John Lewis

D&AD, standing for Design and Art Direction, is an organisation which celebrates design and advertising. Founded in 1962 by a group of London based designers and art directors, the charity exists to promote excellence in creative communication. D&AD host an award called New Blood, which allows students, recent graduates and young adults to address a real life brief. Set by real clients, New Blood is a way of getting your work seen and judged by some of the top creatives from around the world. There are many briefs to choose from, allowing any creative discipline the opportunity to tackle: from copywriting, photography, product design or graphic communication, there is something for everyone.

My college recently allowed us the chance to choose a brief from the 2015 list and tackle. Working as part of a pair, my partner and I decided to choose the John Lewis brief here. What drew me to this was that it was something I had yet to experiment with: the aim of the brief was to create a new, innovative home delivery system and packaging.

After much deliberation and a lot of ideas being thrown away and developed, we decided to take something old and reinvent it to work with the company's brand. A Furoshiki wrap, traditional to the Japanese culture. Although other businesses have already used this, such as Lush and Feel Unique, we decided to create our own spin on things.

Something mentioned within the brief was the idea of creating an after life for the package: a way of keeping the brand in the home, something to act as a gift from the company to the consumer. The brand felt it important to continue to create an emotional connection to the customer, as this is what their brand is built upon. The Furoshiki wrap, with it's multiple uses, allows the customer to experiment and be creative, whilst also keeping John Lewis in their home.



Wanting to create something current, we researched into current fashion trends. Finding inspiration through iridescence, floral and deconstructed geometrics, we create a pattern on one side of the wrap. The other side, used for the outside of the packages featured the John Lewis motif and their signature green colour.



The material will be a lightweight, fair trade cotton, which sustains the John Lewis brand and creates a balance between the sleek packaging design alongside creating something ecologically and environmentally friendly. The cotton will be treated using bees wax, which is a natural and safe way of water proofing, and also adds quite a nice scent. Looking into printing techniques, there isn't yet a way of being extremely environmentally friendly, but using screen printing alongside inks that are phthalate-free is what we decided to do.



We also looked into different ways of holding a bar code for the delivery process. We wanted to create something that would aid the security of the package, and looked into different tags such as shark tagging which has gps tracking. Sticking with the theme of creating something on trend, we decided to use a copper pull tag which keeps the Furoshiki knot in place, and also allows the package to be identifiable for the delivery driver.

Finally, the Furoshiki wrap will not be as sturdy as a box, so we decided to again look into creating a box to protect the packaging. Deciding to draw all focus on the wrap itself, the box is made out of recyclable material and is quite minimal and plain. Personified with a message, "Hello, I've been waiting for you." The box is another way of engaging the customer and creating a connection. It can be returned to store or click and collect stores in order to receive some of the delivery cost back, which encourages an environmentally friendly process and allows John Lewis to promote recycling.



I think what I loved about this brief was that it was so new: it was open and allowed me to explore my strengths in graphic treatments and push my weaknesses. It was a completely different experience undertaking a competition brief when compared to a client brief, but being able to expand passed the boundaries of the brand and focus on a design that is something which the brand may not have traditionally considered made the brief more exciting. I think I also learnt a lot about myself in this project, in terms of being fascinated by other cultures and their ways and finding inspiration through that, but also how my weaknesses (such as using illustrator) are not going to hold me back. I think the final design holds a balance between the minimal, sleek and strong brand, with something that is sustainable, eco friendly and fashionable.

Alternative Techniques

As I mentioned within my SWOT Analysis, and also my evaluation of my last module, something I wanted to continue experimenting with was my sketchbook work. I found it difficult last year to work with paper, with one of my lecturers calling me a "paper-phobe." It wasn't that I didn't like to use paper for my ideas: I used scrap pieces and kept them in a messy organised pile on the edge of my shelf. I was just too much of a perfectionist. I wanted all of my work to look perfect.

This year, my first module was to create 5 sketchbooks. That seemed like a nightmare at the beginning, but it really worked and I soon found myself reaching for my sketchbooks to jot down ideas and notes instead of using scrap paper and never including it in my progress. Within the module following, I reverted back to InDesign as it was easier and quicker as there was no idea generation.

Within this module, I wanted to use a sketchbook again in hopes it would aid my final outcome: and also, continue to expand my annotation and paper use. And that it did.

Below I have included images of my research stage within my sketchbook. These pages were at the beginning, middle and end of my sketchbook: when using in design, I added all research to the beginning and never truly reverted back to integrate them within my idea generation. With this new way, I found myself realising there were aspects I needed to research again, and more thoroughly research to aid my ideas, such as materials, and ecologically friendly methods. It really helped my process be a smoother one.

As you can see, it was necessary for me to research into all kinds of areas: ecologically friendly packaging methods on the market, ecologically friendly materials and delivery systems, the brand itself and it's target audience, D&AD past entries and winners, competitors, other companies which had used our idea, and fashion trends.

Though I won't go too into detail right now on the idea, as I would like to save that for my final outcome blogpost, I have shared below my idea generation and process.


Though I am working as a pair, our research was conducted separately and we came together to discuss our ideas and communicate them back and forth. We also scheduled many meetings away from our college studio days, as a way to keep in touch with one another and make sure we were both on the right track. It was tricky, but it was worth it as having two heads instead of one meant we didn't get stuck on a bad idea and try to make it work: we were level headed, and told each other straight which direction we wanted to take, and both evaluated whether it was a good one.

Our idea generation was done quite separately. Keeping tabs on each other meant relaying our ideas to one another, but we went separately when it came to our sketchbooks. I think this was a good method to take as it meant we could both equally explore our own ideas before relaying them to our pair. I believe our final outcome is strong because of this.

Finally, I have really enjoyed working with a sketchbook. As this was my target for this module, I'm glad I have stuck to it as I feel my creations have been better for it: it's a lengthier process than jumping to the screen, but it's not as exhausting, and I found myself getting less bored and procrastinating less due to not having the distractions of the internet.

My other target was to work with a plan and follow it: I believe my partner and I both did this. I used the wanderlist app, a recent stumble upon, to keep a to do list that I could regularly update and check, and remember to actually write! (Thank god for smart phones and my addiction to checking it.) I also used my calendar app to keep updated on when my partner and I were meeting, what we needed to have done by a certain time, etc. It was really helpful for my time management and I even managed to schedule a weekend away from the whole project to celebrate my birthday in, right before deadline day. This is usually a time I am cramming and rushing to finish.

Overall, a big success, and I will be posting about my final outcome soon. I believe setting a target truly helped me within this module, so for my next module, my target is to continue to experiment with illustrator and use it as quite a big aspect of the project in order to gain more experience.