OVERVIEW
Dusk: The Late Night Treat
Dusk is the perfect treat for when you are craving something late at night or really any time of day. Dusk offers easy to bake instructions with simple ingredients that are sure to satisfy your every craving. Dusk is designed to be accessible to those with visual impairments through the implementation of braille, a high contrast color palette, easy to read fonts and more.
Tools
Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop & Lightroom
Inspiration
I was inspired to explore accessible design to bring graphic design to a wider audience and make it enjoyable for all. Dusk specifically explores what accessible design could look like for those with visual impairments. With the nature of graphic design being primarily visual, I wanted to challenge myself and explore designing for those who have visual impairments ranging from color blindness to total blindness. Dusk utilizes accessible fonts, a high contrast color palette, braille and more to achieve being accessible to those with visual impairments.
motivation
Dusk was inspired by my Grandma and her late night baking habits. During my family’s weekly phone call with my Grandma, she would often share how she would randomly decide to bake a tiramisu or other various baked goods at 1 in the morning (just because). Dusk is for the sweet snacker of anytime of day but is a special homage to my Grandmother’s late night treats.
Acknowledgements
I would like to give a big thank you to my mentors, Sydney Solomon from H-E-B and Eman Al-Zubeidi from TopSpot for being amazing mentors and providing me with advice, feedback and supporting my Capstone. Thank you to Caleb Kicklighter for advising me throughout the semester. A special thank you to my friends and family for providing me with emotional and mental support throughout the duration of my Capstone and always being willing to let me bounce ideas and thoughts off of them.
PACKAGING & RECIPE BOoKLEt
LOGO
BUSINESS CARD
BRAND GUIDE
PROCESS
MOODBOARD
I started my design process of Dusk by gathering references for the aesthetic I envisioned. The aesthetic of Dusk is inspired by freeform gradients composed primarily of cooler purple blue colors and accented with select warm tones to symbolize a light shining from a fridge when enjoying a late night treat.
GATHERING REFEReNCES AND INSPIRATIONS
After creating an overall mood-board for my brand, I then looked to what products were already in the market and how my product was going to compete with them and what inspirations I could take from them. I explored which companies had packaging that is accessible to those with visual impairments, what direction current cake mix box designs were taking and how companies had begun incorporating braille into items like menus and booklets. Furthermore, I looked into color blindness and what colors would have the most contrast when designing, as well as, which fonts were the most legible and accessible.
SKETCHES
After completing my research on the current market, I began sketching to get the ideas in my head out and onto paper. This part of my process is a crucial first step to see what works and what are new areas that I can explore in my design.
LOGO ITERATIONS
Following my sketches, I then picked three of my favorite sketches and begun digitizing them into more finalized logos. This process involves seeing what various logos look like with and without a tagline, what a logo mark would be and how a secondary logo could be used. I knew that I wanted to incorporate an element of night time like a star or moon. I also knew that I wanted my color palette to be reflective of the dusk time of day and took inspiration from photographs of the sky taken during that time.
FINAL LOGO
After receiving feedback and advice from my mentors and peers, I decided to move forward with the middle logo shown above. I felt that my previous font choice didn't have enough playfulness and roundness that I was looking for to make my company feel approachable and homey. So, I explored other font options before landing on the font Asphalt Black by Tobias Frere-Jones. I felt that this font had the playfulness that I was looking for while still being legible and visually accessible. The edges of the font were sharper than what I was going for so I customized the font through rounding the corners and softening some of the edges. I also wanted to add an element to my logo that reflected baked goods. I decided to add some icing like drips with sprinkles to the 'D' tying in the baked good element I was looking for while keeping the late night treat homage with the star cutting into the letter form,
COLOR STUDIES AND TESTS
While designing the logo for 'Dusk', I simultaneously began exploring color palettes. An essential element of creating a visually accessible brand is the color palette. Most individuals who have color blindness struggle with differentiating low contrast colors and reds and greens. I also wanted to make sure that my color palette was appealing in the environment of being a food product. To ensure this, I stayed away from earthy color that when viewed by someone with color blindness would appear more muddy and brown. I quickly noticed that hues of blues and purples were easily differentiable by those with color blindness and decided to build my palette off of this foundation. In addition to blues and purples, I decided to include a yellow to create more contrast and emulate the moonlight or light coming from a fridge. I also incorporated some shades of magenta to add some variation and a bit more visual interest.
