Final design Hero image and rationale

Here is my Hero view for my character. I will also upload my rationale in the next post:

Rationale: Assignment 2 – Character as a brand

For this assignment I chose to create a character for the company ‘Atomic coffee.’ Their brand has a ‘retro futuristic’ look, utilizing an atom as their icon, and focuses on creating an ‘expertise’ attitude around their product. Keeping this in mind I pursued a concept based around ‘the science of coffee.’

I decided to design my character as a robot to express the scientific theme. I used an atom swirling above his head to relate it back to the original logo for the company. The atom is a light blue, as I feel this implies some kind of energy being emitted, and gives the robot a more dynamic appearance, as if the atom is controlling its brain. The yellow of the robot’s eyes is also associated with the yellow on Atomic Coffee’s logo. This character’s eyes and the slight bend in its mouth is where its emotions are expressed, and also through the movement in its arms.

I preferred to keep my colour scheme as mostly grey, due to the company having a sleek but restricted colour scheme in their logos and café environment (refer to analysis of brand values). Unfortunately the colours on the printed paper turned out slightly darker than I had expected but in the digital copies it appears lighter and more vibrant.

The character in theory could also have a coffee item related backpack (coffee machine, cup or coffee bean bag) but I felt this might look a bit bulky on it so I didn’t include it in the final design. The personality of the character I feel would be a bit fast and zippy, over energetic, and sweet when it’s convenient for it. However I imagine it to be the perfect coffee maker, proud in its abilities, relating back to the dedication of the staff at Atomic Coffee.

Final design part 1 & brand values

Here are  6 expression drawings and my front side and back view:

Analysis of brand values: Atomic coffee

Aesthetics:

·         Retro-futuristic

·         Atom/nuclear theme

·         Serious duo-tone colours

·         Package patterning looks like circles connected – atomic bonds?

·         Café/Store looks modern/sleek but parts of the design look a bit retro-inspired (ceiling, lights, stools)

·         Looks a bit like a lab? sterile

Values:

·         Pride themselves on reliability

·         Service and training/knowledge

·         Quality of service and coffee taste

·         ‘delivering taste like no other’

·         ‘we know and love coffee’

o   From link: http://atomiccoffee.co.nz/pages/cafe-supply

·         Source the best

·         Supplier loyalty

·         Individual roasting, traditional way

·         Experience, attention to detail – science of coffee?

From the overall aesthetics, and theme of knowledge and experience the brand likes to convey, I feel like following a ‘scientific’ route would work for my character. Therefore, most of my character development has been based around this idea. The Atomic Coffee website doesn’t explain their look in detail, so the aesthetics that I’ve drawn from have been more observational. However, the values are mentioned on the website (as above), which I feel makes the baristas seem like scientists creating the ideal coffee. I have taken elements like robotics, atoms, nuclear symbols/protection gear/objects, lab coats/lab gear, mutation, and various technologies into consideration for the character design.

Illustrator concept 1

Here's my first concept of my robot in illustrator however I'm considering recreating it with more curves so that it's body is moving in a dynamic manner. I think this looks good so far so I will definitely keep some similar elements in the final, but will remove/add more light & shadow to make the design a bit cleaner:

Coloured character sketchup

Here I just decided to a quick sketch and colour of my character to show how I imagined it would be. I wanted to keep silver/grey on the robot to still give it the metallic texture, although I could do it white to make it more futuristic, but it might counter the 'retro' feel.

The eyes are yellow like the atomic coffee yellow version logo, and black around the eyes which is also in the logo.

I'm not sure whether to make the atom glow or not, maybe cyan or a bright green (typical radioactive kind of look), but I can experiment some more.

I like the idea of the backpack/power pack being a bag of coffee or coffee beans, it aesthetically looks nice, but if people suggest otherwise I will try the other ideas too.

Character concept

I quite liked the idea of developing the robot character because it has a slight retro look and still incorporates the atom sign. I also like that robots wouldn't drink coffee, and took someones suggestion of that it could be 'powered by coffee' when our class were trying to identify each other's characters/brands. I thought maybe the robot could be wearing a 'backpack' shaped like a nuclear cooling tower, coffee mug or coffee bean packet that powers it.

I messed around with the design a bit with different shapes but I still think I prefer the original design:

More silhouettes

Me making more silhouettes after looking at the coffee gear and messing with mutation ideas too:

More research...

The Atomic Coffee website doesn't describe their brand identity in detail but talks more about the process of refining the coffee, however from the description I got the idea of 'the science of coffee' with the focus on experienced and expertise with their staff. The brand seems to focus around a kind of boutique aspect of the coffee process, loyalty to suppliers and customers, and being the best.

I looked into some more pictures that might inspire designs. I like the idea of making a robotic character still so I have looked at the Atomic website and at their coffee machines/gear:

Also more characters/reference stuff:

Silhouettes and some sketches

basically just playing around with ideas. I like the idea of giving the character a lab coat, glasses or a combination so they look scientist-like. I imagine some kind of scientist working with radioactive materials at a plant or something. Could be anthro or humanoid, and perhaps mutated? (i.e. 3 eyes, 2 tails etc).

Cartoon and themed Influences

Here are some characters/themes/mascots that could be of use for reference (fast, futuristic, science, atomic/radioactive, retro, mutation themes):

Character Designing for a brand

For Assignment 2 we have been briefed to design a character for an existing brand and encapsulated the values and essence of the brand and include a prop or background etc as a secondary component. I have chosen illustrator and photoshop for the developing of my character, with the final output likely to be in illustrator.

I really like drinking coffee so I listed down a bunch of coffee places that I know of both available in NZ and internationally. I also included some of their aesthetic differences:

• Havana coffee – factories, industrial, Cuban colours and designs, culture etc
• Atomic coffee – atom, nuclear, retro-ish sci-fi, serious look
• Café l’affare – French scenery, café scene
• Moccona - luxurious colouring, red seals etc
• Jed’s coffee – simplistic and basic  designs
• Supreme - gold, luxury, hipster look, looks old school/ retro, businessman look?
• People’s coffee – local, jungle, casual daily activity look, giving back to the hard workers
• Gravity coffee - planetary? Bold, strong shapes, bland little to work with but could be developed?
• Robert Harris – serious, simple, modernist designs (plants, butterflies, natural objects on packages)
• Kiwi coffee company- kiwi as a coffee cup, simple design, korus, smooth flat colours
• Nescafe- very general design, home brand, most of their recognition is in the name design, red
• Starbucks- logo with girl with crown, green, hipster, modern, fast moving and attentive to consumer
• Flight – planes, yellow, hipster, zappy logo, retro, 1920s/30s theme
• Raglan roast – kiwiana designs, hipster, eclectic, edgy, laid back feel 

In the end I picked Atomic coffee because I'm interested in developing a kind of sci-fi-ish themed character. Atomic also has quite a limited theme currently so that gives me more room for imagination in the development of the mascot.