Creative Media Production 2013 1

Recipe Card Evaluation

Mel Storey

2

Producing Print Based Media

Visual LanguageHow have you chosen to set out your designs and why? (Reference layout, image/text ratio, busy/simplistic etc)

Our recipe card design is based on cities all around the world. We chose to lay out our design to show the city straight away, without using words, we did this by die cutting the skyline of the city or a recognizable monument from that particular city onto the front and back. For example, London we used a skyline of the city featuring the London Bridge and with Sydney we used a silhouette of the Opera House. This is a layout I have not seen before on a recipe card so this will make our set of cards stand out from the rest, making it unique.The front of the card is very basic and gets straight to the point of what the recipe is and how it will finally look. We did this by placing a large image of the final product in the middle of the front page. From looking at the Vegetarian Society’s existing recipe cards such as the “meat-free made easy” the front cover is very similar to ours. It has an image of the food in a similar size to what we did for all our recipe cards. Both the pictures are bordered to make them stand out. It has a title and the Vegetarian Society logo which we also included on our own recipe card. Keeping the layout simple on the front helps give a clear indication to what the recipe includes. Having the circles at the bottom clearly telling the reader if the recipe is acceptable for vegans, the prep time, cooking time and how many it serves. I think this is a clever feature to place on a recipe card as it quickly gets to the point and the

audience will know if they need to double the ingredients to get a double serving. Some recipes also appeal to vegans and this can be found in the circle banner too. The banner across the bottom of the front page produced by circles includes all these features and the logo. A different banner is carried onto the back which includes social networking sites and again, the logo. Having information in a banner easily gathers together important information and allows the information to be taken in quickly and all at once. Having the servings, prep time etc. on the bottom is useful because firstly the audience will look at the image on a recipe card, and if the food looks nice their eyes will next go down the page to the information they need and having it one place will be helpful to all. The back includes the ingredients and method. We spaced everything out using both the back and front and using the back for more informational text. The ingredients were placed on top of the countries flag to carry on the theme throughout the recipe card. The die cut can also be seen from the back too. Information such as the ingredients and the method should always be placed on a recipe card. From looking at existing recipe cards online ingredients are usually placed before the method, or the the left hand side of the method so you will always go the ingredients first. In our brief we were asked to list the ingredients but some recipe cards use pictures of the ingredients to inform the audience what they need to get. The method was placed underneath the ingredients as this is the last thing you need to look at before making the recipe. The method is numbered, indicated in the brief but also so the audience can follow the steps in a order.The text to picture ratio is higher, in the text favor, but this is a good thing as the card is not bombarded with pictures but instruction which all recipe cards need to create the recipe. We tried to keep the recipe card looking as simple as possible for the busy audience we have.

Visual LanguageDiscuss the contents of your final images and reflect upon decisions made. (Content used- image/text/graphic, use of colour, original or stock images. Compare to existing products.)

The images we chose were stock images from Google. The use of stock images did make it a lot easier for us but it did produce some problems such as trying to find images that looked similar. Some images needed editing or cropping to keep the same exposure and brightness within all the images on each recipe card. If I took my own pictures then we would have got the same lighting and style easily. The images would look like they belong altogether and backgrounds wouldn’t be so drastic. But the use of stock images gave us more time to produce the design and layout of the card. We chose images that looked similar by choosing images that all looked like they had the same quality and used the same aperture. A lot of images used on existing recipe cards use a large depth of field. This is to focus straight into the food and for nothing to replace the importance on the dish in front. This set of recipe cards show how an image can have 80% ratio to the text and still looks professional and with the use of aperture it can can create a background but the dish is still in focus and still in good quality. This is a large image to text ratio and I wanted something a bit more equal therefore we did not go for a full page image. But I did use stock images that used a large depth of field because it doesn’t just make the image more professional but it makes the food stand out more.

All the images that we used have a natural wash colour to them. They use light colours within the images, colours such as white and cream make the images become light and happy. The greens within the images portrays a healthy lifestyle when they contribute with the whites and it represents the vegetarian society company as it uses the same colours that is used on the logo.

