Tag Archives: iteration

I am slightly conscious of working in my own bubble recently and although I have been getting feedback from friends and family it felt like I was at a point where I needed something more. I decided that with the point of sale exercise I would go to some of my fellow students and ask for their views.

I am not as confident in the graphic design field as I am with my photography so this was quite a big step. I felt comfortable approaching the Facebook Visual Communications group, partly because it is more visual platform and partly because I still seem to have tech gremlins logging into the OCA fora for some reason.

That aside I got some very generous responses and I am grateful to everyone that replied. Opinions naturally varied and some people preferred the backlit fruit whereas others liked the puppet warped fruit. Comments included:

…It reminds me of a stained glass window and I think would definitely work well from a distance. Using lots of different fruits too makes it versatile…

…this feels like 2 totally separate posters (the landscape version of sliced fruits) and not as coherent as the first image.

I like this, fresh and simple.

…it’s my favourite but I feel like the fruit blends into the background a bit. Perhaps a green or blue background would be punchier?

I really like the photographed fruit but the Heart + ‘Fruit’ in the middle is not as interesting to look at… I’d rather fill my eyes with all those translucent shapes! Why the typewriter font? Is there a reason for choosing it?

It was obviously great that people responded positively to the ideas but what was interesting was the questions that were raised:

• The colour of the backgrounds
• The choice of typeface
• Whether there should be gap in the centre of the sliced fruit
• The red heart being distracting

All the points were useful insights because they were not necessarily the things I had seen and/or they were a good test of whether I had made conscious choices about what I put where. Taking on the comments I played a little with the backgrounds, and the typeface and heart on the sliced fruit version. Thanks to Charlotte for suggesting what now seems obvious about combining the two ideas (if I were to rework it again I’d use a backlit orange slice too)! In the end my preference is still with the single fruit & veg on a white background but other people did seem to prefer the backlit versions.

While the process was a little nerve-wracking I’m glad I did it and it has given me confidence to ask for feedback again. It was particularly useful in highlighting the value of different iterations of a design and a good test of how willing I was to let go of some of the aspects of what I had produced. The exercise also highlighted the challenge of managing the seemingly infinite variety of solutions – colour, composition, typography etc.!