DVB303 Experimental Visual Communication Assessment 2 - Hayden Gangemi

I wanted to add another level of connection to wine so Instead of having a simple circular frame around the crow, I took inspiration from a circular wine stain from a glass and added little splotches. I felt this was appropriate because the laughing crow character is a bit of a stain to my grandfather as depicted in the comic.

Final Logo Variations

Speaking of the comic, another variation of the logo stems from the final panel. Similar to the first design, I sketched out a rough concept and then took it into Photoshop for detailing. This design is far less detailed and follows more of my cartoon art style.

The benefit to this design is that the various parts can be coloured differently to create different styles and aesthetics. It also ties in nicely with the comic as it would make the comic show not only the origin of the story but the label as well. I do however like the original version of the logo first because it is more visually striking to me while conveying the same message. However, while creating these variations I realised that the collection of them could be used as the foundation for the sticker sheet. This is because the cartoon style allows for various simple customisation such as colour, eye shape and typography to create variety in the stickers while promoting the comic.

Style Sheet

Before I could get stuck into the remaining deliverables, I needed to refine my brands identity through a style sheet so that I could easily refer back to it. As well as provide the information to the client if they should want to reference it themselves. As Ballandean Estate has it's own colour pallet, I decided to adopt it for the Laughing Crow to help the brand feel like it is still a part of the company. However I played around with fonts and I used an illustrated backdrop from my label design (see label design process) to add some character and style.

The Comic Design Process

The next deliverable I began work on was the short comic that illustrates the story of the Laughing Crow. As the full story is quite long and would be rather complex to illustrate, the comic is based on an abridged version. Its kind of like the "based on a true story" you see at the start of some movies. This cartoon version is meant to illustrate how the Ballandean Estate family remembers the "incident". However to let the customers in on the full story, the unabridged version will be on the back of the comic for context.

The process was quite straightforward. I wrote down the full story and then took out some of the key moments and turned them into panel ideas. I sketched out the comic exactly how I wanted it and then took it into Photoshop to do the line work followed by the colouring and that was that.

The Full Story:

Angelo was out driving the tractor in the vineyard as is his normal routine. The vibrations from the tractor would make his false teeth rattle in his mouth, which irritated him severely. To resolve this, Angelo took his teeth out and put them in the chest pocket of his shirt and continued about his day free from the rattle of his teeth. After a few long hours of farm work, it was time for afternoon tea. Angelo made his way back to the winery and walked into the office where his daughters Leeanne and Robyn were working. As he stepped inside, Leeanne noticed he was lingering by the door. When she looked up, she saw Angelo frantically grabbing at his chest. Naturally, she thought he was having a heart attack, but then he exclaimed in a gummy voice "I've lost my fuggin teef!". The whole office burst out in laughter followed by a series of understandable questions, the main one being "how!?".

After Angelo explained the rattle problem, and his daughters stopped laughing at him, news spread around the winery about the incident. Everyone had the same reaction of utter confusion followed by hysterical laughter... Everyone except Angelo of course. It wasn't before long that the whole winery was out in force, combing the vineyard for his teeth. Even the grandchildren were dragged out to help look for them. The whole family searched for about an hour with no luck. Throughout this whole process, Angelo was muttering on and on about "that bloody crow!" (only he didn't say bloody). "What crow?" was the general consensus of everyone else in the vineyard while he muttered about. "There's this bloody crow that is always here watching me and it's probably picked up my teeth thinking its food!". Again, everyone laughed. The idea that Angelo would see the crow the next day laughing back at him with his own teeth started to fill everyone's mind.

When all hope was just about lost, and Angelo was convinced the crow was victorious, he heard a gasp of terror from one of the search parties. His grandsons Hayden and Liam, (who were only half paying attention and had already given up) just about stood on his pearly whites. Everyone let out a sigh of relief, except for Hayden and Liam as they were still in shock at seeing their grandfathers teeth covered in dirt and ants. However, in true Angelo fashion, he walked up to his teeth, picked them up, dusted them off and slapped them right back in his mouth. Since that day, the story is remembered as the one about the laughing crow and will forever be one of the most iconic family stories of Ballandean Estate Wines.

Completed Comic Booklet

I decided to present the final comic and story in an A4 zine rather than a single card or sheet to make the item feel more of a collectable and differentiate it from the tasting cards which are a separate deliverable. This format will also provide some style consistency for all of the volumes of Angelo's Antics to come.

Booklet Mock-up

Tasting Card Design Process

For the tasting cards, I wanted to use the same "ratatouille" style that I developed in A1 of painting the colours of the tasting notes. The process started the same by interpreting the tasting notes as colours and splattering away on a blank piece of paper.

I then took it into Photoshop and adjusted the colour levels slightly to make them a bit more vibrant as the wine this is referring to is quite light and very fruity. Which I wanted to emphasise with lighter colours. The bumps and texture from the paint was also intentional as the natural fermentation of the wine makes it feel lightly carbonated and I thought the bumps could represent that.

Then I took it into Adobe Indesign and added all the tasting information I gathered from the client together to put it on one card. The purpose of this tasting card beyond the obvious is to serve as a sort of memory token. Each wine is different and the 2024 White pearl will require a different card so each one can be collected and compared. The painting on the back serves as a way to help the customer remember how it tasted in comparison.

Tasting Card Mock-up

AR Wine Label Design Process

I felt it was about time that I began working on the AR Wine label that started this whole project. I started with the original concept I had created in A1 (as seen below) and began making some changes to the illustration based on feedback from the client.

Small details such as the size of the farmer in relation to the tractor and the position of the smoke were the first things to address. Followed by the inclusion of a vineyard in the background as that seemed important.

