Studio Brief 4 - Research

Studio Brief 4 - Design Processes, Communicate

Research

Having written my own brief I can now start to research background information that will inform my initial ideas. I started by looking for existing forms of storage and packaging for coin collecting, for this I felt the most appropriate source would be the royal mint online store.  I thought if coin displays existed they would be featured here. 

I found a small selection of collectors albums in the 'shop' section of the royal mint website, the collectors albums all featured the same design for different collections of coins.  I found the design to be relatively dull as they features large water colour illustrations similar to those found in some children books. I think the target audience of this product is children as they use figurative language such as 'fun' 'colourful' and 'hunt' when describing the collectors album. This leads me to suggest there is a gap in the market for some form of coin display for adults and avid coin collectors, I feel this could be the best possible solution to answering the brief. 

Seeing the bold illustrations of the Royal Mint collectors albums made me want to focus on a more designed and artistic style of design to ensure my outcome isn't too similar to an existing product. I started by looking at a range of display art as this would give me a better understanding of how I could design something with the purpose or storing/displaying items. 

When looking on search engines such as google I found it extremely difficult to find something that worked harmoniously as storage and art that could is produced on a relatively small scale. I found examples of designer shelving and artistic installations however didn't find anything resembling the concept I envisioned. This made me think of how I can develop my initial concept as an innovative new design.