The document summarizes the design choices for recipe cards targeted at both adult and child audiences. For the adult cards, a simple layout with a 60:40 image to text ratio was used, similar to existing recipe cards. The child cards feature cartoon graphics inspired by the recipes' main vegetables to make them fun and child-friendly. Color schemes were based on the vegetables' natural hues to convey a sense of freshness. Both card designs aim to appeal to their intended audiences through visual elements while also maintaining consistency as part of a set.

1. Creative Media Production 2013
Recipe Card Evaluation
Richard Burn
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2. Producing Print Based Media
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3. Visual Language
How have you chosen to set out your designs and why? (Reference layout,
image/text ratio, busy/simplistic etc)
We decided to set out our designs based on our research of other
VegSoc recipe cards. We wanted our adult card to look similar to
the cards already available from VegSoc. The VegSoc cards have
a simple & clear layout & design. This would allow the consumer
to find information easier & made the recipe cards a lot more easy
on the eye as they were not busy. There are a lot graphics &
design aspects to our adult recipe cards, the average ratio for
image:text is 60:40. This is again similar to the VegSoc recipe
cards already made. With the child cards, we wanted them to use
the a vegetable used in the dish as design inspiration e.g. the
shape of a tomato is used on the tomato based recipe card. This
was then turned into a cartoon aspect. This cartoon aspect can
be found on a lot of products aimed specifically at children e.g.
the TV show SpongeBob SquarePants. We wanted the design of
the kids card to be fun & child-friendly, which we believe we
succeeded doing. The child card is also quite minimalist & simple
in design, similar to its parent card. It can also The ratio of
image:text is around 65:35, slightly more than the adult card, as
we wanted the design aspect to be a major feature that should
make the kids want to use it more.

4. Visual Language
Content we used on our recipe cards was based upon what vegetable was featured. For
example, if the main ingredient for the recipe was broccoli, the photograph of the food,
graphics of vegetable & colour scheme would be based around that one vegetable. This
is the same for the adult & child recipe card. All the images of food used on the recipe
cards are stock images. We decided to do this because we are not trained in food
photography, we are not professional chefs & we couldn’t find time in our schedule. We
found four images we think work really well with our colour schemes. We actually used
the main colour found in the image to use for the colour blocks & text. We found this
made the colours look more natural which worked well with our idea of using a dark grey
& off white colours instead of just black & white. This makes the recipe cards less harsh
on the eye. The natural theme of the colours works well because vegetables are also
natural. The use of the colours of the vegetables can also be found when looking at
existing products & when we asked people in our questionnaire, some people mentioned
colours of the vegetables (this helped us come up with our idea). The use of a vegetable
graphic on each recipe card allowed a constant graphic to be found on the kids & adult
recipe card. This strengthens the fact that they are part of a set. The text was a standard
recipe we found during our pre-production work. We found that the recipes on existing
VegSoc products were straight forward, so we wanted ours to be also. On the child recipe
card, we used less text, but we didn’t want to dumb what we were saying down (which we
found could sometimes be used with other products aimed at kids), we just made it as
straight forward as possible by only including tasks they will be able to do safely)
Discuss 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.)

5. Visual Language
Discuss 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 colour green was used often in products we looked at before, which
were all targeted at a vegetarian audience. We concluded that the colour
green connoted meanings like natural & fresh, which is what the producers
of a lot of other recipe cards wanted. The connotations natural & fresh link
with every kind of vegetable, so we took this on board when creating our
content. It was one of the reasons why we used the colour of the vegetables
on each recipe card. Thinking about meaning, the images used of the food
were used to entice the consumer to use the recipe cards. This worked
particularly well with the adult recipe cards. With the child recipe card, we
wanted the layout & graphics to entice them into eating their vegetables.
Because we used a character type graphic for the child card, this connotes
that vegetables are fun & cool. This is further strengthened by the text ‘cool
kids eat veg’. We also found graphics were used on other children’s
products, including within the food industry. I believe they used there
character for the same reason as us.

