods. We have fulfilled the brief by doing a bit of research into vegetarian and vegan recipes and foods, to ensure that everything that we were using was classes as either vegetarian or vegan. We decided on 4 recipes that were vegan, and 4 recipes that were vegetarian.

Financial: In order to make our food to photograph we needed to buy the ingredients, which ended up costing a fair bit. In our budget we stated all of the ingredients that we might need, and we stated how much each meal would cost. We thought that the food alone would cost us around £96.35, though that was split between us. We managed to cut some of the costs by using some royalty free stock photographs for some of the recipe cards. This meant that we didn’t have to pay for the ingredients, and that we didn’t have to pay for the use of the photographs. We also cut back on costs by doing all of the cooking ourselves ourselves, rather than hiring a chef to prepare the meals. The problem with this however was that the food ended up coming out looking a lower standard than it would have if we had hired a professional to cook it. It also meant that we needed to take some time away from the design and copy side of the project in order to cook the food.

Another financial constraint that we faced was not being able to afford to hire other staff to come and help us with the project, for example another graphic designer, or a photographer. We couldn’t afford to hire any more people to work on the project as we were self funding the project. It meant that we had to create all aspects of the recipe cards ourselves. It mean that we perhaps ended up having to work on some aspects of the recipe cards that weren’t particularly our strong points, so the quality of the recipe cards could have been impacted.

ManagementHow did you work as part of a group? (Did you lead the project? What parts of the project did you take charge of? Did you enjoy working as part of a group? Why?)

In our team we managed to split each task between us, so we both played an equal role in the team. For example, when we were creating our recipe cards we each did for cards, front and back. I think that this was beneficial to us as we both got the opportunity to try out every aspect of the project and develop out skills in different areas, for example graphic design and photography. Splitting us a task also mean that we got it completed much quicker, meaning that we met the deadline stated in the brief.

We also split us all of the tasks during the development stages of the project, which meant that we both got the change to get our ideas out there. Though perhaps it was nice that we both managed to get an equal amount of ideas across into the final product, I don’t think that it benefitted the product, as our ideas about what we wanted didn’t seem to integrate. I found that during the project we lacked a lot of communication, and so our cards didn’t come out looking like a set. Because we were not communicating effectively and frequently, our ideas were perhaps misinterpreted, and so we ended up with cards that looked different. This ended up diminishing the quality of the cards quite a bit.

ManagementHow important is communication when working in a group? (Use specific examples from working in a group on this project)

Communication is essential when working in a group. It is important to communicate effectively and frequently with your team, so that you understand each others ideas, and so that you all know your role in the team. If you do not communicate your ideas effectively, you may find that your ideas are not getting put across, and may not be used. It could be that you have a good idea, though due to ineffective communication the idea doesn’t get used and the products quality is effected. It is also possible that if you do not communicate regularly and effectively, then ideas might be misunderstood, and you may end up coming out with products that do not all match, or low quality products. Also, if you do not communicate with your team members about what role each person is to play in the team, then perhaps multiple people will end up working on the same task. This could massively impact your likelihood to finish on the deadline required.

During the project, I found that me and my team member struggled to communicate frequently and effectively. We both ended up creating similar cards, though cards that were not exactly identical in style as required. This prevented them from looking like a set, and ended up diminishing the quality of all of them.

ManagementWhat have you learnt about working in a group and how will you apply this to future practice?

I have learnt how important it is to communicate with team members in order to come out with the best product, and therefore I will definitely consider this when doing team work again in the future. From the mistakes that we made during the project in terms of communication, I have leant that we need to frequently and effectively communicate. This will help me to create better pieces of work in future group work.

I have also learnt how to compromise on ideas, such as when we where in the ideas development stage of the project and we had to decide on which idea was then best out of the original 5 and who’s idea we were going to use in the end. As I perhaps had some bias to my own ideas, I had to be able to look at all of the ideas objectively in order to help us to choose the best idea. In the future when working in a team I will remember that compromise is important otherwise the project cannot be developed, and I will consider team mates ideas before my own.

I have learnt that it is important to consider each others strengths and weaknesses and work around them to your advantage in order to achieve the best outcome. As we split up most of the tasks equally between us, it mean that we both ended up having a go at everything, from the graphic design work to writing up the copy. I think that because this project was designed to help us to develop our skills, it was important for it to have a go at everything. However, in the future in order to come out with the best product possible I think that I should assess what I am good at, and then stick to that role.