I wanted to revisit my envelope design and found another flowery wrapping paper, but this one was slightly different, with a beige background and more delicate looking flowers, it actually resembles the ground. So I thought it would make a good envelope.
Envelope design – final one
Having found an image of a spade online I quickly saw how my first spade design did resemble a handbag rather than a spade. So worked on elongating the handle, changing the shape of it and making the spade part a more shaped piece rather than a square. I liked the brown paper and green for the handle of the second design so kept these as features.
Spade Design 3 – front
Spade Design 3 – open
Spade Design 3 – unfolded
I did find that I had to crop the folded paper slightly to get it to sit without being visible before opening. I wasn’t sure if this would mean that I couldn’t get the 4 chunks of 120 words in the small space, so I designed text boxes in word and wrote 120 words in each cutting them out to see if they’d fit into the spaces provided.
Rethinking the idea of an envelope that looked like ground it occurred to me I could try just a simple brown paper envelope. And that I could write on the envelope a slogan or something about the volunteering task so people knew something about what the thing inside the envelope might be about. I wrote in pencil “Save Your Park”. As a rough idea.
Looking at this in reality I wasn’t happy with it, I didn’t think it would grab people’s attention and therefore attract new people in the way the brief described. So having a little think I thought maybe adding some grass like green card onto the brown envelope would enhance it looking like a spade cutting into the ground. So I gave it a shot on a new envelope.
I still wasn’t convinced this actually looked any good, rather than looking like something aimed at children (which would be fine but the brief didn’t say the target audience were children).
I was showing a friend the design and she said it looked fine, and then I asked her what did she think it was. She said she thought some kind of bag and that the spade didn’t really look like a spade in terms of it’s handle or bottom half. I agreed with her and so suspended working on the envelope to print out a picture of a real spade to use for redesigning the leaflet.
Feeling happy with my first plain paper prototype I moved onto trying to find different kinds of paper for the design.
My initial thought was to try and create an envelope that could look like/represent ground that the spade was cutting into (as it would look if you were digging). I found some flowery wrapping paper that looked quite fresh and thought that might work.
Flowery Envelope 1
However seeing it in actuality, I thought it didn’t really look like earth/ground the spade was cutting into and the spade poking out the top actually made it look more like a handbag design. The blue and pink give it too girly a feel and I felt like this might be off putting for any guys receiving it in the post!
I found a sturdy brown paper/card I’d kept from something to make the spade from and I felt like this would help it keep it’s shape and made it look for spade like. I coloured in the handle green as often spades have coloured handles.
Spade Design 1 – front
Spade Design 1 – open
Space Design 1 – unfolded
At the time I felt okay with this particular spade design so moved on to trying to design a better looking envelope.
So back to the drawing board I thought about another shape that went with the idea of volunteering to help in a park and it occurred to me that you might practically use a spade to help with gardening, and I thought what if the I designed a leaflet shaped like a spade.
I started off just doing a sketch and then making a plain paper prototype using 3 pieces of A4 paper. The basic idea I had in my mind was a leaflet in the shape of a spade which folded in half and opened to reveal a folded piece of paper which had the chunks of info on and contact details. I also thought this would work well within an open topped envelop/pocket so you could see the handle of the spade sticking out but not initially the whole spade.
prototype 1: Spade in Envelope
Prototype 1: Spade leaflet unfolded
Prototype 1: Spade leaflet inner fold open
happy that this sort of worked I set about thinking about types of paper, colours textures and making a variety of prototypes until I found one I was happy with.