‘Belief’ Product: Fairytale Childhood Fantasy

When talking to and I interviewing Michelle, the belief that came up and stood out to me as something I would be interested in exploring/using as the basis of this project, was her childhood belief of fairy stories and fables. 

I discovered that although she loves stories and books, she has found it harder to focus on them as she grew up which makes her sad because she still love reading but can’t engage long enough to get invested in the story or immersed in the world of the books.

My concept was to create some type of product which works not only as an interpretation of her belief, but as a solution to her adult problem of focus. Something which would help her connect with her childhood sense of fantasy and onder, specifically surrounding fairytales.

Initial moodboard created after interviewing Michelle

The brief was to design a product or device which provides partner with an enhanced experience of their belief

  • The belief I focused on was fairy stories and the product provides enhanced experience
  • The subtopic/idea I also approached was how Michelle can’t focus on a story long enough to enjoy/engage with it

Sketchbook work

Concept: Michelle finds it hard to concentrate and focus which makes her sad because she really enjoys stories and books but can never concentrate long enough to enjoy them. My idea was to create a pill that would allow her to experience the stories in a more visual way and engage her imagination more so she could enjoy them in a way that brings the stories off the pages and create a tactile experience.

Product and packaging research. I went to CVS and looked at the different packaging designs for various medicines that they sell. I bought a couple and took them apart so i could study their construction and then used this research as the basis for the design of my own net template for my packaging.

 

My own net design which I created using photoshop which I them used as a template for my pill box design

Reasons for the design of the illustration

  • Blue is Michelle favourites color 
  • Goldilocks was a story she love when she was a child so i creates a fictional bear character for my design
  • The forest setting is inspired by enchanted forests in fairy stories
  • Used reference pictures from pinterest of enchanted forests and real life grizzly bears for my illustration
  • Used reference pictures from pinterest of enchanted forests and real life grizzly bears for my illustration
  • Wanted to focus on graphic design since Michelle loves graphic design and it is also something which I really enjoy and have not had a chance to since being here at Parsons

Process for my fantasy illustration


Digital sketch I did to help me work out the graphic design and layout of the type and illustrations on the pill box.

Naming the pills

  • After researching medication and how they come up with the names for different brands and pills,  I found out that medicines are usually named using their molecular structure and ingredients as the basis/inspiration. I took a similar approach to naming my medication but instead of focusing on the ingredients I used the purpose of the pill as the inspiration for the name. I want the drug to induce ‘visual dreaming’ and I explored different ways of saying this in different languages and settled on latin since I associate it with mythology and fantasy. ‘Ad Somnia’ means ‘to see dreams’ in Latin.

Final design for the pill box

Dimensions 

The label is 1.25” x 4.6”

The box is 2” X 2” x 3.5”

Final design for pill bottle label

Mints and Macarons

The ingredients for the pills are fairy story inspired and inactive ingredients are inspired by Michelle’s love of cooking, she told me she loves making macarons and is sad because her dorm has no oven so she can’t make them. I wanted my idea to somehow include this and hence the inactive ingredients are the same as the ingredients needed to make macarons.

The final product pill bottle full of tic tacs because I wanted to create something which Michelle could keep. This also links to the concentration/focus part of the design as I find eating mints when i’m reading or studying helps me to concentrate and peppermint is known to be calming.

Final Product 

In Context: Medicine Cabinet

Spot the packaging

Spot the fake!

 

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