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Christmas Wishes Cd Music Album by Akiko Kanna |
Home > Winners > Design #59491 >Interview |
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FS: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
AK: My style of design always aims to express "simple but meaningful solutions for your communication needs" and convey the idea without many descriptions.
FS: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
AK: I wanted to combine some of the Christmas motifs with coffee beans, in order to relate with the customer in a simple and straightforward way. Knitting patterns and coffee beans look and feel quite similar so I created a coffee beans knitting pattern to cover all the surface of this album.
FS: What are your future plans for this award winning design?
AK: Unfortunately you can’t buy this CD album anymore. It was a limited edition for that Christmas season.
FS: How long did it take you to design this particular concept?
AK: I think it was about 2-3 months.
FS: Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration?
AK: This is a Christmas compilation CD album sold at Starbucks coffee shops in Japan. It was commissioned by a client in order to be sold in Starbucks’ premises. The warm and friendly artwork, rendered by means of a grid of coffee beans inspired by a knitting pattern, expresses and mirrors the feelings and atmosphere of warmth and coziness normally associated with Christmas time.
FS: Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself?
AK: This design was for a limited edition event, so there’s no plan for further production or leasing at this time.
FS: What made you design this particular type of work?
AK: I feel I wanted to try combining a traditional Christmas motif with a somehow more original and mundane concept.
FS: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?
AK: I don’t feel like there are peculiar influences in this design.
FS: Who is the target customer for his design?
AK: The target are Starbucks clients.
FS: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?
AK: I think I understood the mission for this project and created the communication media in the simplest way.
FS: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?
AK: This music CD title was actually decided by the client who selected the tracklist for the album.
FS: Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project?
AK: I used mainly Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
FS: What is the most unique aspect of your design?
AK: I think “Simple communication” is the key.
FS: Who did you collaborate with for this design? Did you work with people with technical / specialized skills?
AK: I did work by myself.
FS: What is the role of technology in this particular design?
AK: I suppose technology helped me understand how to transform knitting patterns into graphically interesting and visually complex entities, what is the best size for printing and whether the final product would be interesting as a physical object when it’s in your hands.
FS: Is your design influenced by data or analytical research in any way? What kind of research did you conduct for making this design?
AK: I always try to keep my design original as best as I can.
FS: What are some of the challenges you faced during the design/realization of your concept?
AK: Since I created a complex knitting pattern, coordinating with the print shop in order to align the gold foil stamping to the same graphic grid as the rest of the pattern proved to be quite a challenge.
FS: How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition?
AK: I was invited to join this competition which I was really honored to.
FS: What did you learn or how did you improve yourself during the designing of this work?
AK: I guess my understanding and visualization of complex patterns got enhanced by being applied to a physical item.
FS: Any other things you would like to cover that have not been covered in these questions?
AK: I guess this will do for now.
FS: Thank you for providing us with this opportunity to interview you.
A' Design Award and Competitions grants rights to press members and bloggers to use parts of this interview. This interview is provided as it is; DesignPRWire and A' Design Award and Competitions cannot be held responsible for the answers given by participating designers.
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