23rd Sep

Today we all came into college to put our ideas and thoughts together, however half the group came in at different times. Because of this all the decision making was already made leaving no real input for me, Rob or Gemma. We all had our ideas, mine been the origami but it can’t be used, as predicted it was also thrown out.

The most frustrating thing about today was when hearing the concept for what we were now doing. Things such as “well I think we shouldn’t do the pack anymore as its not graphic design and it’s too much work”. Things which I clearly stated on Monday, although I was ignored and as such we completely wasted Monday’s session.

The idea was to create a box which contained two mugs and a t-shirt. The pack would be given out to ALL students across the year, running the slogan “make tea not war”. I’m not completely against the idea but I did address the costing issues to handing out two mugs and a shirt to every single student. Apparently that didn’t matter and we went looking for blank shirts and printable iron on paper. An hour and a half later and having bought the paper and looking around numerous shops, ‘the group’ then decides that it’s a bad idea because it’s going to cost too much... To be honest I feel like every single thing I’ve suggested so far goes straight over everyone’s heads, however if someone else suggests what I’ve already said, it’s a brilliant idea!

Although the mugs were still being bought as without them we’d be handing in nothing at all. I didn’t really see why we’d have to buy in these things in the first place as they could have easily been in image form.

After breaking down what each item we would need to make, we were told we’d also be making little tags for the tea bags. I had the idea of making the tag fold open. When you opened it they’d be a quote from one of the students from our research. For instance the tag on top would say “could be worse”, you open the tag and inside is a little horror story from Karl’s student research. No one liked this idea of this although ten minutes later someone else suggested the ‘exact’ same idea which I’d previously said and everyone thought it was amazing!? I’d even shown the group illustrations of exactly what I meant and this idea was identical...

In relation to the brief, 2 mugs and the slogan “make tea not war” is a complete failure. “How to live with people you don’t like?” Buy some different mugs to the ones you already have and stick the kettle on. My opinion isn’t going to make anyone re-reconsider anyway so were now stuck with it.