Dakota Hanson-Meier

12 CDs: Taylor Swift is a set of cards that were made to represent a public figure in abstract ways. The goal of this project was to learn how to apply a design system that can be used to encode and decode messages, visually representing my chosen figure. To be able to properly represent her, I spent time researching her life and career in order to best describe her visually. While designing this project, my ideation took many forms for each card. I played with the imagery in terms of placement, choice, and sizing, trying multiple variations of each. I then worked on the layout by trying different sizes and card sizes until I decided on making them resemble a CD case. For the color palette, I chose colors that I thought were best associated with her characteristics (i.e., red lips, golden-yellow hair, blue eyes, and her favorite color). With this project, I struggled in the initial design phase, having a hard time designing a system to be able to properly complete this project. I had to ideate many versions of each card at every step until I figured out my design system and decided on the final versions of each card.

“Jiffy” Mix Packaging Refresh was a digital project with the goal of creating new packaging to appeal to the younger generations. While still keeping the values and essence of the brand. To redesign the packaging, I first researched Jiffy to understand its history and why it was founded. I then took an aspect that I found interesting and used it for my design concept, deciding to work with the idea that “it’s so simple anyone can make it.” With this concept, I decided to simplify the information on the box to only what one needs to know to understand the brand and how to make the product. Since Jiffy is an older brand, I decided to use watercolor imagery instead of photographs and a “handwritten” typeface to give it a classic feeling. While doing this project, I learned about dielines and what they are for when designing packaging, and what one needs to follow when designing packaging, as well as the difficulties one can have when working with an existing, well-known brand.

Let Loose, Dive In, designed with Destiny Smith and Reese Mallon, was a Pure Michigan theme for a campaign for Ferndale, Michigan. The campaign included a series of Instagram reels and photo posts, and supergraphics highlighting bars around the city. Our main slogan, "Your Vibe, Your Way", is aimed at targeting young adults who like going out to bars and clubs, but who all have different tastes. For this campaign, we first researched and visited Ferndale to get a better understanding of its needs and the opportunities we could base our campaign on. We pulled inspiration from grunge aesthetics for our theme, picking colors that best captured each bar we were highlighting. We all worked on the research, presentations, and styling of our campaign. While I work on designing all of the Instagram posts and finding all the mockups. Reese worked on the super graphics and put the vlog together. Destiny acted as our design coordinator and designed all the motion pieces.

In-Focus Cameras Packaging was designed to appeal to Gen Z and get them to be more focused on the present moment than on taking the “perfect” photo. When I was designing the packaging, I decided to make it round to reference the lens of a camera, giving me a more distinctive-shaped box that other brands weren't using. Changing the color and imagery to reference which camera version was in its respective box. Using a film strip, look for the imagery, to reference that it was similar to a disposable camera, but being a reusable one. Designing this project taught me about working with unusual-shaped dielines and the difficulties one can have when designing for a new brand.

Beyond The Ball, designed with Karah Taylor and Zofia Pejas, was a campaign for the Detroit Pistons that included a series of Instagram reels and photo posts, and supergraphics targeted towards high schoolers in the Detroit area. Our main slogan, "Beyond The Ball", is aimed at encouraging students, through basketball, to better themselves physically and mentally by applying the lessons they learned to their lives, thus allowing them to go "beyond the (basket)ball". For this campaign, we first researched the Pistons’ history to get an understanding of the team, finding out they often collaborate with Detroit-based brands. We pulled inspiration for our color palette from graffiti from around the city, and found fonts that worked well together. We all worked on the research, presentations, and styling of our campaign. I helped with designing the layouts for the Instagram posts with Zofia and the bus-wrap super graphic by myself. While Zofia worked on the billboard super graphics as well, with Karah's main focus being the motion pieces.

826 Brand: Star Dust Factory was a digital project that consisted of making logo lock-ups and designing a storefront, vehicle, and merchandising. This project had the goal of learning about creating a brand system and the aspects that go into creating a brand. I first did research on the city of St. Louis to find an interesting aspect of their history to base my store's idea on. Then I looked at charts and maps of the night sky for ideas for my store’s theme, landing on a celestial navigation theme. I then used elements of the night sky to create my color palette, icons, and patterns, which I then used to design all of the parts of my brand. While working on this project, I struggled designing the logo for the store, having to spend a lot of time ideating till I landed on the final version. Learning that creating a new brand takes a lot of time and patience, as your first idea probably won’t be the final version most of the time.