Fourth Tutorial

By this point I had 4800 words for the essay. I asked if I was missing 200 of if it could stay like that. The essay must be, at least, 5000 words, and since the introduction is a bit short, it can be added the why this is a topic worth of study for me.

For the different stages of the design, it was suggested that there should be 5 different ways the project could be.

Another idea was to do the work for the company Aethaer, the one mentioned in the crits.

A good way to start this project would be to deconstruct luxurious and science brands and compare their signifiers.

Cop Crit

For this group crit I prepared a very brief explanation of what the practical work in regards to the dissertation is going to be about.

I explained that one of the conclusions from the dissertation is that consumers buy meaning, so I wanted to brand a product that was all about meaning. That product is air.

I asked several questions.

1.- Suggestions of similar brands?

Aethaer

The film Lorax

Consider packaging football t-shirts to have the smell of a particular football player


2.- What approach would you have to a project like this?

Chemical

Something like food, with ingredients

Luxurious. A product that Gucci would release.

3.- Do you think the name "essence" works?

It works. Since it's English is quite neutral and doesn't have any connotations that remind the audience of a certain smell.

4.- Any other suggestions or ideas would be highly appreciated

Check out the South Park game smell device.

A device to spray the air over oneself.

Show the process of capturing air.

Cheesy goldfish in a bag with branding on top.

Pop up a stall with bags of air.

Make it luxurious.

Make brands like gucci have a jar of air from them.

Range of products (low-high end)


I had one more question that I couldn't ask because we ran out of time, but the amount of ideas I got from the other 3 compensated the outcome.

5.- Main difference perceived between this product and perfumes/fragrances

Third Tutorial

On the third tutorial, Ben and I were looking to how to connect the strategies carried out by designers nowadays with the theories of Packard and Bernays. He also pointed out a few things that needed to be fixed, like structure or the way certain things were worded.

We also discussed the practical work. The concept of telling a lie convincingly was explored in the last week. One idea is a product from Ikea to build your own borders, as a way to throw a critic about Catalonia or Trump. A company like Ikea has a very wide target audience, so it has to solve all kinds of problems and persuade customers to believe certain product is real.

Looking back at the dissertation, the whole text points out that consumers buy meaning instead of product. It'd be interesting to explore this in more deep by branding a series of products to sell only meaning through typography, colours, imagery, etc. An example of this can be a bag of hope, a package ofinsurgency or a bottle of self-confidence.

This is how I came up with the idea of selling air from different parts of the world to convey different emotions. Different targets would find different airs attractive for different reasons.

Air from the Himalaya.

Air from Chicago.

Air from the fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor.

The feedback from Ben said that this could be a window to the future and make an advertising campaign about it. Have pictures of the process of capturing the air. Capturing anger, strength, etc.

The work of Marcel DuChamp and Piero Manzoni was discussed during this session.