We used graphic images of the countries flag on both the front and back page. These were made slightly transparent by using the opacity tool on Photoshop, because they were to fill in the background underneath text and images. It makes the recipe cards become more patriotic with the colours, flags and images that contribute to the country that you love. From looking at existing products that use graphic images they place text within the shape, we took this into consideration and used it in our own recipes cards as it gives text some frame and thought it looked effective.

Visual LanguageDiscuss the semiotics and connotations created from the content you have included. (What meaning or suggestions are created from the images/colours/designs you have used? You could reference how they were used in products you look at during the project.)

The use of the flags, skyline/die cut and colours differ on each recipe card but they are all placed in the same place. They are different to indicate the country the city is in and to let the audience interpret this with one look at the recipe card. Let me explain this in detail; the New York recipe card shows the country in its patriotic colours: blue, red and white, this compliments the colours on the flag and people from all around the world will be able to recognize this recipe is for the USA. The skyline indicates what city it is in. For New York there is a skyline of New York with the main feature of the Statue of Liberty which is again a symbol of the city. We did this on all our recipes so the audience could quickly know the city through the semiotic symbols and connotations. Going back to the colours and how they connotation to the idea, some countries, UK, USA and Australia all have the same colours on their countries flag. So we chose colours that represented the country such as orange, yellow and blue for Australia. This comes from the hot weather, deserts and the beaches and sea. This is universally thought about Australia and people will still be able to understand this is Australia from the colours.

From looking at this recipe card which has a theme of Spain with its Spanish Potato Tortilla shows that not only is the recipe connotation to a Spanish theme but colours do this too. The Spanish flag is made up of a yellow and red and this recipe card includes the same red as seen on the Spanish flag. A subtle hint of yellow on the picture has been cleverly used to show the yellow from the Spanish flag together and cleverly people will see this as an indication to represent Spain in a recipe form. The use of colours will connote to different things and luckily countries have well established universal colours which we used on our cards to make them show the counties.

AudiencesCreate an audience profile of your chosen demographic(Age, gender, psychographic, geodemographic, NRS Social Grade, hobbies, sexuality [if appropriate] etc)

The audience targeted for our recipe cards are young professionals working and living in the city who find it hard to find time to cook meals. They are always on the go working for busy companies in the centre of the city. Finding time to sit down and have a meal or cook for someone else has always been hard, therefore simple steps and ingredients is what they need. Although their work life is repetitive, when they have time to themselves away from work they like to have an adventure. They love to travel around the world and visit different cities. They are not afraid of trying new things but just have a shortage of time. They would be new to the vegetarian lifestyle and these recipes would be helpful for them to get new and exciting vegetarian ideas.They would live in busy cities in the UK such as London, Manchester, Liverpool etc. and would be able to grab exciting opportunities.

Interests would include travelling, interesting and exciting activities such as hand gliding etc. They would be sporty and active. They would live at home, maybe have a partner but they would not officially live together. The national social grade they would be in would be C1/B. I think it would appeal to both men and women, but maybe slightly more women would actually use the recipe card because of the bright colours/fonts and when we did our primary research questionnaire we found out that most people who used recipe cards were women.

AudiencesHow have you constructed your work to appeal to this audience? Include an annotated copy of an example of your work to help illustrate how you have done this.

We constructed the recipe cards to appeal to our target audience by choosing recipes that were easy to make and looked appealing. The ingredients were easy to find in local supermarkets that you would find in the city. The method would follow quick and simple steps but in a language that was informative and not too child-like for our middle class audience. An adventurous target audience needs something to keep its mind on the product for a long period of time such as making a recipe, therefore the exciting die cut at the top is unusual and has not been done before on existing recipe cards. This gives the card something different and unique about itself. It also gives people inspiration, for not only trying new food from a country, but to even visit that country. It shows people what other cultures eat and what there is to see and do over there with the die cut showing landscapes and certain monuments from that city.

