APP Words: Existing Mug Designs

[3] [5] 

I took a picture of my sister’s travel mug because that’s what inspired me to carry out this project. She uses travel mugs so often that she actually bought two of them so that I could always have one ready whenever she needed it. I’m going to take her opinion into consideration despite being a year younger than my target market, although I’ll make sure that’s she’s the only exception.

I’ve compiled a mood board of mug designs, and I decided to do it on Photoshop rather than on Pinterest, as they are my friend’s photos (or those that they weren’t able to take photos of, so just searched on Google instead). I looked at mug designs because most of my friends didn’t own travel mugs as they just used the paper ones provided by coffee shops that they threw away after they’ve finished their drink.

Looking at these photos I can tell that illustration is a consistent factor in all of these designs. This might mean that I would have to put more of an emphasis on illustration if that’s what makes my target market buy these products. My friend Jess had the most interesting mug… It was just full of type, and reminded me of an infographic piece.

I also had a look at some of the designs they had at Costa, and took pictures of the Snowman design that I had when I bought some tea. I really liked this design because they have paid attention to all sides of the mug and haven’t just focused on the front.
I would like to do this on my design because I don’t want it to look too empty, and as it hasn’t got a handle to obscure anything… Why not?

I then went on to have a look at other mug designs that were available on the internet to see if type is more frequent in other designs. This time I wanted to focus more on travel mugs, and have created a pinterest board here.

Screenshot of Board

Conclusion: [5]
From my research I can see that there is definitely a strong emphasis on illustration, as hardly any of the mugs I’ve collected on my Pinterest board had type on it. Luckily I had noticed this right at the beginning when I first started my sketches so I wouldn’t have to rapidly come up with sketches. This is because I always wanted to have some sort of illustration embedded within the design, having been heavily inspired by Steve Simpson, and I hope to make my type illustrative as well.

[n] Learning Outcome