Monday 15 March 2010

Communication is a Virus - recipe books charts and products

Looking at existing children's products gives me a better understanding of the language to use to reach out to them best.

Yeo's is a well known brand which parents would recognise as being yogurt and the characters attract the children with the flavour of the yogurt the only writing which stand out on the packaging.


Nice colours and visually explanatory packaging.


Recipe books for children - need to look interesting and healthy at the same time. Drawing an visuals of the end product are vital. Children may not know what some of the recipes are and so therefore need images which look tasty to interest them.





A food chart is one of our group ideas. Aiming to interest children with the food enough to not feel like they are eating something they are unfamiliar and turning it into an exciting game. A chart gives a goal to reach of 5 a day and keeps the child focused on this goal and not so much on the actual act of eating the fruit and veg. It is a nice design, with rewards at the end if you complete the task, giving the children an incentive. If the mat was laminated it could be used as a plate its self. As it is set out to look like that on the board anyway the children could just place their own cutlery on top and food in the plate section.


This is a height chart so children can measure their height. It engages the children to see weather they have grown or not creating an activity out of seemingly boring task. Visually showing something to a child would work better than just telling them a number or fact.




Character association is a key element to keeping children engaged. I found these two delightful characters on my search 'Pee and Poo'. A very weird idea for characters, but nevertheless they do help to turn something quite disgusting into something more tolerable.

This packaging sort of has a character design on it. It depicts the flavour of the contents as the actual packaging itself. It is a very nice idea and I think would work well to engage children as there are a variety of textures used. The design actually looks like it is made out of the skin of the fruits. It makes you want to go up and touch their textures.


Mr.Men characters are a famous children's book based on character design. They give the characters personality with their names...Mr.Bump, Mr.Tickle, Mr.Small etc. The characters are made with simple line drawing and facial expressions to match their character name.







These two fruit characters are so cute, they express alot of personality for such tiny pieces of fruit. Yet again simple drawing and facial expression works well, red and green seem to be a good running theme for colours and are repeated alot in fruit and veg.


5 a day hand puppet encourages children to eat healthy... could be quite scary if you are a small child though!


Disney is also another well known animator, creating a wide range of characters. These characters are more complex because they are part of movies. They all show smiling faces and an aire that everything is fine and good.


Book design - These children's books use a lot of hand drawn images for their covers. Simple characters are easier for children to understand and relate to. Again a general theme of smiling faces and jolly expressions is seen throughout.







I think design is such a good idea. It combines all the things that engage children to help them at meal times with issues or maybe not eating healthily, or not eating enough. It is a simple plate design with a face on it, children place the food on to the plate to give the simple face more character. Makes dinner tie more fun and enjoyable and takes away from the stress children often feel when trying new foods.


Children can feel more at home in the kitchen with a chef's hat and apron. It provides an experience for them rather than just something that they have to do. A range of colours ensures everyone can have a colour that they like and feel more included.


Communication is a Virus - colour scheme and brand identity

I've found a company who create smoothies 'Frut' and particularly like the colour scheme. The colours seem to resemble smoothie colours, quite vivid colours, but still with a hint of pastel. Our project being about healthy eating, these colours would work well because they look healthy, clean and fresh and are still bold enough to attract kids. The use of characters also engages the audience more.







These designs are very cute and use simple bold colours. You can tell they are aimed at children because of the bold bright colours used and the characters pictured. Characters and bold colours seem to be a running theme amongst children's products, as they attract attention and create interest in the characters - it is a known fact that children respond better to something it it has a face with eyes.


These designs below follow the trend of characters and bright colours. It has nice bold rounded font and fresh white style.

This design has a lot going on. It is typical children's packaging. It gives the impression that there is a lot going on as so therefore attracts the eye to see what it is. The idea behind children's packaging is to make something not so interesting look like the most exciting thing ever. This product, I would say, fulfills this because it is in fact packaging for low fat yogurt. If the packaging read 'LOW FAT YOGURT' there is less likely chance that children would WANT to buy it, having the contents as the smallest font on the box attracts attention away from twhat the child would not want to see. Instead what they see is: 'champions', stars, superhero. Even the lettering for the flavour of the yogurt is split into two colours to detract away from the fact that they are fruit. 'Straw-nana' and 'verry-berry' enhances the words 'straw' and 'verry' in red.


I noticed this design because it uses only one colour and our project notes that there must be two colour plus stock. However the lack of colour in this design doesn't take away from its effectiveness.


This range of soaps by mothercare are for children, yet aimed at parents. The packaging therefore has a more softer feel with small bursts of colour.



Cereal character design gives the impression that you will be in the character pictured on the front of the box when you eat the cereal.

This is a simple yet effective example of packaging. The packaging takes into consideration its contents.


Felt fruit and veg characters

For a group project we are trying to promote eating fruit and veg to children. We have chosen to make felt fruit and veg characters for the campaign. Below are some really cute existing ideas. I hope my sewing skills are up to scratch!





Mr bingo Hair styles

For my visual language brief - what is a line - I am focusing on hair. I found some pieces by Mr. Bingo of famous peoples barnets. It's good how you can still tell who they are without their face being shown... well I can just about make it out.