Simple ingredients that can be found in shops such as Tescos/Asda. They are listed and separated equally which makes it simple and easy for the reader to read. It looks like a shopping list so if they need to go and get the ingredients they can tick it off easily.

The method is step by step and easy to read. The language is very formal and informative for our middle class audience. It is not too childlike which will bore them or too challenging.

The die cut is exciting and unique for the audience. It has never been done before on a recipe card and it gives the card something else and something else for the reader to look at. It also gives an certain audience the inspiration to visit a city with beautiful landscapes and monuments.

The banner at the bottom of the front page informs the audience about quick information they need to know before making the recipe. This is for the quick lifestyle the target audience has.

The picture was chosen to make the food look professional and tasty. This is to catch the busy audiences eye with one simple look.

Cultural contextWhat did you use as your design influences and why were they chosen?(What existing media products influenced the final look of your work?)

From the initial research we did before we started designing and production I looked at different media products that influenced my final design. Because the brief was produced by the vegetarian society we looked at existing recipe cards that they already produce online and physically. From looking at recipe cards specially done for vegetarians I could see a specific layout and format and what they include. Also looking at vegetarian products for different audiences made me see what needed to be on a recipe card to change the audience. For example the “Veggie Kids’ Kitchen” booklet by the vegetarian society is a lot different than “Eats, Shoots & Leaves?” booklet. The booklet aimed towards kids has bright colours and stickers over the recipe cards. It shows kids in the kitchen smiling but the other booklet is very neutral and professional. This showed me how to keep my audience engaged through what colours, images, and layout I use. From the festive Christmas pie recipe card, I found the information and pictures on the babbles very effective. It gives a frame to the text making it stand out. We choose to do this with the ingredients because I feel this is one of the most important things for a recipe and making it stand out is eye catching for the audience. We used the country’s flag for a graphic to place behind the ingredients which also linked in with the patriotic theme.

During our research we produced a questionnaire on survey monkey, this questionnaire help us design our final product through peoples answers. We used it to help us decide the colours and recipes. The graph to the side is from the questionnaire and looking at the results we made sure we used the top five most popular colours. Luckily we did agree with the colours chosen and they did appear on our recipe cards.

Neither of us were vegetarian and we didn’t know very many vegetarian dished therefore we asked people what cuisine they would like. We gave some options and an other box that they could suggest ideas. We understood people wanted Italian foods so we used Google and searched for vegetarian Italian dishes and it came up with lots of ideas. Here we found pasta, pizza etc dished and many more recipe cards. A UK chef, Jamie Oliver, has Italian restraints all over the UK and I found one of his recipe cards. The language is at a high standard when describing the method. The layout was cleverly used. Having all the information on the back so the reader can get all its information in one place was a good idea and it looks effective rather than busy. A well thought out layout can make a recipe card look professional and this is what I wanted with our set of cards.

Cultural contextDo vegetarian products have a specific design aesthetic and how does your project reflect/contrast this? Why?

From looking at existing vegetarian products they have certain features tat are consistent throughout. For example there is a similar colour scheme, even if it is just a slight hint the colour green will always be seen on the card. If this is just portrayed throughout the whole card or from small colours on the picture or logo. Not only is the Vegetarian Society’s logo green most of their recipe cards are in different shades of

Another thing many vegetarian products have to make them look appealing and let them stand out is using bold fonts. This happens a lot on packaging for vegetarian meals and ingredients. Quorn uses a bold white font on top of a bright orange to contrast together to make it stand out. I have also noticed, packaging for meat products can be boring and will not stand out, but vegetarian product have bright pictures and colours and fancy bold text to try and catch a new audience. This is a clever way of getting people to buy your product that usually wouldn’t. in my own product we used bright colours to attract our audience and used different fonts to make them stand out.

greens. Green connotes to the healthy lifestyle and vegetables in their diet. On each recipe card I have used the colour green, even though it may vary from a lot to a little from the vegetables used in the photograph, there is always some green to show the healthy vegetarian lifestyle.

