Responsive - J2O: Creating the Packaging

I decided to score the packaging before I cut it. I practiced on one of the off cuts and found that 3 scores with the back of a Stanley knife gave it enough flexibility to fold nicely but didn't cut it so deep that it went through the packaging. 

The crease marks were only on one side so i measured it on the other side and drew a marker on. This then meant I would be folding in accurate straight lines rather than guessing.

I checked it with the original J2O packaging to check it was the right size.

One misktake I have made is the ending of the swirls. Last time I over compensated and this time it is under. It is annoying that something this simple has gone wrong. However when I take my finished photos it is something I can edit on photoshop. 

The other problem which I had last time I made the box template was that the white showed through the cuts after the section was cut out. 

The surface was  rough and uneven so I used a nail file to remove the loose bits and smooth the edges. This just left the white as an issue. I decided I would try and remove the problem by using a sharpie to colour in the white.

Although this got rid of the white the ink spread through the design and stained the area surrounding the cut out. I had a change of plan as I decided that the Stanley knife I was using was too blunt and chunky which made it harder to hold and made intricate work impossible. The scalpel was a lot easier to use and produced a neater outcome. As you can see from the image above the right one is a lot neater.  

I cut the rest of the sections out and then cut out the final box template.

This looks really bad. I had an idea to remove it with nail polish and a cotton bud. When I practised on a scrap piece it removed it really well, however when I used it on ink it smudged the stain in more.

I decided to leave the rest white as this looked less obvious.

This is the finished outcome. I am really happy with how this has turned out as it looks a lot neater, cleaner and sharper in comparison with my previous attempt. The bottle labels and the 4 pack design work in harmony together to promote the idea of a mixed fruit drink. The vibrant colours help to emphasise that it is an energising, fun drink whilst not being overpowering or looking childish. 

Responsive - J2O: Digital Printing

After a long break from this project I had another go at printing the designs off. This time I fixed the mistakes such as where the swirls ended as last time they went over onto the top of the packaging. I also made the decision to print on a different stock which would hold the colour of the ink better. The size of the designs were A2 so it wasn't possible to print on glossy or silk stock. Apart from the fact that it wasn't possible I decided that it wouldn't be the best idea since the design would be folded and ink cracks on folded silk or gloss stock. Instead I used a matt and then laminated it after printing. This gave it both the shine in needed and also made the packaging a lot stronger.

The photos I have taken don't do the new print justice. The design is clearer and sharper as well as the colours being brighter. It looks more professional now. Ideally I would have liked to print it on the correct packaging stock like J2O have however I do not have the facilities available.

The stickers have also printed out well and the new label looks a lot neater compared to my previous design which was overcomplicated and crowded, it bombarded the customer with too much information. Unfortunately I could not print the stickers with the same shine as the current bottle but I will experiment with ways of making this work.

Overall I am really happy with how the designs have printed. The quality is good and if I manage to cut it out without making any mistakes the final product will look good as well.

You can slightly see the difference between the colours as well as how the laminate has added a shine.

The stickers have turned out well and look good on the bottle. I will re do this neater later on.

Product, Range and Distribution: Anti-Surveillance Clothing - Stealth Wear

Below is an article I found on anti-surveillance clothing. The concept of the clothing is really interesting and raises valuable questions and makes you question whether this is the point in life that we have got to - that we can't just walk the streets without fear of being watched. However I don't think the clothes line is meant to be taken seriously or at least to the degree of 'what has the world come to' rather than make us more aware of how much we are watched. Using fashion as a creative outlet to express a strong opinion has worked well in this case as it visually shows the problem in hand.

Collectively, Stealth Wear is a vision for fashion that addresses the rise of surveillance, the power of those who surveil, and the growing need to exert control over what we are slowly losing, our privacy.

Building off previous work with CV Dazzle, camouflage from face detection, Stealth Wear continues to explore the aesthetics of privacy and the potential for fashion to challenge authoritarian surveillance. Presented by Primitive at Tank Magazine were a suite of new designs that tackle some of the most pressing and sophisticated forms of surveillance today. The counter-surveillance solutions include a series of ‘Anti-Drone’ garments and the Off Pocket™, a privacy accessory that allows you to instantly zero out your phone’s signal.

