Alright Ive done a lot of reseach the last couple days on the rollerblade project and now its about time to pin up what I have so far. I'll be dicking around on photoshop later tonight but I think I know pretty much what I want to do for this project.


ROLLERBLADE PROJECT

OBJECTIVE:

To make a tag for a rollerblade

GOALS:

To make it not only visually appealling for the buyer, but to also include information that will promote the k2 blade (the one of my choice) as the better choice

CONSIDERATIONS:

Who am I designing this for? What can I do to make this more appealling to my target group?

Development Cycle (Selecting a blade and target audience)

Instead of just doing a basic tag for a rollerblade, I wanted to design something I felt that would have the highest positive feedback from my audience.I wanted to design a tag that would directly appeal to rollerblade buyers.

I choose the K2 rollerblade after taking a look at other competitive brands (such as Firefly & Salomon). After looking at a couple of k2 blades, I chose to be more specific and chose the k2 VO2 Max as the rollerblade to create a tag for.

I spoke with the manager of the sports department in Sportscheck and was discussing some of the things he noticed/felt about the blade. He clearly told me that the k2 is by far the favorite of the teenage crowd. Of course, I cannot say that its the favorite of the teenage crowd in the city or in the world, but it gives me a strong idea that the tag I am designed should be designed to target the teenage age group.

So then I posed the almost unanswerable question:

What do teenages like?

There is always a fad or trend going on so its sometimes hard to design something that will appeal to most people. I decided it was time to ask around and see what people had to say. I surveyed 10 people (men and women) of the ages 16-22. That is a pretty good range of teenagers/early adults. I asked the simple question to get an idea of what people liked (the were allowed to say more than one thing as well:

If you were buying rollerblades, what is one thing that would attract you to the rollerblade or packaging, etc.?
By organzing it after getting all the responsing, in order from first to last is what is the most important to the people I surveryed.

Color (5)
Font (3)
Specs including on box(2)
Style of blade (2)
Pictures (2)
Packaging (1)
Endorsments (1)

Since color was the most important to my focus group, I decided to pose this question(once again they were allowed to pick more than one answer):

What colors do you like the best?

In order from first to last by popularity, the list is as follows.

Black (6)
Blue (5)
Red (4)
Green (2)
Silver (2)
Gold (2)
Purple (1)

Getting that information made me think about the colors I should incorporate within my design. Since the black was the dominant favorite, I posed one more question in regards to the color scheme.

How do you feel about black and white packaging?
Some of the responses are as followed


"YES... good.. i was actually thinking that at first.. " - Amanda (21)

"Good...since there would always be another color with it and it would stand out and catch my eye" - Sadi (17)


"Thats good" - Conner (19)

9/10 people I asked said that they thought black and white packaging was a good idea. When the tenth person said they did not like it, I asked why.
They felt that it has the possibility to be boring. "As long as their are other things that will stand out, the b/w would be too plain"


My color portion was complete. To wrap up: I think my color scheme, based on my answers I received, will be Black and White, incorporated with bright colors to make it stand out such as Blue, Red and Green.

Now....to figure out what people want to know about the blades before they buy them. I surveryed the same 10 people and asked them

Whats the one thing you would want to know about the rollerblades before you buy them?
Once again they were allowed to say more than 1 thing if needed. In order from most important to least:

Durability (5)
Comfort (3)
Wheels/Bearings (2)
Warranty (1)
Comparitive to other brands (1)
Style (1)

After getting my responses back from my survey, I decided that the most important thing to include for my audience is the level of durability. I also need to include other specs, such as the comfort level, wheels, and special features of the k2 blade that make it better than other brands.

To sum up my findings:

Color - Black and White. Incorporate other colors such as Red, Blue, Green to make it stand out.

Include the specs such as Durability, Wheels, special features that will make the k2 blade stand out among others.