Bright colours and a bold, stroked title makes the product stand out from the usual packaging for meat foods.

This font looks very similar to the font I chose in my initial ideas to use.

The “Veggie Patch” logo is eye catching because it looks like a veggie patch. The colours are bright and eye catching and the use of greens make it recognisable to vegetarians and their diet.

The packaging looks bright and colourful and stands out from meat product packaging to make it look more appealing.

Finished productsDoes your finished product reflect your initial plans? How? If there are any differences, describe why changes were made.(You can use visual examples of flat plans and finished products to illustrate this

The finish product looked similar to our initial plans but it has slightly changed. In my initial ideas I only did one side for the recipe card, this made it look squished and very busy. So in the card design PowerPoint I slightly changed the design. This time making it spread across two sides. This gave me more space and the layout looked more professional. I could space features bigger such as the picture to make it stand out. On my final design I stuck to the design on the front cover but on the back page I had to changed the layout to make the information fit together well. When the method and ingredients were first placed onto the template they were too long to fit in the original place therefore editing the layout slightly made a lot of difference. Secondly we thought the front needed something else to it. It looked rather plain so we added a graphic of the countries flag and a banner. This made the front look more appealing to the audience and more full. The flag connected to the patriotic theme throughout the card and makes the card look more appealing when placed on the front with a banner.

Initial Idea

Design Ideas

Final design

This is the initial plan of the back of my recipe card and the final end product of how it turned out and the differences.

The method has been put to the bottom because this is the last thing you need on a recipe card so it would make sense to go in order and it makes it easier for the audience to find.

The ingredients were changed to go above the method because it would not fit in the small box so it make it fit and look well spaced out we had to move the layout around a bit.

There is no picture on the final product now because we used a graphic to complement the patriotic theme throughout therefore a picture would have made the layout look too busy.

Finished productsDoes your finished product match what you were set in the brief? How?

The Vegetarian Society produced us with the brief, and when I read through it I highlighted the bits the brief asked me to make sure I had on my recipe cards. This made it like a tick list for me when I was designing and producing my work. The first thing it asks is to include a picture and title on the front with a branding strip which includes the Vegetarian Society logo. I did this all on my front cover. Although the branding strip is not in a typical block line I did mine in a circle with the logo being the center. A block strip took away the theme from the flag therefore having a transparent block and centering the main features in a stroke I feel this was more appropriate.

“We want to see interesting and creative designs.”- I feel I have produced a set of recipe cards that are creative and interesting because our idea is one you have not seen before and the die cut has not been done before either with a clear theme throughout.

“Ensure that all ingredients are suitable for a vegetarian diet.”- We found vegetarian dishes easy to find on the internet, but once we had finished our recipe cards we found a large mistake… On the Sydney recipe card we found that we had mistakenly put King Prawn skewers. Obviously fish is not vegetarian but we found a way of solving this. We

AS Media Studies 2009 20

Researched if you could get vegetarian prawns and Linda McCartney had made some fish free king prawns. This saved our recipe and we changed the title and ingredients to Linda McCartney’s fish free king prawns. There is no difference to them, they still look and taste the same which is great and shows vegetarians don’t miss out on any other foods.

Finished productsHow did the use of peer feedback help you in your production?(Reference specific examples and their final outcome in finished product)

I felt my peer feedback was important to me and how it effected my final outcome. It helped me develop my idea and for the idea that we choose, the feedback given to it helped us develop further. For example my partner said the areas that needed development on were “spacing the layout out so some can go on the back because when it comes to making it , it might be all crammed on the front of the card.” Straight away I created a design that included the back and front. She also mentioned that the die cut was interesting and makes the card original and unique. We thought we would choose an idea that has not been done before and that caught peoples attention. Throughout making the final product me and my partner would keep checking each others work to see if it looked the same, if things did not work out we would discuss this and develop it to look the best on each recipe card. For example the layout design was brought up by my partner because her method and ingredients wouldn’t fit with the original layout so we worked this out and made sure it worked for it each recipe card. Development and feedback throughout production made our work develop more into a product more for our audience, a unique product that has not been done before and so it could work all together in a series.

