Promotional Pack

For my Promotional Pack I wanted to ensure that the packaging had an A4 base because I needed it to be big enough to store my CV and Cover letter, along with postcards, a book mark and a business card. So I found a basic net online and then uploaded it to Photoshop. I created an A4 sized shape and then lined up the base rectangle of the net to this size. I made the overall page A1.

A basic net I found on Pinterest.

 I then added layers and incorporated my own design onto the base net design. I decided not to put the transparent sections on the lid of mine, but this would be something cool to include if you arranged the layout inside the box so that other illustrations could appear through the 'windows'.

This is my original design. I used a dark red for this, which was the same colouring as the font, a swatch taken from a patch in my branding illustration. When this was printed I realised the colour was disgusting and made me want to be sick so I decided that needed to be the first thing to change! I thought a turquoise (or blue & green) colour would look best for this large black section (it is the base of the box) and my peers and Patrick agreed. Patrick also pointed out that it would look much better and cleaner if I kept the lid clear from the contact information - just keeping the illustration and name to stand alone. The contact information could be placed inside instead.

This is my final inner net. As you can see I moved the contact information to the inside lid section. I definitely agree that this looks better and makes more sense to have all of the information on the inside - it gives you more incentive to open it too.

This is the outer net - as you can see I have used a paler greeny-blue colour here. I just feel that this looks a lot calmer and more connected to the original illustration than the dark browny red did. I makes it look fresher, as does the more simple outer lid part. Using just the illustration and name makes it look clean and simple and stops the crazy patterned sections becoming over baring.

Technical Difficulties - Unfortunately the print technician that was working during my slot didn't print out my work aligned. If I had known this I would have set it up on illustrator myself - she did it and I kept pointing out that it wasn't lined up but she was stressed and seemed to think it didn't matter. However once I was home and went to cut it out I realised it was not aligned properly at all. I also had issues printing it at the size I wanted. A4 to fit my CV and cover letter. The paper the net had to print on had to be A1 in order to fit all of the parts of the net on. It also had to be double sided so needed to be done with the inkjet printer. This only went up to a paper size of about A3 unless I used a roll of paper, but this didn't print double sided. I decided to just print it out double sided on A3 and use it to contain my postcards, bookmark and business cards instead.

The Net - I do really like this net and I enjoyed playing around with layout and composition of my headers and patterns etc. However although this is a really good net if you don't have glue etc, it doesn't look that professional as a finished product - I think it looks really DIY (because it is). So in future I wont use tabs because I don't want to have to cut into the card to avoid tears or weakening the box. I would instead use glue, which would make the whole object more secure in general.

CV & Cover Letter - Now I still need to have some sort of casing which allows for these A4 documents. While I was in the print room I saw some printed textile design students which had printed folder type things, they had an illustrated cover flap which you open and then slots to store the A4 documents such as a cv. you could also insert sections to store postcards and business cards etc. I think I way prefer this method so I will produce some of these instead in future - they are also a lot more simple to print out and can be stored easily. Although I am happy with my little postcard box! I really love the patterned design and the way it all works together as a set. I just think it could look a bit more finished in regards to the net design itself.