Point of Sale Assignment

I began this exercise by thinking about how a supermarket which prides itself on high quality food would want its food presented.

I liked the freshness of these illustrations

I looked in magazines and cookery books to see the various colour combinations and media used, and cut out a load of images of fruit and designs based on fruit for my scrap books. I also had a look in our local supermarket to see if they had any point of sale displays, and they really had nothing, just their own branding.

collection of cuttings for summer and autumn fruit and colours etc

So I started off with a bit of a brainstorm, and a spider diagram. This provided me with some ideas for fruit and veg for Autumn (turnip, pumpkin, blackberries, corn, pears, mushrooms, corguettes, squash) and Summer (strawberries, oranges, lemons, lettuce, salad leaves, blueberries, raspberries, apples). It also helped me focus on the way the produce should be seen: Juicy - Healthy - Sunny - Colourful - Bright - bursting with goodness. All these words seem to suggest lightness of touch, quite fluid textures - perhaps water colours - splashy effects.

sketchbook berries and apple

I started off in my sketchbook with some observational drawings, in watercolour pencil, crayons and ink

blueberries

raspberries

blackberries

sunshine oranges - blue background (didn't scan well)

ink and watercolour

autumn veg

The background colour had an important part to play in the way I perceived the fruit - the bright blue sky colour worked well with the orange - it almost made it look like the sun in the sky (although my scanner hasn't picked this up). On the other hand, the complimentary colours of purples and reds with berries made them look as if they were so juicy they were bleeding their goodness onto the page. All quite useful observations.

At the same time, I played with some compositions that would stand out amongst the fuit and veg in a busy supermarket aisle!

sketchbook composition page

sketchbook composition page

One idea was to pick a colourful array of fruit and veg and use some of the words that came out of my brainstorm as a texture in the background.

Another plan to take one fruit and blow it up to fill most of the board, to make a really bold statement.

Another idea was to have the ABC of Summer and the ABC of Autumn, but this didn't fit into the square so well.

I liked the freshness of the watercolour pencils and crayons, they give a bit of texture but also the wash brought out the juiciness of the fruit and veg, so I did some individual studies and scanned them into the computer, cut them out played with scale and placed them in the right sized square.

I wanted a sort of 'home grown produce' feel about the images, as if they had been picked from the farm, and thrown onto the farmhouse kitchen table ready to be cooked. This led me to the idea of using a gingham cloth as a sort of texture for the background. The hope was that this would give me a bit of depth to the images, which looked a bit stark on a white background.

So I went for 4 fruit on one page, big and bold, which might work well if the display was high up - the words really just giving it some texture and context - a bit of shadow helped sit the fruit and veg on the background.

autumn display

summer display

I still am not sure which composition I like best. But I like the boldness of the colours.

The 2nd part of the assignment was to incorprorate an element of the season. These were based on the first idea I had for the compositions. This was a more of an intricate idea, involving more types of produce in a colour palette that I felt summed up the season. The autumn one was based on our Allotment produce and a farmhousy wooden chopping board, to give that 'I'm about to be cooked' feel. Our scanner has packed up and I'm struggling with the camera to get decent photos, but this was work in progress, I had been planning to add a tablecloth and I feel it really needs it. 

Autumn produce, watercolour pencils and crayons

I thought that the gingham would be too intricate and fight the fruit and veg too much so I went for a simple check. I like the ambiguity, it could be a picnic rug or a tablecloth, either way it brings connotations of family picnics, fresh air, wholesome food fun.

finished Autumn Board

I went for an autumnal earthy red colour to bring out some of the reds in the fruit. For the summer arrangement I decided to go for a sky blue background, clear sunny skies.

finished Summer Board

The photo has not really got the brightness of the image, I'm still not sure if I should have shadows under the fruit, or if they would dull the colours... I rather like the checked background being a little less literal. Looking at the photos, the Autumn colours are a bit brighter in the flesh, but these are technical problems I will have to work on.

I'm quite pleased with these images, but they might be a little 'fussy' for a supermarket campaign.