Finished productDiscuss the strengths and weaknesses of your final product regarding its technical qualities.Use box below for text or page space to include an annotated copy of your work to help illustrate how you have done this.Reference what you like and dislike about the work with consistent reference to correct terminology of tools/effects used. Reference existing products.

Regarding the technical qualities of my final product the die cut at the top looks effective on programs like PowerPoint or uploaded to a big etc. but on paper there may be some issues. It could possibly flop or come off. There would be ways around this like laminating the card or using thicker card. The strength of the die cut in a technical way was the fast and easy way on Photoshop I was able to create it. Although it looks difficult, the Colour Range tool quickly got rid of all the white background space. As long as the background is all the same colour then the tool will work to a high standard leaving me with an outline of the silhouette I need. Photoshop is a great program to use for producing a product like this because its tools are easy to find and use. The use of Photoshop also lets you use layers easily. We used layers to create the product to make things stand out for example, the graphic of the flag was layered underneath text and pictures, we also lowered the opacity so the text could be seen more clearer. A weakness of the technical qualities we used was that it was sometimes hard to get the logo to stand out depending on the colour background it was. We put it a drop shadow behind it but sometimes this made it look too intense and fake. We wanted something subtle but sometimes it didn’t work.

The die cut was successfully done with the Colour Range tool. This is quick and easy to use as long as you make sure the background is all the same colour. It is quicker than the polygon lasso tool. If we used this our work would have taken a much longer time and we may not have kept up with our schedule. The colour range tool looks as effective, if not more, because it would have been hard to take out all the lines on the bridge without using this tool. A drop shadow was used underneath the logo to make it stand out

and bring the text out from the background. This worked well in some cases but others the background colours made it look too tacky.

We used a stroke to outline things that needed to stand out more from the background but without coming off the page. We used this on the picture and in information inside the circle. It is a great simple way to make a shape or picture stand out.

Finished productDiscuss the strengths and weaknesses of your final product regarding its aesthetical qualities.Use box below for text or page space to include an annotated copy of your work to help illustrate how you have done this. Reference what you like and dislike about the work with consistent reference to correct terminology. You can reference existing products here and compare your work to them.

The look of my recipe cards do not look like any other recipe card, for example, the die cut on the top I have not seen a recipe card that has done that, especially from the vegetarian society. I like the die cut idea, it makes the card and connects the theme well, it give something exciting and new to look at. I do the the fonts we choose. For the title we tried to used a font that connected to the theme. So this changed on each card but it didn’t look bad. I think it made the theme of the recipe card. The text that we used for the main body of the text was easy to read and was simple so it got straight to the point. The thing I don’t like about the look of the recipe cards is the colours we used. Although they connect to the theme of the countries, they seem too bright, and maybe together didn’t work in large parts. If the recipe cards were not in a set, then the images would look great but they were and because we didn’t take our own images they were not all the same and it was hard to find similar looking images. If I was to do this again I would take my own images so they also looked in a set and try and do something to the colours to make them work together and look less vibrant.

The die cut is something that I had not seen on a existing recipe card product before, especially not to this level of detail. It brings something different, new and exciting to the recipe card and it good for an audience who find it hard to concentrate.

The text was chosen well and it connects to the theme but is also easy to read. The main body text on the other side of the recipe card was simple and easy to read and gets straight to the point. This is needed for a recipe card, it needs to be quick, short and easy for people to do the recipe.

I would like for the images connect to each other a bit more. They do not all have the same angle, lighting etc.

Although the colours connect to the country and the flag making it easy for the audience know what country this is for, I don’t think the colours work in large scales together.

Small features telling you information, like the cooking time, are handy for a busy audience like ours. They stand out and tells you information quickly.

Finished productsWhat skills/knowledge have you gained/developed in this project? How could these be applied in future practice?