6. Audiences
Create an audience profile of your chosen demographic
(Age, gender, psychographic, geodemographic, NRS Social Grade, hobbies,
sexuality [if appropriate] etc)
We have a main target audience of a parent & child. We would assume that the adult
would be the child's parent.
Age: For the adult, 25-35. The recipe cards have a modern look to them & we would
expect that the child would be old enough to help the parent when the adult is
between the ages stated above. For the child, 6-10. The cartoon aspect is
particularly targeted at this age of children. Although kids grow up fast & will be
different between the ages of 6-10, there are aspects like the cartoon that they would
still enjoy.
Gender: During our questionnaire, we found that slightly more women were
vegetarian. Although we found this out, we tried to make the design of the adult
cards to be as gender neutral as possible, so that we were not closing off a particular
gender. With the child card, there are again no strict gender specifics that we stuck
to. By doing this, we feel like we have broadened our audience of an already niche
audience, which is a positive.
Psychographic: looking at the main 7 categories of psychographics, I would say that
our audience fits in with the aspirer category because they are aspiring to make the
food. Following a recipe & wanting your child to be involved is something to aspire to.
The audience only loosely fits into that category though.

7. AS Media Studies 2009
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Geodemographic: As VegSoc is a UK based society, you would assume that the
geodemographic of the recipe cards would be in the UK. You would find the recipe
cards nationwide, not favouring an urban or countryside setting.
NRS Social Grade: ABC1. We are aiming our product at a middle class audience.
We found that quite a few vegetarian products are targeted at middle class people,
so we wanted to stick with this because we felt that the recipe cards were already
had a different enough target audience (unlike anything we had seen before). Some
of the ingredients are slightly more expensive as they are high quality, which a C2DE
may struggle to find the money for.
Hobbies: The adult will be into cooking food from scratch and wanting to follow a
recipe. The child might want to help the adult out as children sometimes like to get
involved with cooking.
Other things you could say about the audience is that there are two of them & they
have to work well with one another.
Two adults could be working from the same recipe card together: it could be
something the whole family do together.
The adult may want the child to be vegetarian like themselves or are just trying a fun
way of trying to get the kids to eat their vegetables.

8. Audiences
How 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.
The main appeal of our work was the adult & child concept that we had not
seen done before as one product. We had to construct both cards so that
they looked similar, but also had features that both target audiences would
enjoy. We also wanted the child cards to appeal to the adults because it
would be the adults finding & choosing which recipes they wanted their child
to use.
Adult: With the adult card, we constructed it in a way that would look similar
to other VegSoc recipe cards we looked at, but had a modern flair which
would be seen on both the child and adult card. You can see how we
constructed it on the next slide.
Child: With the child card, we constructed it to have features from the adult
card & also have some of its own features that clearly showed they were
made for a child. You can see hoe we constructed them on the next slide.

9. We wanted this card to have
a similar design to the
VegSoc recipe cards that
they already produce.
We used colour blocks to
separate information. This
can be found on most
products. This was also used
on the child card.
The font choice is very in style at
the moment. We used it so our
cards would look modern. We also
found the font worked well on the
child card as well.
The number 3
represents what
number it is in the
set.
Social media
links that we
would expect
our adult
target
audience to
have.
Facebook &
twitter not
included on
child recipe
card as they
should not at
their age have
Photograph of
food used twice
on adult recipe
card & very large
on the adult card.
The image should
entice the adult
into wanting the
food. Image more
important on adult
card compared to
child card.
A lot of
information
compared to
the child
recipe card.
All info
needed can be
found because
the adult is
the one
actually in
charge of the
food.
Vegetable graphic used to link it
back in with the child card. No
character found on this card,
because characters are typically
childish graphics/features.

10. Cartoon character face: appeals to
young audience. Used to make kids
like vegetables more. Cartoon face
not used on adult card.
Fun facts to
keep the kids
interested.
These are not
included on the
adult card.
Gives kid
opportunity to
tell the adult
the fact.
Strong & bright
colour scheme to
catch the eye of the
child.
Simple instructions for the kid(s)
to follow & are safe for them to
do. Simple tasks that the kid will
also understand to do.
‘Cool kids eat
veg’ – further
enforces the
point recipe
cards (trying to
make veg fun for
kids). Also blob
shape behind to
make it this part
of the recipe
card eye
catching.
Two separate fonts used to
create a clear & easy difference
for the child. One of the fonts is
also used on the adult card –
continuity.
Cool fact put inside of the small
peppers. This draws attention to them
& fills up the recipe card in a visual
way. Dark grey shadow background
again draws more attention. Also used
Smaller photo of food on
child recipe card, compared
to the adult one, because it
has less importance. The
child isn’t attracted to the
actual food.
Website link
included if
he/she wants to
go on it – parent
can help child to
do this. This is
also included on
the adult card,
but this gives
the kid the
chance to ask
for themselves.
The adult will
know from this
if their kid is
now interested
in vegetables.
The number 3
represents what
number it is in the
set.

