Practical // Development

After taking some time to think over feedback, I have thought about more ways to package these behaviours. 

1 - Make two boxes - one 'good, one 'bad'. Each could have the appropriate behaviours inside for children to find when they open the boxes. Through the use of colour manipulation, they will feel more positively about the 'Good' box as the colours would be desirable, and rather the opposite for the 'Bad' box.

Cons - Each box would have too much content inside for it to be effective. What would children do with what they found and would they bother to properly take in each one?

2 - Use image rather than text on the outside of the box - taken from my research into the imagery used in conjunction with colour in packaging. This could reinforce the emotions associated with the colours, and push the manipulation further. Also, more synthesis with my writing would come from this.

Smiley faces are often used in relation to good behaviour, such as stickers rewarded by teachers or parents. They are a clear representation of positivity, thus a simplified interpretation of the characters seen on children's packaging:

This makes a clear connection in the child's mind, by using a friendly face they will associate it with something fun. With this activity, I am trying to instil ideas about behaviour through associations that already exist in packaging and branding.

Cons -  Would this make the packages more about the faces rather than the colour? Would that change it into less of a reliable experiment (the activity is for children to learn, but also it's an interesting test.)? Possibly using the faces largely on the front of the box would deter from the colour aspect.

3 - For my third idea, I have scrapped the smiley faces (for now). The certain behaviour, for example "Good manners", could be labelled on the outside and when opened could reveal the colour that I have matched with it.

Cons - This defeats the point of colour being a manipulative factor of packaging. In this situation the colour is unable to be used to attract the children to pick up a box. I think that it would be confusing to a child to open a box that has nothing in it.

4 - Moving back to the idea of emotion and it not being clear enough on its own, I have thought that the emotion could be accompanied by good and bad ways of dealing with it. For example, anger negatively affects others. This would suggest to children about ways of behaving in a more detailed manner.

Cons - This could complicate the activity and stray away from the focus, which is colour and packaging manipulation. It needs to stay simple.

5 - Coming back to the smiley face idea, I could create a character much like the mascots of popular brands.

As I am analysing in my dissertation, GoGo Squeez has fun characters to attract children. A character could be added to the boxes that are positive behaviours, or could be added to both bad and good boxes, but with different facial expressions that are appropriate.

Cons - The complications that come with creating a character may distract from the colour - which is my main focus with this project.

6 - Working from the downfalls of the last ideas, I have thought to create boxes that are just simply different colours on the outside, with no other features until opened up. When opened up, they could reveal a behaviour that is either good or bad. This way, it is like the behaviour is the product that is wrapped with the coloured packaging.

Maybe smiley faces could be used inside to reinforce the effects of the chosen colour, just like how children's packaging works? They work together.

I have (more or less) selected the behaviour traits that I want to use in the boxes. Half of them are positive and half negative, which will be appropriately paired with colours.

Above is a further sketch showing how the boxes may look, each with a vivid colour differing from the next.

What shape would be most appropriate for the content? 

The word would snugly fit in a rectangle shaped box, and would slightly mimic the shape of many sweet packets. However, when fit together the boxes would not look as fun for the children than if they were cubes.

The packages could come with a leaflet that explains it further.