At the start of this project we were taught have to use InDesign. I had never used this program before but now I learnt how to use grids which are helpful to line specific parts on your page. These skills will be useful to use in the future and developing my knowledge on Adobe programs will be useful when I go into designing work and I may have an advantage to others. My knowledge on Photoshop gets greater every time I use it. This time I learnt about Colour Range. The colour range tool highlights parts in the same colour and by deleting the selected parts I have the silhouette that I needed for my die cut. This it s technique I can take with me to get a quick cut of a shape that I can use in other pieces of work e.g. posters etc.

Production processDo you believe your work is creative and technically competent? Why?(Reference specific examples (use images if this will help) of where you believe your work is particularly visually or technically impressive. Reference professionally products work and compare your products to them)

Yes I believe my work is creative and technical competent. I believe this because we created an idea that had not been done before, the theme and layout was unique. This comes from the die cut shapes on the top of our recipe cards. This was technically competent because I had to learn a new skill to do this and using the correct picture will give you a different feel to the whole recipe card. It was also creatively competent too because it was an unusual design to have on a recipe card. If I was to pitch this to a company for a real product there may be some questions about if it would break of flop off. There would be many things we could do to help this not happening.

Production processHow effectively did you manage your time? (Could you have used time more wisely? Did a particular aspect of the project take longer than expected? Did you complete everything on schedule?)

I completed everything I had set on my schedule to plan. But I worked at a fast pace and I was nearly a day ahead of schedule. This helped me refine my idea and let me make sure I had included everything that was asked of me on the brief. I could have used my time more wisely by looking at even more recipe cards and looking at professional layouts because this is what I feel it lacks. It is very unique but having some features that could link to some existing products would be helpful to make the recipe cards consistent with other recipe cards already around. The only thing that went wrong was realizing we had used a fish product as part of a recipe. But we had organized some contingency time, so we used this time to research fish free prawns and change our recipe card slightly to make all our ingredients vegetarian. Contingency time is always a good thing to plan just incase anything does go wrong that you don’t think of while tabling a time schedule out. The time schedule was helpful and kept us on track. We could have worked more efficiently, I feel this was because we were given a long time to produce the cards and we felt we had time to no concentrate as much because of all the spare time. But overall I feel we used our time well and produced a good recipe card in the time given.

Production processIf you could repeat the process what would you do differently?

If I was to repeat this process again I would do more research on more existing products that are not from the Vegetarian Society. Although they set our brief for us and the product was for them every recipe card I looked at looked the same and nothing original was out there, the most original recipe cards I saw were the Sainsbury’s own recipe cards. This is why I went of an original and interesting design. But if I was to do it again I would incorporate more features that are used on existing products. I would make sure the layout worked more before producing my final design, although I did o test plans I only did it with one recipe card and other recipes had more to their method or to their ingredients so we needed to change the design so they all fitted in the same layout. I also would make the picture on the front slightly bigger to make it stand out more and look appealing. The things I would change are small but they would make my product appeal more to my audience.

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Working to a brief

ConstraintsWhat constraints did you encounter and how did you consider/avoid them?

Legal: The legal constraints we encountered were copyright and health and safety. We had to gain permission by the person who provided us with the stock images. Here we would have to pay money to them or get it in writing that we were aloud to use their images in our product. If we did not do this we would be breaking the copyright law and they would have to right to sue us, sending us to court and in extreme circumstances, prison. Using any product commercially without all of your work, for instance the images and recipe you would need to get permission by whoever you got the ideas and products from. Because our work was not for commercial use but for education purpose we were able to use images without asking for permission but if it was for a commercial use we would have known what to do. We followed two of the health and safety legislations while producing our product. The first one was the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 so we didn’t trip over any hazards such as wires or spill any drinks over electrics that could cause electrocution. We also followed the Display Screen Equipment Regulations Act 1992 because we were constantly using computers to compete our product. This tells us how long we should be sat at a computer for and how we should sit so we do not get back pains and aches. There are other points in the regulation such as if you wear contact lenses, which I do, and how that might disrupt you because of irritation. We followed these legislations and no injuries happened throughout the production time.