11. Cultural context
What did you use as your design influences and why were they
chosen?
(What existing media products influenced the final look of your work?)
Like mentioned in earlier slides, our adult designs were
influenced by other VegSoc recipe cards. We did this
because we wanted our recipe cards to fit in with
there’s. We knew there cards looked professional so
we tried to use as many codes and conventions that
they used as possible. We did gain inspiration from a
font that has been used recently for new modern
products, which was not found on their recipe cards.
For the child card, we had our own ideas about what
we wanted the cards to look like. For the vegetable
character, we were inspired by The Muppets & there
cartoon kid-friendly faces. We could not find a set of
recipe cards that followed the same ideas that we had.
We looked at individual recipe cards for each audience
& then went from that.

12. Cultural context
Do vegetarian products have a specific design aesthetic and how
does your project reflect/contrast this? Why?
Like mentioned in earlier slides, we found a lot
of them had a green theme running through
out. On the broccoli recipe cards, we followed
this typical design aesthetic. The other recipe
cards, we did not follow this rule as we wanted
them all to have an individual colour.
Vegetarian products also usually include a
vegetable logo or graphic of a vegetable, so
we used a graphic of the main vegetable
included in the recipe. We used both of these
design aesthetics in our work because we
wanted to follow typical codes & conventions.
There is a clear reason why there are typical
codes & conventions to vegetarian products.
That reason is because these design
aesthetics work well together.

13. Finished products
Does 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
Our finished products look very similar to our initial plans. You can see from the
finished product that we followed what we set out to do very well. We initially started
working on top of the final design plan to create each recipe card. There were a few
changes through out the producing process that happened. Some of these include
the changing of the character face to a much more thought out & designed one. This
overall improved the quality of the child recipe card. Putting the serving number,
cooking + prep time into circles. This made the front look a lot more thought out &
designed, increasing the look & quality overall of the recipe card. A slight radial
gradient was put onto the child recipe cards, which added dimension to the back
and front. We also changed the logo to a higher quality VegSoc one. There were a
few additions to the children's recipe cards. These additions include a rectangle at
the bottom with the website details, a blob with features the words ‘cool kids eat
veg!’. The first addition was added to let the child know they can find out more about
vegetables (which is a positive thing). The second addition was added after we
decided that space needed to be filled. We came up with a few ideas including
putting the characters face there, but we concluded that we wanted to reinforce the
idea that vegetables are cool & fun.

14. AS Media Studies 2009
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Tes
t
Finished

15. Finished products
How did the use of peer feedback help you in your production?
(Reference specific examples and their final outcome in finished product)
Peer feedback allowed us to develop the designs further. This initially
happened during pre-production when we finalised & chose my idea. One
of our tutors said he had never seen someone do a product like this or
have an idea like this. Once we were creating the actual recipe cards, we
kept on asking each other if certain aspects of the design looked right or
not. An example of this is the characters face. My partner did not like the
face on the child’s recipe card, so I had to design a new one. This was
also recommended by one of my tutors. This actually increased the quality
of the recipe card & made it more appealing. You can see a before and
after picture on the right. Another example of this would be when we had
to choose the photograph. We used each other to find the best photograph
possible for both recipe cards. Another example of peer feedback was
during the final editing & refinement stage of the project. My partner & I
would discuss what needed to be changed or altered slightly just to make
the cards look better. An example of this was one I thought about
changing the bottom front of the adult card to the numbers being in circles.
I asked my partner is that was okay & she agreed that this was a good
idea. I changed it & we preferred the circles. Changes to text on the child
card were also done, as my partner recommended that we should
capitalize the beginning of the kids sentences so we don’t confuse their
literacy skills.

