Summer Space visit

I contacted Space following a tip off from Jane Denton.  I knew it would be a challenge in terms of the commute from my house to Weatherby but thought it was worthwhile at least meeting up with them.

I met Richard Groom and Tim Miller on 18th June 2012.  Richard and Tim asked me what I wanted from the visit and also gave me their ideas of what they could offer.   It all sounded really exciting.  They were developing a promotional brand book and wanted me to get involved with this and also they are heavily involved with Food/Veg companies.  They could see me getting involved with the concept development for food packaging.  They agreed they would email me when I could start coming in and getting involved.

I followed the email up with a thank you and also mentioned I was at D&AD on 27th June.  Then .....heard nothing at all for a few weeks.  I thought maybe the cake I had baked at been awful or something.    Fortunately in the meantime I had organised the meeting with Michael at 10 and managed to get the Studio visit there.

Then on 4th July had an apology from Tim for not getting back to me, they had just been very busy. He said he would get back to me that week.  He did get back to me on 20 July inviting me over on Monday 23 July to a brainstorming session about a new way to shop for vegetables.  Unfortunately we had a holiday booked that week and then I was booked to go to 10 for the three weeks after that.

I am not blogging this to criticise Space but to explain why what started as a great opportunity fizzled out due to time and circumstances.  Luckily I did manage to go over and meet Tim again on Tuesday 31 July.  He briefed me about their idea for the Brand book.  He wanted me to design some pages to add based on recipes each of the team came up with.  He gave me some Jamie Oliver recipe books and showed me some design features they liked. What became apparent very quickly when I took the Brand pages home they had designed that there was not a clear design direction.  I did not feel it gave the essence of what the Space people were about.  A lot of the ideas were very similar to a book they lent me from a London agency called Start.  The initial idea for the Brand Book had been inspired by Richard liking Start's book.

I was quite concerned whilst The Start Book and Jamie Cook books were a good starting point some of the ideas were very much of its time (2007) and they could do with a fresher approach.

I researched some initial approaches to the recipe idea:

Open publication - Free publishing - More research

Tim then invited me in again but it was the week I was was in with 10 Tuesday to Thursday.  I offered to go in on Monday 13th August.  I got three recipe ideas through on 9 August as follows:

The visit on the 13th proved really productive. I actually met other members of the team including Helen, Julie and Jonny.   Tim was on holiday but Richard  showed me some work they were currently working on which included some point of sale promotional designs for Malibu Red and Malibu Snowco

The highlight of the day was meeting Pete Denton.  Pete often works with Space on concept development as he is a fantastic illustrator and photographer.  Helen , myself and Pete were tasked with coming up with some ideas for a presentation to a fresh prepared food provider.  They wanted ideas developed/ images for five boards for a new range of food packaging which fitted with the following objectives

1. Awareness - Product blindness - how to grab busy customers attention in store

2.  Addressing the customer mission 

3. Locking in the impulse purchase

4.  Engagement beyond convenience - try something new

5. Wider satellite categories

These were my notes and research which I later gave to Pete

Open publication - Free publishing - More research

The real learning experience from this was the way Pete approached the brief.  He immediately put pen to paper and started drawing his ideas where as I tend to write my ideas down.  it was much easier (obviously) to visualise his thought process.  I really need to get braver with my illustration.

Peter showed me his portfolio and chatted about the industry and his experiences in general.  It was great to see the industry from someone with his experience and also feel so at ease talking about my work

I went back to Space on Friday 17th August.  Richard shared the concepts they had presented to another large fresh food producer they work with.  It was great to see real client presentation boards( using pete's excellent illustrative skills rather than Vector drawings)

I discussed with Pete some of my concerns with the Brand Book. I wasnt sure how therecipe idea would hang with the rest of the book.   He said just to focus on the the recipe books and not to focus too much on the whole design direction (huge project!).   He said we could consider looking a food history and facts/ social change of food/ food trendspotting.

Richard shared the new website design mockups and also said he likes the work of Landor 

I also discussed with one of the other designers what her thoughts on the brand book were.  She is quite straight talking and basically said she did not like that they had basically used a lot of the Start book.  She suggested same as Pete to just focus on the recipe pages.

These are the recipe pages I came up with:

Jonnys Roast beef

Initial ideas

Final recipe pages sent:

Ideas for the poached egg recipe

Final idea emailed

I emailed Jonny's roast to Tim and Richard on 29 August and then the brunch idea on the 7th September.  So far they have not fed back....so not sure if they are just too busy or if they simply don't like.  I have actually emailed them again for feedback so may blog shortly.