Regulatory: The Vegetarian Society was our regulatory base. They produced us with the brief for a product with they wanted. They informed us on how many prints they wanted, what they wanted to be placed on the recipe card and of course only have vegetarian foods. Having it all placed in a brief made it easy to see what we needed to do and how the vegetarian society regulated it was so we didn’t go over the amount of recipe cards they wanted. For example we didn’t do more than eight designs, they were front and back and they wanted 3500 copies made for the first batch. We followed this to point so our regulator would be happy. The foods we used of coursed had to be vegetarian because of the target audience.

Financial: Before we started making our product we did a budget plan which highlighted all the things we needed to spend money on as if we were a real company. We included the cost of printing the recipe card, paying for stock images, the graphic designer, transport and also getting the die cut cut on the top of the card and finally laminating it all. All of this cost more than expected and the die cut was the most expensive thing to get done costing £1.98 each card equalling to £6,930 for all the prints to be die cut. This was a special feature for our product though and we feel it would be worth it because it is original and different therefore people will be interested and will take one home and try the recipe. By finding out this information we found lots of different companies, we went with the cheapest but the one with good reviews and showed us products that they have produced. This is what you would do if you were doing this for real so we have gained experience on companies that do this and how to research further into them for get the most of your money.

Item Cost per item/hour Number Total

Graphic Designer £30.00 30 £900.00 Transport £1.50 6 £9.00 Recipe card print £0.05 3500 £175.00 Stock photography £25.00 16 £400.00 Die cut £1.98 3500 £6,930 Laminate £0.50 3500 £173.00 Total £8,587

ManagementHow did you work as part of a group? (Did you lead the project? What parts of the project did you take charge of? Did you enjoy working as part of a group? Why?)

Together I feel we worked well as a group. We were able to discuss things openly about ideas to do with our product and even if the other person did not like that idea we would not just drop the idea we would think of ideas to improve it and if we felt it would not go any further we would then drop the idea. Neither of us were mean about ideas we both gave. This made us be open with ideas and improvements. Although my partner was off a few days during production I got on with my work and tried not to change things too drastically so she could easily pick up. Neither of us rushed ahead, we both went at the same speed as the other person so we were able to get everything in the right place on the recipe cards so thy all looked the same. Every now and again we would stop and go through each recipe card we had made and made sure we both had the same size and font text and everything was placed in the same place on each card. I enjoyed working in a group, it helped ideas expand and although it takes longer I feel we did a good job in making our recipe cards look like they have been made my the same person.

ManagementHow important is communication when working in a group? (Use specific examples from working in a group on this project)

Communication is extremely important when working in a group, it helps you expand on ideas and if one of you wasn’t happy with what they other one was doing they could say something and we would both be able to compromise and create an idea that would help the product. We used communication a lot when we started producing our first recipe card. We thought going step by step with each other on the first card would be the best so we both know where everything is going and if anything needed changing we could say at this point rather than while making the last card. We did make changes on our first card. This was where we realised my partners recipe would not all fit on due to the layout, therefore she mentioned this and we resolved this by changing the layout slightly on each recipe card. Without communication here we would have had one card with very small text that would not have been the same to all the rest of the card. By just talking and changing one small thing we resolved this quickly and efficiently.

ManagementWhat have you learnt about working in a group and how will you apply this to future practice?

I have learnt by working in a group that it is easier to come up with ideas and by quickly telling the other person if something is not working it can easily be solved. Although it takes longer during production I feel that when developing and designing your ideas and product the more minds you have the better and more creative your idea will be. Each of you needs to be comfortable with each other though so you can both speck your mind and not be shy to change something the other person has though of because for the long run it will benefit you and the product.In the future, when working in a group, I will feel more confident to speck my mind and not hold back on an idea because it will benefit everyone and peoples development on my idea will always be welcome because I feel that is what will always make an idea better. I have enjoyed working with my partner and feel we have both benefited from it.