Communication Is A Virus Evaluation

1. As a group what problem did you identify and why in response to 'drink tea'?

We identified what tea is associated with, mostly relaxing after a days work, a pass time that fits in with the lifestyles of working professionals who need that down time. As well as this tea has a reputation for represented a British 'stiff upper lip'. We wanted to change that by creating this 'tea is cool' ethos and incorporating into the lives of students and young professionals.

What methods did you use to gather your evidence to prove this was a problem and what forms did it take? (primary, secondary, qualitative, quantitative)

When doing research into other brands of tea, almost all the websites tried desperately to capitalise on the British theme, the use of Union Jacks, London Buses etc, a theme which in my opinion is extremely overdone. When looking at some of the tea brands on sale in Harvey Nichols, a few more tried to appear natural and pure, a concept that I was quite interested in implementing but that wouldn't contribute to the 'tea is cool' idea.

What methods of research did you find useful and why?

Our secondary Research proved most useful given that we were trying to do something completely different to all the existing brands. This made it easy to see what other brands had done and almost do the opposite so that we wouldn't fall into a trap of being similar to any other brands. It was the secondary research that contributed to our decision to make our own brand, since we'd seen nothing that was in-keeping with our theme.

What research could you have carried out that would have proved more useful?

Spending more time and actually documenting primary research could have really helped us decide how to make our brand fit the target audience perfectly, enabling us to have more success when it came to making the brand viral. Actually talking and documenting students and young professionals interest in a new brand of tea aimed at them would have helped us identify what areas required more attention.

How did you manage the workload as part of a group?

For the first time in any group I have been the workload was split very well. Initially we struggled as we were still coming up with a concept and plan for the first week, delaying us starting on the actual practical side, but once we had the idea clearly laid out we listed everything that needed to be done and assigned people to different areas based on their strengths. It was fairly evenly distributed and when someone was struggling more under their load others did help them out when they had the time. As a result, despite setting ourselves quite an ambitious project and therefore the workload being quite high, we were able to finish it effectively with everyone's help.

In spite of the success of the branding design and production, we were side-stepped by it and became so distracted by making it perfect that we didn't spend the amount of time on promotion that we could and should have, meaning that we didn't fit the brief as effectively as we had the potential to.

Personal and Practice

5 Statements about me as an individual:

1. In only the past couple of years I've realised how much I love to travel. No matter where it is, the shift in my surroundings has a huge effect on my the way I look at things; buildings, nature and even people become more interesting when I'm in a place I'm not accustomed to. There's a level of excitement that I get before going abroad that can't be matched by anything.

Similarly, this is the only time I get to spend with my family, something that I've started to appreciate more as I've gotten older. While at 16 I wanted nothing more than to not have to deal with parents and siblings, a short 4 years later, half the excitement of the family holiday is the family part.

Skiing with my family 2012

2. Despite this love to travel, I will always live in a city. I love Leeds but couldn't carry on living here without being a student. I have always planned to go back to London after uni and although I may not stay there forever it is one of my favourite places to be.

3. It is unlikely I will ever have a pet more adventurous than a goldfish. Given that I don't like animals that much, I shouldn't be be made responsible for a creature I don't understand. I have never and will never own a cat, live with anyone who owns a cat or even tolerate someone who really likes their cat. Cats are probably the most demonic creatures in the world and their ridiculous sense of self-righteousness is unparalleled, even by Tom Cruise.

4. I love organising anything and everything that isn't to do with me. For the life of me I couldn't explain why, but I find nothing more satisfying than organising other peoples lives down to the most minute details.

5. Some of the situations I've been confronted with over the past couple of years have allowed me to temporarily step back from what I'm doing at that time and consider things that are so much bigger than that. Although I've realised these things at times that haven't always been great, this momentary change in attitude allows me to put the things that I'm finding difficult to one side and acknowledge how insignificant that they might be. It allows me to put into perspective how lucky I consider myself to be.

5 statements about me as a designer:

1. I am extremely particular and think very logically and I think this is reflected heavily in the designs I most admire and my own designs (at least the ones I actually like).

2. Contrary to what some designers might say about typography and layout design, I don't believe either of these should be used to communicate content of an article or design, they should only be used enhance the message. Both of these elements of design mean nothing without the content.

3. I hugely admire designers that can be successfully minimal. I used to think it would be easy to produce a minimal design but now I think it might be one of the harder parts of Graphic Design when I realised that a whole message is expected to be delivered with a 'the simpler the better' mentality.

4. I love type, but only if I have to look at it twice.

5. I want to spend a lot more time learning about editorial structural and layout design. It's like doing a puzzle, when you have to force something to fit together on a page it's never gonna look right, it almost has to fall into place.