Puttin It All In the Bag

Post for Monday, December 13:

Today was our final day for class! And boy did we end it in quit the unique way. Finally having finished our Pasta Demonstration posters and getting them printed, we put together a CD for Franc with the final refinements done to all of our Al Dente work to turn in. We also printed out three of our favorite labels from the 8 total that we designed and headed over to the Al Dente Pasta factory in Whitmore Lake. Once there, we took a short tour to see how was the pasta was packaged and distributed. We also were able to take the labels we printed out to put on the Al Dente packaging bags and get them filled with pasta! It was really cool to see our work displayed with the actual pasta :)
After we headed over to Monique's for a delicious pasta lunch and there, presented her with our posters. She loved them! The food was great and the joyful conversation about our work and its wonderful turn out filled the air.

I've posted some images of our final posters (above), which are 24''x36'', and some images from the Monique's celebration (below)!

Hope you enjoy!

Happy Holidays,
A.D. Trois

Post for Wednesday, Dec 8:
Today we continued to finalize our final versions of the Al Dente Cooking Demonstration posters. Many of us printed them out full scale, tiled in black and white to critique in small groups with Franc. This was very helpful to see the posters at full scale in order to directly see how proportions, spacing, and alignment related to each other. From here we are to print the final versions with Patrick Young at full scale and half scale to present to Monique at our very own "Al Dente" lunch at her factory on Monday. This will be a great ending to such an in depth semester and a great way to tastefully finish off our hard work. :)

First Printed Iterations of the Poster

Post for Monday, Dec. 8:

In class on Monday, we had a critique of our in progress poster designs. It was very interesting to once again come all together and see the different directions that everyone has gone with these posters. Another element that was particularly exciting was seeing these designs go from mere sketches in sketch books to full color prints hanging on the wall. The final poster is going to be 24" x 36". For most of us, this will be the largest we have ever printed. One challenging thing in regards to this was trying to keep in mind how large the poster is actually going to be/look since most people had printed their posters half size or smaller. In our group, we each seemed to try to relate the design of our posters back to our labels and with consideration of the placement and use of our logos. Issues that were brought up generally had to do with color, placement, illustration, typeface, hierarchy and concept. On Wednesday, we will continue work on these posters in hopes of printing in full size by Monday. Pictured above are the posters we presented to the class on Monday.

Beginning Stages

Post for Wednesday, Dec 1:

On Wednesday's class we had a discussion regarding the posters. We were all
excited about making them, and brought in our preliminary sketches and
ideas. Some things we considered were what was important to have on the
poster, such as the logo and the places/times of cooking demonstrations.
This tends to be a lot of information, and our challenge will definitely be
how to organize the info in an interesting way that will not look
overwhelming. Posters need to draw in a viewer in a matter of seconds, so
the design has to be simple as well as compelling. Some of us used photos
of Monique, but we realized quickly that this was problematic because many
of the photos we have in our archives have the previous identity on aprons
and bags, which conflicts with our new designs. Instead we will have to use
new individual photographs and drawings if we choose to use images.
Overall, everyone's ideas seemed to be coming together nicely, posters are
definitely one of the more exciting items to design.


Here is an example of one of the preliminary poster designs by Jackie:

Presenting to Monique!

Post for Monday, November 22:
Above is what was newly presented today (things that were presented, but unchanged can be found in the previous posts).

Today we finally presented all of our finished work for Al Dente to Monique. It was great to see her reaction and see what she had to say about each's work. She was so enthused by all that we have done that we couldn't all but help give ourselves a HUGE pat on the back. It was super interesting to notice how groups that started together, finished with logos/designs that all related, yet were all so different in the ways that each was unique to the designer's style. Finally, after all the iterations and reworking that our logo type/identity creating has gone through, we felt like professionals, presenting our work to our number 1 client! What a great way to bring it all to a close.

Although the hard part is over, Al Dente is not yet finished. Next we are onto the fun part, the part that has minimal limitations and suits the ending to the semester well as we take all of the knowledge and skills we have gained throughout the identity process and can use it to formulate a poster of our own unique choice :) I am excited to see what everyone will come up with and how they we think to represent Al Dente through such a strong piece of print media as a poster!

Cheers for now!

Made with Love,
Group 3

The Move Towards the Finish Line

Post for Wednesday, November 17:

Today we spent class time doing our small group critiques. We’re talking less about overall placement now and focusing more on the details like kerning and keeping graphics consistent. At this point in the semester it’s nice to step back and just see how far everyone’s designs have progressed. Because we collaborated as a group for so long, we all used the overall concept of making the logotype look like pasta. However, what’s so interesting is how we each made it our own and found design solutions through very different approaches. Over the next couple of days we plan to tweak our designs and get them ready to present to Monique on Monday!

Label Time

Post for Wednesday, November 10:

This week we brought in our finalized (or well-redefined) iteration of our logos, along with our first set of iterations for labels and any other identity items we had (t-shirts or aprons). Together as a group and with Franc we discussed finishing touches for the logos, picking at small details for improvements, and discussed specifics for the labels, such as logo placement, hierarchy (separating the type of noodle from flavor, and differentiating between noodles types of the same flavor), typography, sizing, color, and images. This helped to give us a better understanding on how to construct our labels to not only follow our project proposal, but clearly define Al Dente Pasta Co. as a brand, and what characteristics play into that. From here we will continue to rework our labels and continue to build upon other items that make up the Al Dente identity.