Waterstones Bag for Life

I experimented with a couple of ideas for the illustrations for my bag for life. These are just rough concepts:

This illustration for my bag was quickly created in Illustrator with the blob brush and shape tools. The black panel would be fixed with velcro to the bag and could be written on with a wipeable white chalk pen.

The image below is a quick watercolour sketch in line and wash on NOT watercolour paper. It would be used in the same way as the Illustrator sketch above.

In the image above, I hand drew some type with a white gel pen. I quite like the effect on this sketch, and think I will explore this technique further. The white hand writing on the blackboard is not part of the design, and the background has printed too dark.

Packaging - the delivery medium

Postcard mailer and tea towel wrapping

We were asked to consider the different mediums that can be used to deliver a product - bags, envelopes, boxes etc.

Bags are the method shops employ as free advertising when you buy from a store. It's a signpost to other shoppers that their store is in the vicinity. You are the walking advertisement.

Packaging also has negative connotations - it creates litter, it goes into landfill - non-biodegradable packaging in particular.

We were asked to create 2 concepts for envelopes, incorportaing an element from our assignment on a Waterstones envelope.

I sketched out two ideas, below. The first idea was for a mailer to prospective customers in the form of a postcard. This would include a pop out gift tag which customers could take into Waterstones to get a discount on their cookbook purchase. The tag could be attached after the parcel had been gift wrapped by Waterstones, and has a scratch and sniff panel relating to one of the recipes in the book on promotion.

The second idea was to use a promotional tea towel as gift wrap for a cook book purchase. Alternatively an apron would work too. The illustration/pattern could be related to the cook book promotions.

Mailers - inspiration

Mailers from Boden and White Stuff, self-generated photo

These two mailers were sent to me by Boden and White Stuff over the last couple of years. These companies are really inventive with their mail shots.

The first one is from Boden. A paper envelope shaped like a camera with a tab on the side invites you to pull. This reveals a double sided sheet advertising their sale, mimicking the pulling out of old style Polaroid Instamatics. This idea works well for Boden as they rely heavily on their retro styling and old school imagery.

The second piece is from White Stuff. They sent out a thick card in A5 with pop-out cocktail toppers, which suited their catalogue theme, being summer holidays. Although not amazingly practical, it is a fun idea, and very engaging.

Waterstones - Concepts

Bag for life

I have further developed my plans for a bag for life as a giveaway with cookery books from Waterstones (perhaps if you buy 2). The first is a bag in the style of a wood-framed blackboard, with a velcro-detachable panel to write a shopping list on. A white wipeable chalk marker would be included with the bag, and food illustrations would surround the blackboard on different styles of background, for instance a gingham tablecloth, a wood table, hessian or a marble worktop. The write on panel would look like a menu, with areas to write meals for the week and sections for the different types of groceries.

Lunchbox bag

My second option is for a single book purchase the customer would get a insulated lunch box carrier, joined at the sides with velcro, which opens to form a wipeable picnic mat to put your lunch on at your desk or in the park.

Inspiration

I will take inspiration from the food illustrations below and will experiment with watercolours and with creating flat images in Illustrator. I like the idea of using white and black gel/paint/marker pens over the illustrations.

Waterstones reserach

In order to concept, design and produce a promotional campaign to encourage people to buy books form Waterstones, I started off by deciding on my research methods.  They will include:

Visiting and photography some Waterstones stores.
Considering a primary research survey.
Researching who, when and why people buy books, and why they choose to buy them online or from bricks and mortar stores.

I decided to focus on cookery books and tie this in with a Christmas campaign. Cookery books are mostly bought by women, for themselves or as gifts, according to research I found.  I felt that people needed a reason to go into Waterstones, instead of buy from Amazon. I think mind mapped some thoughts about what prompts people to buy cookery books.

Most of the cookery books sold are those from celebrity chefs or from as a TV spin-off which can be ascertained from looking at Amazon's and Waterstones' top sellers lists.

I though about focusing my campaign on 4 recently released books, one each weekend of the main shopping weekends before Christmas. For the 4 books chosen, they are the same or only a £1 or £2 more expensive in Waterstone than on Amazon.The 4 books come from different market sectors - comfort food, healthy eating, lifestyle and simple cooking.

My ideas for tempting people into the store are:

Free gift wrapping
A giveaway associated with cooking - reusuable grocery bag (now they are chargeable), tea towel or apron
The smell of food
Money off vouchers

I thought of the advertising slogan "Cooking the books", which links food and books.

Ideas to concept

1. Scratch and sniff postcards/gift tags and wrap

Scratch and sniff technology on postcards, with pop-ut gift tags, to use along with matching gift wrapping when you buy in store. Using food stains found on well loved cookbooks (greasy fingers, curry powder, flour, fat spray, red wine glass ring, chocolate, tomatoes. The books would be wrapped in paper and tied with bakers string and the gift tag attached, to look like a parcel from a 50's grocer's store. The postcards coudl be given away in food magazines, in supermarkets, and sent out as mailshots.

2. Reusable carrier book bag

Giveaways by promoters wearing aprons and carrying reusable carrier bags. The reusable bags would be made as follows:

As this type of bag wouldn't hold very much, I thought about making a single compartment bag, which looks like a book. The bag for life could have a free recipe card or recipe printed on each for each book. Alternatively, the image could be an open book, and space to write your shopping list on the outside, with a wipeoff pen. There could be a pocket to hold the receipe card.

3. Food samples

3. Free food samples of receipes in the books, in boxes like miniature copies of the books, given away around the shopping malls containing a Waterstones store.

Recipe cards

4. Recipe cards (from the featured books) with scratch and sniff panels.