The rationale behind the hijab and burqa is that it provides a separation between ‘man and God’. Similarly, the rationale behind the ‘Anti-Drone’ Burqa and Hijab are to provide a separation between 'man and drone'.

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  Anti-Drone Burqa
  ©Adam Harvey
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  Anti-Drone Hoodie
  ©Adam Harvey
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  Anti-Drone Hoodie
  ©Adam Harvey
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  Anti-Drone Hijab
  ©Adam Harvey

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Thermal Images

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  Anti-Drone Burqa
  ©Adam Harvey
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  Anti-Drone Hoodie
  ©Adam Harvey
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  Anti-Drone Hoodie
  ©Adam Harvey
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Collaborative Practice - Save the Children: Book Sections and Content

Advantages of reading to your child:

Many mums and dads have discovered that spending just 10 minutes of focussed reading
time a day can make a world of difference, not only to your child, but also to YOU!

• It promotes increased communication between you and your child.
• It promotes longer attention span, which is an important skill for your kid to be able to concentrate.
• It builds listening skills and imagination.
• Books teach your child thinking skills early. When you read to your child, they learn to understand cause and effect, they learn to exercise logic, as well as think in abstract terms. They learn the consequences of their actions, and the basics of what is right and wrong.

Finding the right reading level:

Many young children struggle with reading because they are introduced to books which are too hard for them. Every child develops at their own speed so try to be patient, looking for stories which give yours just the right level of challenge. 

Why not try: 

• Encouraging your child to choose a book they want to read – books with pictures are often

the best to help them gain confidence. 

• Asking your child’s teacher about the types and level of book that will best suit their level of reading.

• Reading harder books to them if they want to hear more complex stories, but letting them read the easy bits.

• Reading their favourite book again and again with them. Repetition helps your son or daughter learn new words.

Create a Routine

Creating a regular ‘special time’ to read together can help younger children see the magical world that can be unlocked by the opening of a book, comic or magazine and learn to love the time when they have your undivided attention.

Why not try:
• Building a regular story time into your child’s bedtime routine. 

• Switching off the TV and your mobile to read with them. 

• Resist the urge to tidy their room or do the washing up and give them your time to sit and read together. 

• Telling them about a book or story you liked when you were a child. You may be able to find a copy!

• Making up a story or telling them about when you were a child or something that happened to you at school – remember you don’t always need a book to tell a good story.

Product, Range and Distribution: 8 Terrifying Facts About NSA Surveillance

I decided that I would try to gather some hard facts. If I have facts that I could use throughout my designs then it might shock people. 

On Monday, April 14, the the Washington Post and the Guardian US newspapers received the Pulitzer for Journalism Public Service for their reports on NSA spying. In light of their hard work, let's recap events of the last year.

Embarrassed and irritated by Edward Snowden's leaks, Obama charged last year at a press conference that Snowden was presenting a false picture of NSA by releasing parts of its work piecemeal: "Rather than have a trunk come out here and a leg come out there," he said, "let's just put the whole elephant out there so people know exactly what they're looking at. ... America is not interested in spying on ordinary people," he assured us. The government, he went on, is not "listening in on people's phone calls or inappropriately reading people's emails."

Six days later, a Washington Post headline declared: "NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year." In an internal audit in May 2012 of its DC-area spy centers, the agency itself found 2,776 "incidences" of NSA overstepping its legal authority. As the American Civil Liberties Union noted, surveillance laws themselves "are extraordinarily permissive," so it's doubly troubling that the agency is surging way past what it is already allowed to do. The ACLU adds that these reported incidents are not simply cases of one person's rights being violated — but thousands of Americans being snared, totally without cause, in the NSA's indiscriminate, computer-driven dragnet.

The agency's surveillance net stretches so wide that it is inherently abusive, even though its legal authority to spy on Americans is quite limited. U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, the sponsor of the PATRIOT Act (which NSA cites as its super-vac authority), said that Congress intended that it should apply only to cases directly tied to national security investigations. No lawmaker, he said, meant that government snoops should be able to conduct a wholesale grab of Americans' phone, email and other personal records and then store them in huge databases to be searched at will.

