Got Milk?

Similar to Tim Burton Official Site and Hallo Sour Sally, Got Milk is an interactive site that wakens users’ interests to explore and enjoy.

The brand Got Milk? is created by California Milk Processor Board (CMPB) which represents a cross-section of the milk industry in USA. Gotmilk.com is the official website of this brand and CMPB. It promotes a healthy life-style with the habit of drinking milk.

By opening this site, a milk box jumps out during the loading time. A catchline of “Welcome to Internet’ first and only superdrink factory” indicates audience to the website’s home theme – a factory-like animation with cartoon animals and working product line.

The page is in a white tone – it reminds us the color of milk. Dark and light grey composes the background, along with blue outline of images, make a soft effect. When you move the mouse upon the images, colorful tags rise out showing the name and the function of products. Round shape tag with vivid colored text and outline decorate the page to break the white monotony. The color of cartoon animals and small milk boxes does the same job.

The group of image is a nice thought, that makes us look the page as a whole, but rare texts are shown on the home page. We have to click the images and get access to detailed information and other sections. Section bar also shows the icons only, to get the meaning of icons, we have to move the mouse upon them. In my opinion, the creators are better to put a site description (ie About Us) in an obvious position for first time visitors. When I first visited the site, I knew the site is about milk and healthy by looking at the cartoons, but didn’t really know what the site is created for.

I explored this site by mouse and found out it provides interactive games but this feature is not shown on the home page. You can start a small game by clicking one of the cartoon animals, each game is designed for a particular milk product. You can also skip the game by clicking “health info” and get to know the product in texts. That’s a good plan because it offers options to the visitors.

Gloji Bottle

Gloji Inc designed a container for their product of goji berry juice.

The idea of the Gloji Bottle design is based on three elements: the brand name, the product and the slogan. The brand name “Glogi” is related to the slogan “The juice that makes you glow”; the product is made from goji berry, which is bright orange-red, ellipsoid berry 1-2cm deep (Wikipedia).

By using a light bulb shaped bottle, it successfully expresses the product’s concept of glowing and healthy. It may also inspirited from goji berry, even though the bottle looks more like a pear than the goji berry - actually the narrow part on top is easy for holding.

The bottle body is made by glass and the bottle cap is metallic. The orange-red tone of the glass bottle are variable depends on goji juice’s different flavor. The colors are glittering and translucent, just like a fresh goji berry in the morning dew. The metallic cup is chosen to match the configuration of light bulb, while the metals are also different regarding to the kinds of product.

The only concern is, the bottle may not be placed vertically on the table as it gets a ball shaped bottom - it may cause rolling down to break if there is no proper way to store.

You are a part of art - ACMI Interactive installation

In the digital age, the word ‘interactivity’ is usually used to describe interactions between humans and machines… today, we may interact with a videogame simply by waving our arm; in the future, we may be able to do so with our brainwaves. – the explanation board, ACMI

WAHOOOO. Two dinosaurs are fighting. Sounds they are quite furious. OH now the dinosaurs become butterflies. But wait, how come the butterflies have BIG TEETH?

And in the front of the screen two teenagers are laughing hard because they just made their own version of Transformer, by waving arms and making gestures.

The installation, unlike those traditional art works, requires your participation. If no one stands in the front of it, the screen will be blank. But when you walk to it you will see figure of yourself appears on the screen like a monster – with animal snarl sound.

Because the interactive installation is so different with our traditional art works, I have been thinking if we can consider this installation as an art work. It is a visual motion program, the changing figures and background wild sounds bring a memorable audio-visual experience. It is a creation, the sound it makes, the lines and shapes that appear around arms are all unique and original, showing designer’s aesthetics. Simple triangles and circles, orderly and mixed lines, dark and light tones help to enrich the screen. The figures on screen are grey tone at the moment - colorful detailed figures are hard to create but they will be more effective.

I believe that interactivity is a trend of art presentation. As the installation’s explanation says, in the future the audience will have more chance to enjoy being a part of art work – even with the brainwaves!

IdN – International Designers Network

IdN (International designers' Network) is an international publication for creative people on a mission to amplify and unify the design community. It is devoted to bringing designers from around the globe together to communicate with, learn from and inspire one another.

-          About IdN, http://idnworld.com/info/contact.php.

Based on Hong Kong, IdN magazine is sold bimestrially for more than 15 years in around 20 countries and regions. As a whole, Idn maintains a fashionable and attractive style. It mainly presents modern and street arts from designers and studios around the world.

An IdN magazine is composed by copper print paper and matt art paper, and harder cover paper also used as an inside DVD holder. Different paper produces variable textures. I have got its 100^th celebrative issue, a notable design is the combined use of normal sized paper and narrower paper. The narrower paper helps to increase the variety of the magazine.

Like other design magazines, IdN has layout of images dominating and typography supporting. The pictures are eye-catching and congested, that requires the text to be an eye-friendly condition. In IdN, texts are usually arranged upon a part of pictures. It saves paper space and also makes a nice effect. However, I feel the layout is sometimes too full, and the font size is too small - that makes me skip reading the text.

In the digital age, framed and still images on paper are no longer pleased the audience and the creators themselves; art works require more variable platforms. At this point IdN does a good job - all IdN issues come with complimentary DVD which delivers theme-based visual compilations of short films, TV commercials, animations, creative motion contents etc. Those multimedia contents are also available by using the installed media boxes on TV or iTunes podcast feeds.

They’re the screen-shot of DVD’s opening title by Paul Cayrol. It brings a sweet and celebrative sense.

PACK!

PACK! Bottles_Labels_Boxes_Textures_Bags_Shapes_Papers_Colors_Range

By Fabiola Reyes

The book is all about packaging design.

The eye-catching colors, the original labels, the incredible shapes, the unusual typographies and the variety of materials…are all contributory factors in the look of our PACK! – Back cover, PACK!

Nowadays the packaging of a product is nearly as important as the product inside. Apart from the basic role of packaging such as durability and protection, the three-dimensional design is also an aspect to consider, that may affects the sales of product. Consumers, like me, usually choose to buy product with the most attractive package. So what those outstanding designs are like?

The book is published by Monsa, a Spain based team with specified filed of design. It is in good paper and print qualities with a format of 21.5cm*25.5cm.

A great packaging design is introduced every page or two pages, in the forms of pictures and texts combination. The texts are written in two languages – English and Spanish. It provides opportunity for a larger market. Texts are about the designers and their personal information, and descriptions of the packaging designs presented. Pictures usually hold main position on pages, in order to present the details to the maximum. Most of them show different sides of a package, or a series of packages.

The book presents a good sense of consistency. The layout is kept the same style - all texts are arranged on the left or right hand side of the page. With a grey rectangle background under the last sentences, typography is in black small size which does not steal the pictures’ spotlight. In comparison, the layout of pictures is more variable - the picture can hold full or half page, a page may present one design or several pictures. However, because of the same white page backgrounds, consistency is still shown in the terms of product presentation.

This book inspires me at the aspect of packaging design. Here is a picture I found online showing cute candy package.