16. Finished product
Discuss 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.
The use of rotoscoping can sometimes leave rough or
pointy edges on some graphics. I tried using the eraser tool
found on Photoshop, but this only helped slightly. I ended
up not liking & not happy with the quality of the vegetable
graphics, but I still had to use them in the work. Some of
them came out better than others, as you can see from the
comparison to the right.
I used a subtle radial gradient on the kids recipe cards to
add dimension. I believe using the gradient is a strength
when you think of technical skills. I like this about the work.
We used Photoshop to create the work, so we had industry
standard to work with. This would give us the tools to make
our work technical. Our work looked technical as everything
was in placed in the same area as the card before it. There
was no major creative changes between each adult card or
each child card.

17. Finished product
Discuss 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.
Aesthetically, I believe our product is very pleasing.
Our use of colour was is very pleasing to the eye, as
the colours work well together & none of them are very
harsh. We wanted the colours to be the same as the
main vegetable featured & I believe we did this. The
use of the same colours being used on the adult &
child card strengthen the overall house style we had.
One aesthetic weakness we did find on some of the
adult recipe cards is the white space under the
ingredients list. An example of this would be on the
pepper adult recipe card. There is nothing we could do
about this white space because it was not on every
adult recipe card, if we had added something that
wasn’t on the others they wouldn’t all look identical.

18. Finished products
What skills/knowledge have you gained/developed in this project?
How could these be applied in future practice?
At the beginning of this project, we were taught how to use Adobe InDesign
which will give me skills if I have to use it in the future. Tools on InDesign I
now know about include grids, which I will also be able to use now on
Photoshop. It is useful to know when you’re trying to make sure specific
parts of your work are lined up or are within certain lines. It also furthers my
knowledge of Adobe software overall. I have developed my skills in
Photoshop by using tools such as rotoscoping. Although I already knew how
to use this, using it again strengthens my knowledge and how well I use it. If
I was to get a job where I had to use Photoshop I could confidently say I can
use it. I’ve also developed my research skills & techniques. This will help
me in future projects. If I had to do a piece of work about vegetarians again I
now have knowledge on this subject. We also learnt at the very beginning of
this project, we learnt about visual hierarchy. We used this in our work & I
will be sure to use this in projects in the future e.g. a poster.

19. Production process
Do 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 product work and compare your products to
them)
I do believe that our work is creative and
technically competent for a number of reasons.
We could not find another recipe card product
that was targeted at both parents & their child,
which shows creativity when coming up with
ideas. We both used Photoshop to create the
recipe cards, which takes technical skill to use.
We both used it very well. The way we’ve been
able to create two recipe cards that are for two
different target audiences yet still look similar
and can tell they are part of a set is impressive
visually & technically as it takes a lot of time &
energy to do that. We compared our final adult
recipe cards with the recipe cards VegSoc &
found that they don’t only look professional like
there's, but we used more graphics & designs
compared to them.

20. Production process
How 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?)
We completed our recipe cards on time & to schedule. We used our
contingency time to make our products look even better than they already
did. Nothing went wrong as well, which gave us time to improve the quality.
If something had gone wrong though, we would have had to use the
contingency time to sort this out. We could have worked more efficiently if
we had focused on the recipe cards & if we didn’t have any distractions e.g.
YouTube, but overall I feel like that didn’t effect the quality of the recipe
cards overall. One part of the work that took longer than I thought it would
was producing the vegetable graphics. These took me a long time to create
(because I was rotoscoping them) & to make sure they were of a high
standard (each graphic was being used more than once & in varying sizes).

21. Production process
If you could repeat the process what would you do differently?
If we were to repeat the process again, I think I would have given my
partner some more control over the final designs & the final recipes cards,
as I felt I was coming up with the ideas & she was agreeing with them. I
would also have changed how well we worked together when we were
refining & improving the recipe cards. I felt I was doing all of this refinement
whilst my partner was just agreeing with what I wanted to change & not
actually helping. Although I understand I may have been slightly controlling
over this part of the work. Although I did come up with more than 1 idea, I
feel like I already knew which one I wanted to do. Because I knew this, I
didn’t look into the other ideas as in much detail as a possibly should have. I
am happy with the idea chosen, I feel like it was possible if I looked into
another it could have been an even better one.