Yet look at what NSA has become:

1. The three billion phone calls made in the U.S. each day are snatched up by the agency, which stores each call's metadata (phone numbers of the parties, date and time, length of call, etc.) for five years.

2. Each day telecom giants turn over metadata on every call they have processed.

3. Every out-of-country call and email from (or to) a U.S. citizen is grabbed by NSA computers, and agents are authorized to listen to or read any of them.

4. The agency searches for and seizes nearly everything we do on the Internet. Without bothering with the constitutional nicety of obtaining a warrant, its XKeyscore program scoops up some 40 billion Internet records every month and adds them to its digital storehouse, including our emails, Google searches, websites visited, Microsoft Word documents sent, etc. NSA's annual budget includes a quarter-billion dollars for "corporate-partner access" — i.e., payments to obtain this mass of material from corporate computers.

5. Snowden says that in his days as an analyst, he could sit at his computer and tap into any American's Internet activity — even the President's. A blowhard congress critter called that a ridiculous lie, but Snowden was proven right. In 2005, another analyst did tap into ex-President Bill Clinton's personal email account.

6. Asked at a senate hearing whether his agency collects data "on millions or (even) hundreds of millions of Americans," NSA Director James Clapper said: "No." He later apologized, claiming he was confused by U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden's question. But when asked by Wyden to correct his erroneous answer in the hearing record, Clapper refused.

7. The sheer volume of information sucked up by the agency is so large that as of 2008, it maintained 150 data processing sites around the world.

8. NSA's budget is an official secret, but a Snowden document shows that it gets about $11 billion a year in direct appropriations, with more support funneled through the Pentagon and other agencies.

President Obama recently announced an "overhaul" of the NSA's collection of bulk phone records. The reform may require phone companies to store metadata it collects for 18 months for the NSA's use with the approval from a special court. This might sound reasonable, but it is still gathering bulk data on millions of innocent Americans — by corporations for the government. And what about Internet, email and other surveillance? NSA is too heavily vested in its programs; it is not going to give up spying on us.

Product, Range and Distribution: 'Why We Need Surveillance' - CNN

I found that so far I have only really researched into the anti-surveillance and not considered it from the other side of the coin. I think this is because I am anti-surveillance so my research perhaps has been tainted by that. I found this article by CNN called 'Why we need government surveillance' I thought that this would give an interesting opposing side. I normally view CNN as a fear mongering news station who often tend to blow things out of proportion or twist it so that they get more viewers. I have put the key parts of the article in bold which I either feel strongly against or where I feel that they have exaggerated. I could have easily put the whole article in bold however it has been interested to see it from the other side.

I think that people have been indoctrinated by CNN and other similar news sites. This project could be a good opportunity to try and show the real facts and figures behind it, allowing people to make up their own minds without projecting my view onto the work.

Edward Snowden's leaks of classified intelligence already have him being compared to Daniel Ellsworth of the Pentagon Papers and Bradley Manning of the WikiLeaks fame. Snowden felt compelled to leak valuable documents about the NSA's surveillance programs.

The 29-year-old was willing to give up his $200,000 job, girlfriend, home in Hawaii and his family. He boldly pronounced, "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, Internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."

The uproar over the recent revelations about government surveillance programs has raised eyebrows and concerns across the political spectrum. Many on the left have been surprised that most of the same policies (now even the surveillance of U.S. citizens and phone companies) that President George W. Bush initiated, are being used, and expanded upon, by the Obama administration.

Many on the right say it is government overreach and that Congress should have been briefed on the broad programs. Although the cause for alarm in political or policy circles might have merit, the exercise of these authorities by the executive branch does, in fact, appear to be legal. Once again, the war on al Qaeda is pitting national security against America's longstanding commitment to the promotion of civil liberties and human rights.
The current threat by al Qaeda and jihadists is one that requires aggressive intelligence collection and efforts. One has to look no further than the disruption of the New York City subway bombers (the one being touted by DNI Clapper) or the Boston Marathon bombers to know that the war on al Qaeda is coming home to us, to our citizens, to our students, to our streets and our subways.


This 21st century war is different and requires new ways and methods of gathering information. As technology has increased, so has our ability to gather valuable, often actionable, intelligence. However, the move toward "home-grown" terror will necessarily require, by accident or purposefully, collections of U.S. citizens' conversations with potential overseas persons of interest.

