Project 3 – ideas creation

My first task was to think of the best name for the fictitious brand.  I had first though of calling it Red Star Pickles but then realised that this was too restrictive and wouldn’t look appetising on a jar of jam!

I came up with the following contenders:

Red Star Chutney

Red Star Pickles

Red Star Foods

Red Star Produce

Red Star Food Group

Red Star Preserves

I haven’t decided yet, but I think Red Star Preserves may work best in terms of successful brand / product association.  Even if the site contains breads and drinks, I feel that having these under a ‘Red Star Preserves’ banner would still work.

Next I created some simple wireframes (in excel) to generate some ideas for layout.  The first one is for a flat-ish, modern, minimalist effect (textured off-white background, simple, subtle logo, clear repetitive product png’s) – smaller image is for mobile version:

Index Page:

Content Page:

The second idea for the site is to have a full screen image.  The image would be one I had taken of the chutneys, but here I have used an image from the internet for illustrative purposes:

Project 3……….begin!

For the third project we are to create a website to promote a particular event, product or occasion.

I have decided to design and build a site to advertise a fictitious company selling “Socialist Themed Chutneys” and other foods.

Each product will have a name based on either socialist/communist phrasing or a parody/reference to political news items/absurdities.

It is a fascination to me that political news is so transient, and interest in (or even memory of) news items is often so short lived.  Stories which dominate political analysis and media scrutiny at any given time usually produce quirky soundbites and catchphrases.  These stories can often seem so important or shocking at the time that they can even cause the public question the confidence they have in the public figures involved.  However, within a matter of weeks the story has been forgotten, and what once seemed so outrageous usually is never referred back to again – unless a concerted effort has been made to in some way record them so that one can be reminded of them periodically.  What better way to preserve in the public’s consciousness the abuses of our public figures than with the use of preserves themselves – Chutneys, Pickles and Jams!

With our heads being constantly filled with a non-stop cascade of news items, would we ever have cause to recall how angry we were at years of Chris Huhne’s bare-faced lies to camera?  Or how baffled we were when the Labour conference announced that Mr Milliband will indeed be the next leader – albeit the wrong brother?  Or the squeamish embarrassment we all felt as Obama’s ‘Red Line’ on chemical attacks in Syria was crossed, and he suddenly found himself bullied into action by the bravado of his own previous words.

Well now the memory of these travesties are kept alive every time the condiment tray comes out, with delicious and memory invoking creations such as “Huhne’s Extra Strong Denial Chutney”, “The Wrong Milliband Mango Chutney” and “Obama’s Red Line Pasta Sauce.”   We may never have remembered Peter Mandelson’s obscene assertion that he was “intensely relaxed with people becoming filthy rich” were it not for the “Peter Mandelson’s Filthy Rich Lemon Curd and Intensely Relaxed Orange Curd” companion set.

The idea is that new chutneys, pickles and jams would be released regularly, the names of which would reflect whatever is top of the current affairs news items at that time.  With Plebgate Plum Jam selling well last week, we have High-gella’s Columbian Conserves to look forward to this week, part of David Cameron’s “Team High-gella” range …….