22. Working to a brief
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23. Constraints
What constraints did you encounter and how did you
consider/avoid them?
Legal:
There are a few legal constraints that could be encountered. We had to gain
permission for the use of certain aspects of the recipe cards. We had to
have permission from the person who was selling the stock images to
actually use the images for commercial use. Otherwise we would be
breaking a copyright law, as they do own the image. We then had to pay
extra for the commercial use of the image. Another aspect was the use of
the recipes. We had to ask for the permission to use the recipe cards
commercially, otherwise we may have been breaking copyright again. We
asked & were granted with the use to use them.
There are two health & safety legislations we needed to follow during the
production of our recipe cards. The first being The Health and Safety at
Work etc. Act 1974. We work at computers to produce our work, so the
Health and Safety (display screen equipment) Regulations 1992 are the
most important piece of legal legislation. It tells us how long we should work
for, how far back & high our chairs are & when we should take a break –
employers have to legally follow this piece of legislation.

24. Regulatory:
The main regulatory body for our recipe cards is the ASA (Advertising
Standards Authority). As we are targeting a product at parents who have
children there are many different rules we need to follow. Although we tried
to follow their rules, there are a few that our products borderline don’t follow.
The first two are ‘5.2.1 children must not be made to feel inferior or
unpopular for not buying the advertised product’ & ‘5.2.2 children must not
be made to feel that they are lacking in courage, duty or loyalty if they do
not buy or do not encourage others to buy a product’. The first point being
that is says on the back of our cards ‘cool kids eat veg’, which conflicts with
what 5.2.1 states. We will not remove this from our recipe cards because 1).
The recipe cards are not only targeted at the child & 2). it is meant to
encourage kids & not to make them feel bad.
There are some other rules we have to follow like our photographs used
must depict what the food will actually look like & must include the same
ingredients, or this would be lying to the consumer.

25. Financial:
Financially our recipe cards are expensive to produce, compared other
much more simple recipe cards. We believe the price would be worth it
though, as VegSoc have never produced a product like this one before.
We worked out all the financial aspects before actually producing the recipe
cards. The total price to produce these recipe cards is £3349. We tried to
find the cheapest companies to produce these cards, but also had good
reviews so we knew we were getting the best of both worlds. We also noted
how much we wanted to be paid, but now looking at how much we wanted, I
feel like we should be paid more for what we did as we ended working more
hours than first stated.

26. Management
How 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?)
I felt like I was the leader of the group. One of the reasons I felt like this was
because I was the one to come up with the overall idea of the project (the parent
and child recipe cards). Although I did ask my partner what she wanted to do e.g.
either the child or adult recipe card, I felt like I knew what I wanted the end
product to look like. During the end of the project (the last two days) I took
charge and completed the recipe cards to a high standard. I did enjoy working in a
group because during the actual production, we split the work 50/50. Another
reason I enjoyed working in a group was because there was always another
person to refer to when you weren't 100% sure about something. But with always
having to refer to another person, they could have a different idea to you entirely,
so you may not get your own way. This can be frustrating but it comes with
working with another person in a group.

27. Management
How important is communication when working in a group?
(Use specific examples from working in a group on this project)
Communication when working in a group is an essential. If you do not
communicate with the person you may end up on two different levels & be doing
something different entirely. Imagine if we hadn't correctly matched the colours
on both recipe cards, they would not look right and the set wouldn't look good
together. We had to ask each other what colours we wanted to use. Another
example of important communication in our group was the characters face on the
child recipe cards. My partner suggested that I made them look generally better &
friendly. So we tested out different features and found that if I hadn't changed
the face, the overall quality of the work would have been lower. Sometimes you
can't see the bad things in your own work so it's a positive to have a partner that
can point these things out to you.

28. Management
What have you learnt about working in a group and how will you
apply this to future practice?
I've learnt a lot about working in a group. Sometimes you have to make
compromises and you have to trust the other person/people in your group that
they know what they're doing. I feel like I was possibly too controlling, so in future
projects I believe it would be a good idea if I let the other person/people have
more of a say. Communication skills is another skill I believe this project has
allowed me to work on.