An open society, such as the United States, ironically needs to use this technology to protect itself. This truth is naturally uncomfortable for a country with a Constitution that prevents the federal government from conducting "unreasonable searches and seizures." American historical resistance towards such activities is a bedrock of our laws, policies and police procedures.

But what might have been reasonable 10 years ago is not the same any longer. The constant armed struggle against the jihadists has adjusted our beliefs on what we think our government can, and must, do in order to protect its citizens.
However, when we hear of programs such PRISM, or the Department of Justice getting phone records of scores of citizens without any signs of suspicious activities nor indications of probable cause that they might be involved in terrorist related activities, the American demand for privacy naturally emerges to challenge such "trolling" measures or data-mining.

The executive branch, although particularly powerful in this arena, must ensure the Congress is kept abreast of activities such as these surveillance programs. The need for enhanced intelligence activities is a necessary part of the war on al Qaeda, but abuse can occur without ensuring the legislative branch has awareness of aggressive tactics such as these.

Our Founding Fathers, aware of the need to have an energetic, vibrant executive branch in foreign affairs, still anticipated checks upon the presidency by the legislature. Working together, the two branches can ensure that both legally, and by policy, this is what the citizens desire of their government -- and that leaks such as Snowden's won't have the impact and damage that his leaks are likely to cause.

As for Snowden, regardless of how any of us feel about the national security surveillance programs at issue, he must be extradited back to the U.S. for interviews and potential trial -- if for no other reason than to deter others from feeling emboldened to break the law in the same way in the future.

Product, Range and Distribution: Jamie Reid

Jamie Reid is an English artist and anarchist. His work, featuring letters cut from newspaper headlines in the style of a ransom note, came close to defining the image of punk rock, particularly in the UK. His best known works include the Sex Pistols album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols and the singles "Anarchy in the UK", "God Save The Queen" based on a Cecil Beaton photograph of Queen Elizabeth II, with an added safety pin through her nose and swastikas in her eyes, described by Sean O'Hagan of The Observer as "the single most iconic image of the punk era".

I decided to look into Jamie Reid's work as the work he creates captures the anarchy and solidarity which is applicable to my project. The use of newspaper cutting letters feels very relevant as it removes the idea of an identity; something which is so hard to do in todays surveillanced world. This is definitely an idea I would like to experiment with. The letters take away any neat aspects of the design and instead imply mayhem and anger towards the government.

Product, Range and Distribution: Banksy

Banksy is a pseudonymous English graffiti artist, political activist, film director, and painter.
His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stencilling technique. His works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world.

I've decided to look into his work as it perfect for my Anti Surveillance Campaign. He reaches a wide audience as people see his work through passing unlike other work where you have to purposefully search it out e.g galleries... The political issues he focuses his work around raises current issues and makes the viewer question the issue in a humorous way. 

He cleverly considers and incorporates the space in which he is working into his design. By using security cameras as heads to animals and people he makes a much stronger statement and really highlights something which isn't natural but has blended into our day to day background.

“I need someone to protect me from all the measures they take in order to protect me,” ~ quote by Banksy.

Product, Range and Distribution: 53% of Brits Think Surveillance Should Be Increased

I found this interesting news story on Dazed discussing whether surveillance should be increased. What interested me was how they said that 53% agreed that it should be increased. I personally thought it would be higher, however thinking into it I think it probably would be but the younger audiences which are anti surveillance are less likely to vote. The age range of people that believe there should be an increase in surveillance is stereotypically the older and middle aged range who perhaps don't know as much about technology and see it as a fear. The fear mongering in the news would encourage them to believe that terrorism is threat and surveillance needs to increase to stop it. Where as in reality increasing surveillance won't gain anything but an angrier public.

There was an interesting quote at the end of the article which caught my attention. It says  "The most important censorship happens between your brain and the keyboard. Recent studies have shown that if you are aware of being constantly watched, you will invariably self-censor." - Morgan Marquis-Boire This immediately made me think of the panopticon where all the prisoners can be watched from the centre but they behave better because they are unsure if they are currently being watched. I find it sad how a theory to house prisoners can now be applied to the 'free' public.

