Magma

The first time I stepped into this tiny wonder of a shop I remember thinking 'where do I look first?! There's so many amazing little gadgets and cute things in this place!' I scanned the shop at least 3 times to make sure I hadn't missed anything that had been tucked away behind something else. It was one of those shops where you instantly know you want to buy everything, or even the whole shop. Like Muji or Paperchase. Even the layout and furniture for the shop was specially designed to make browsing easier for the customers.

So what exactly is Magma? Well, it is a shop which sells clever, tasteful, original, not kitsch, reasonably priced products. Just nice simples ideas. It is a product shop, or design shop, or concept shop, or strange multi-purpose shop. Stock ranges from stationery and cards to home and fashion accessories, jewellery, games and toy, eco-products and all manner of design objects- basically, anything that bears the stamp of creativity and intelligence upon it. Products with creative ideas, that make simple things seem new again. Fresh spontaneous, at times surreal, or disarmingly simple, these are products conceived (rather than preconceived) by artists, designers and all kinds of creative people.

"We think that there is something extremely rich and dynamic in the notion that people. all kinds of people, from all kinds of backgrounds, are walking through our doors on a daily basis, looking for something, not always sure as to what they are looking for."

I instantly knew that I wanted to design something that would be sold in Magma. A product so innovative that it would attract the type of people who would go to Magma to buy it.

I think most of the people who go to Magma are design-driven people approximately age 14-35:

-either teenager who find the product cute.

-students looking for inspiration.

-designers looking for inspiration.

Getting Our Brief

I remember thinking that the idea of writing my own brief would be a scary one, especially when I am the worst person when it comes down to making decisions. Our tutor advised us that 'if you don't have a fixed idea, broaden it because it's best not to change your learning agreement after you handed it in'. Oh yes, learning agreements, those things. I never understood how one would go about writing a one, as if you could predict the future and know exactly what it is you're going to produce as a final piece. It always boggled my mind.

The first step to success seemed to be research, not only to find out about the different practices within visual communication out there, but also to discover what really intrigued me. I needed a topic that I would be motivated to work for in the next 12 weeks of my life. There's not much that would keep a hold of my attention for that long a period. But if it was to be anything it would have to be a something that involved layouts; I could go for hours adjusting the most minor elements of a simple layout, even if it was something as trivial as moving an image two pixels to the left.

Initial ideas that popped into my mind during our briefing include the following:

1) Recipe book- book design, photography/illustration.

2) Exploring different cultures- no idea what form this would take.

3) Children's book- illustration and book design.

4) Inventing a product- branding and packaging.

5) Branding for food- or maybe rebranding an existing product.

Ok, maybe I'm thinking too much about the form my final piece would take. I don't think I'm thinking in the right order...let's start again. So I've established that my project would involve messing around with layouts. Some illustrative work here and there maybe? Yes, that does sound appealing. Although inventing my own product does somewhat tickle my fancy too. O dear, so many decisions to make already, my brain can't cope. Anyway, back to the more important business. Things which were stressed about this project during the briefing:

1) Research throughout the project- look at existing work, seek inspiration, test your experiments and talk to people in the industry.

2) It's all about the target audience this project, approach them and seek their advice, bettering your concept to create the ultimate product.

3) It would be a genius idea to link the theory unit to this unit to get a thorough and better understanding of my practice (in other words, kill two birds with one stone).

4) Don't use this project to learn a new piece of software but rather build on the skills you already have.

5) Think about who you are and what hobbies or interests you might have that can contribute to this project.

6) Use this project to research the career path you might want to take in the near future.

Right, with that said, I think it's time to gather some useful research material.