To learn more about color blindness and the different types of color blindness check out this website that I found very educational and helpful.
My color palette as viewed by someone with no color blindness.
My color palette as viewed by someone with color blindness : Protanopia Type.
My color palette as viewed by someone with color blindness : Deuteranopia Type
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2
Image 1 is my final packaging design as viewed by someone with no color blindness. While image 2 is my packaging as viewed by someone with Protanopia color blindness.
STYLE GUIDE
BRAILLE TESTING
After finalizing the aesthetic of my brand, I dove into the tactile side of creating an accessible product. To do this, I purchased a braille slate which enabled me to produce braille on paper. I began testing how the braille slate worked and familiarized myself with the braille alphabet. I also explored how the braille slate responded when being used on various weights and textures of paper.
DIECUT TEMPLATE TESTING
I then began researching various die-cut templates to determine what box template would be the most appropriate for my product. I found a die cut template from Pacdora that had an easy to open flap to ensure accessibility for those with visual impairments while also having a similar proportion to current cake mix boxes. After doing an initial print test of the packaging, I was able to make slight modifications to the scale and proportions of the box to accommodate my needs. I also wanted to test how the braille would interact with paper that had ink printed on it so I did another test print of the packaging to see this interaction and was very pleased with the results.
Packaging Iterations
After finalizing my die cut template, I began designing the packaging for Dusk's brownie mix box. I knew I wanted to have my box be primarily purple with some free form gradients to add some visual interest. I also explored how I could abstractly illustrate a light illuminating from a fridge to nod towards Dusk being the perfect late night treat. I decided to move forward with a free form yellow blob like shape to be reflective of the roundness seen in my logo.
USER RESEARCH
While working on my packaging iterations, I began conducting some user research in order to get a better idea on how my packaging, accessibility and brand was perceived by my target audience. To do this, I took one of my more finalized packaging test prints and asked questions about the packaging, accessibility and brand to individuals. Some of the responses I received were...
"The braille directly over the text 'The Late Night Treat' is difficult to read"
"I really like the use of iconography on the back. But I think some of the details get lost."
"The contrast between the colors especially the yellow and purple is really nice."
"I think it would be beneficial to include on the back that there is a large print and braille booklet inside."
"The 'Ready in 15 minutes' overlapping the plate is a little hard to read"
BOOKLET DESIGN PROCESS
I knew that to ensure that my branding and packaging was accessible, I would need a separate deliverable that would include the ingredients and instruction in a large print and braille format. I came up with the idea for a separate booklet that could reside in the brownie mix box with the brownie mix to act as a visually accessible recipe booklet. After receiving some feedback, I knew that adding visual icons would be a beneficial element in the booklet to ensure its accessibility to all. I began exploring various layouts and iconography within the booklet that furthered the aesthetic I had created for Dusk. I decided to incorporate the icing drips seen in logo onto the main spread in my booklet to provide movement for the step and iconography.
BOOKLET PRINT TESTS
After doing a first draft of my booklet digitally, I decided to move forward with a test print to see how the booklet would interact with the brownie mix box and with braille being added to the pages. I discovered that in order to incorporate all of the braille necessary for each page, I needed to scale up my booklet and content. I then corrected this issue and was able to do another test print to get a better idea of how the braille would be placed and the overall scale and composition of the booklet.
BEHIND THE SCENES: PHOTO & STOP MOTION
When the booklet and packaging design were finalized, I began the final production of my deliverables which included printing, cutting, folding and adding braille to the brownie mix box and getting the booklet printed, bound and adding braille as well. I then gathered the necessary materials needed to take some product photos and a short stop motion to act as a promotional piece.
FINAL PACKAGING AND BOOKLET