Below is the article:

53 per cent of Brits think surveillance should be increased

As David Cameron pushes for more powers, should you be worried about the government's all-seeing eye?
David Cameron and Theresa May's post-Charlie Hebdo pledge to increase the government's ability to monitor everything we do appears to have resonated with the Sunday Times reading part of the UK's population.

In a YouGov poll commissioned by the broadsheet, the British public (sample size 1,647) answered a range of questions, from "Is David Cameron doing well as Prime Minister?" to "Would you say that British Muslims are friendly or unfriendly towards non-Muslims?".

A large portion of the survey focusses on surveillance. 53% of participants stated that internet and phone companies should be allowed to retain everyone's data for twelve months, with the police and counter-terrorism units allowed access to the information. 50% of readers "trust the police to behave responsibly" with these new powers. 52% believe that the government needs easier access to the public's communications in order to effectively fight terrorism. However, a majority oppose a ban on encryption – which makes sense, considering it'll probably never work.

The results will be music to David Cameron's ears: last week, the Prime Minister was campaigning hard to resurrect the controversial snoopers' charter. Will the ways in which we interact change if we think we're being listened in on? Probably.

"If you can't speak without worrying that you will be monitored by your government or your employer, then it will necessarily limit what you say," security researcher and hacker Morgan Marquis-Boire told us in an interview last week. "The most important censorship happens between your brain and the keyboard. Recent studies have shown that if you are aware of being constantly watched, you will invariably self-censor."

The implications of increasing surveillance are huge – it has the potential to alter our behaviour and relationships. Do we need actually need to increase it at all, even in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack?

Product, Range and Distribution: Disobedient Objects

The Uni recently did a trip to Disobedient Objects at the V&A. I found the exhibition really useful in relation to our new design practice brief. "From Suffragette teapots to protest robots, this exhibition is the first to examine the powerful role of objects in movements for social change. It demonstrates how political activism drives a wealth of design ingenuity and collective creativity that defy standard definitions of art and design."


It was extremely interesting to see how everyday objects could have such symbolic power. As well as how much impact the designs had bearing in mind they weren't expensive to construct.

Street Sign

The street sign used after the Argentina dictatorship to mark out members homes who had murdered up to 30,000 people. The road signs symbolise the deaths of the detainees who were pushed out of military planes into the ocean. A really simple but hard hitting graphic style. The use of yellow and black have a strong contrast, people view them as warning/caution colours.

This really summed up the exhibition; it was all about solidarity. You could really see how the designs pulled people together and cemented the movements.

Silence = Death
The pink triangle was established as a pro-gay symbol by activists in the United States during the 1970s. Its precedent lay in World War II, when known homosexuals in Nazi concentration camps were forced to wear inverted pink triangle badges as identifiers, much in the same manner that Jews were forced to wear the yellow Star of David. Wearers of the pink triangle were considered at the bottom of the camp social system and subjected to particularly harsh maltreatment and degradation. Thus, the appropriation of the symbol of the pink triangle, usually turned upright rather than inverted, was a conscious attempt to transform a symbol of humiliation into one of solidarity and resistance. By the outset of the AIDS epidemic, it was well-entrenched as a symbol of gay pride and liberation.



In 1987, six gay activists in New York formed the Silence = Death Project and began plastering posters around the city featuring a pink triangle on a black background stating simply ‘SILENCE = DEATH.’ In its manifesto, the Silence = Death Project drew parallels between the Nazi period and the AIDS crisis, declaring that ‘silence about the oppression and annihilation of gay people, then and now, must be broken as a matter of our survival.’ The slogan thus protested both taboos around discussion of safer sex and the unwillingness of some to resist societal injustice and governmental indifference. The six men who created the project later joined the protest group ACT UP and offered the logo to the group, with which it remains closely identified.

Badges Against Apartheid

Badges made to support the struggle against the apartheid. Badges were created by South Africans and liberation groups forced into exile, as well as by international solidarity groups. The badges acted as a form of solidarity allowing people to show their views and support.

Book Blocs

In Italy students protested to server cuts in education. They created shields to look like books which would push back the police batons strikes. It created a great metaphor of the police actually striking out against education.