Once I was happy with the sketch, I then put it back on the label and played with the positioning until it was just right.

Final Labels and QR's

This was the final layout for the label that takes a lot of inspiration from the layout I designed in A1. With this completed I could get started on the animated component to make this label come to life with AR. As the main focus of the labels for this assignment is the artwork and AR component, I just used the same block of text and information for each. This was also because the text would likely need to change anyway should the winery wish to actually print these.

GIF Development & AR Implementation

To begin the animation process, I separated each of the layers of the label in Photoshop. I also broke the tractor layer into 3 pieces, being the body and left and right wheel. This was so I could animate these assets using key-frames in After Effects.

The animation approach I used for this was to create 3 different key frames with minimal adjustment that could be played repeatedly to create my loop. In each frame, I rotated the wheels and adjusted the height of the body of the tractor. As well as make cartoon Angelo blink with each bump. Then, to give the illusion of movement, I extended the grapevine background and then had them slowly pan to the left. I also wasn't happy with the way the animation would jump back to the start at the end of each loop. So to make the transition a little less obvious, I faded the background in and out with each loop. Here is the first loop.

White Pearl Animation

I had learned from the AR tests I completed in A1 that I didn't want the AR component to have a background that would cover the label when viewed. I wanted the animation to simply be an overlay of the original. However, as you can see here, that caused some complications.

With some problem solving, I figured that instead of a full background, I could just fill out the space behind the animated sections. I then faded the solid white in at the same rate as the vineyard and it looked pretty seamless. With this, the resulting effect gave the illusion that the animation was still just an overlay and not a complete cover up.

Once I was happy with that, I then printed out the label to see how it would work on the curved surface of the bottle. And as you can see here it was a bit shaky and the animation extended far beyond the bottle. This was due to the trigger image being the full width of the label instead of just the image. I did actually like how the image extended far beyond the bottle as I thought it really made the animation pop out. However, the shaking it cause was unappealing so I wanted to try make it more stable.

To fix this, I changed the trigger image to just be the height of the full label, but only the width of the illustration. The result was much better as it was less shaky but obviously removed the over extended animation. It does make it look cleaner but I might experiment with the over extended animation another time as it's quite interesting.

Completing the first label helped refine a process so that I could easily repeat it using the same dimensions and techniques to create the second and third labels more efficiently.

Summertime Animation

For the summertime label, I made each cluster of leaves it's own layer and then added a gentle wobble effect to each of them in AE. This gave the illusion of a gentle breeze making the tree feel alive. To connect this label with the last and make them feel like part of a set, I added the tractor animation from the previous label. This continues the story and introduces the laughing crow as it taunts the farmer as he works.

Merlot Animation

For this final animation I wanted to show the two character directly engage with each other. I imaged the farmer minding his own business eating lunch when the crow approached him directly and taunts him with the teeth he stole in the comic. To create this, I just drew a few different key frames in Photoshop and them alternated between them to create the animation in AE.

This series of labels introduces the story of the many ways the crow taunts and disrupts the regular activities of the farmer. With this concept, each pack would introduce a new short animation for customers to look forwards to. Similar to the way each Allen's Minty wrapper has a different cartoon on it.

For a final touch with each animation, I added some sound effects. This process was quite fun as I got to play around in Ableton Live which is a digital audio workstation (DAW). I had some existing recorded sounds of tractors and crows and played around until I made something that wasn't too loud but still engaging.

Once I finished all of the labels, I printed them to size and glued each of them on their respective wines. I can't print these professionally but I still wanted the gold trim so I just glued them over the top of the old labels. The main

Sticker Sheet

I wanted to create some stickers to promote the brand at the exhibition. To effectively do this, I made stickers of the logo variations as well as the label illustrations so that those interested at the exhibition can take something home with them.

As an added bonus, the label illustration can also trigger the AR experience as there is enough of the trigger image shown for Eyejack to pick up on.

Merch Mock-Ups

The first set of shirts utilise the laughing crow logo as the main graphic. This would be a membership exclusive shirt and the gold and silver foil iterations could indicate how long a person has been subscribed to the club. The idea being that in the beginning of a persons subscription, they could decide if they wanted the black or white t shirt. And after that, they can reach certain milestones and receive the silver and gold Tees. I don't want the Tees to be an indication of a subscription level like "gold class" because the plan is to have only one subscription level.

These designs would are less exclusive as they could be purchased by any member of the laughing crow, regardless of how long they have been subscribed. The feature the label illustrations and similar to the stickers, can also trigger the AR component if viewed through Eyejack.

Membership Key-Ring

I wanted to create a membership key-ring to include in the package so that customers could present it at the winery or at an event and receive a discount on their purchase. To do this, I planned to use the laser cutters in the digifab workshop. I have used the laser cutters before and found it incredibly easy with excellent results. I feel as though it is the most efficient way to create these tokens as I can just laser cut them out of MDF. Based on past experiences, the process of laser cutting creates an interesting burn texture which will make each token unique.

To prepare the file for laser cutting is very similar to preparing it for sticker printing as it requires specific colours and line weight for the software to understand it. Below are screenshots of the print ready file.

After finalising the design in illustrator, I used the laser cutters in Z block to cut out a bunch of them to process further. The laser cutter indented the logo and the text by about 1mm and I wanted to try find a way to emphasise them. I thought about painting them but that would have taken a lot of time that I didn't have, so I was looking for another option. I had an idea to try filling the spaces with polymer clay and to my genuine surprise it actually worked. The only issue was that it stained the entire key ring so it meant I needed to sand it down to clean it back up after I baked it on. Once I repeated the process for all of them, I sprayed 3 coats of clear coat on each side and am very happy with the results.