Designing a bookmark: research

The brief

My client is the manager of Oxfam Bookshop Harrogate and has asked me to design and print bookmarks to give out at the shop. 

Notes from the briefing:

- ‘jazzy’ and fun

- Scandinavian / mid century / retro / 50s atomic

- a scene of ‘tea, books, cake & cats'

- can use any colours

- try to incorporate Harrogate

- laser cut shape around a cat that is poking out of the cop

- not Oxfam branded

- information to include: phone no. & 'Oxfam Bookshop Harrogate', and possibly address

Researching artists

For this project I research artists that are appropriate to the themes of 50s, Atomic and Scandinavian. In my findings I chose the artists to focus on that are most similar to the reference images my client sent in of the kind of style he is looking for;

Lucienne Day

British designer, 50s & 60s

Maija Isola

Finnish designer, 50s-70s.

Olle Eksell

Swedish graphic designer, 50s

Tove Jansson

Finnish/Swedish illustrator, 40s-60s

Paul Rand

American graphic designer, 40s-60s

Saul Bass

American graphic designer, 50s & 60s

Hiroshi Ohchi

Japanese graphic designer, 50s-70s

Cliff Roberts

Cartoonist, 50s - 70s

Product research

The Moomin Shop 

This shop sells bookmarks that feature the illustrations of Tove Jansson and her world of the Moomins. They are cut out as shapes and feature different scenes.

The Paper Mouse

The Paper Mouse is a stationary & gifts shop and a lot of the designs feature cats, which is how I found them. They have a range of bookmarks with cats in different scenes with books;

They also have a range of pins with cats in different scenes featuring tea/coffee;

I also found these stamps of cats in different scenes;

I also liked this one by the brand Thousand Skies as the scene is humorous;

From the research I have gathered here I will sketch out some ideas of a scene that could work for the bookmark. I will refer to the product research to build a scene. Then I will approach the designing using techniques that will produce a similar visual aesthetic to the artists I have researched. For this I plan to try water colour and pen, as well as cuttings from coloured paper.