I created this advertisement as a way to really push social media platforms in a fun, creative way. This is the red cup I designed in response to the PR “scandal”of 2015. I thought it’d be a fun way to look at Starbucks.
It’s been a red-cup Christmas season, thanks to Starbucks.
For one of my final projects of my Bachelor’s degree, we had to do a product redesign. This entailed building a new design for a company, creating an updated logo, and then actually making a real-life mock-up of what it would look like. Then, we would create a book that describes the company, the specific design elements, and design photography.
It’s been a lot of work, but I love the idea of Starbucks, and I wanted to stick with a theme similar to theirs.
Starbucks has been around since 1971,
and is famous for its third room dining,
the place between work and home that
provides a sanctuary for those to unwind
before they go on to the next place.
Starbucks prides itself on organic and high
quality products, and consumers come
there in order to add a form of “indulgence”
to their day. It was stated that customers
pay five dollars not for the drink, but for the
ambiance and atmosphere.
Starbucks has found incredible
success, and is constantly opening new
doors for customers, employees, and
new products. However, a controversy
in 2015 stuck up a massive social media
outburst- the red cup. Consumers lived
for the “red cups each year. Red cups
are Starbuck’s holiday designed cups,
which typically are decorated with a
winter theme, ranging from snowmen to
ornaments. This year, however, the cups
had a minimal, ombre design. The public
was in an outrage. For days, blog posts,
news reports, and social media blared
on, claiming that Starbucks was “anti-Christmas.”
Presidential Canidates and
celebrities got involved, and Starbucks
received a lot of attention.
This brought attention to all that
branding and design has a massive
impact on people’s perception of a
company. The PR scandal of the moment
was based off of a design, or the lack
thereof.
I decided that I wanted to create a new red cup. In it, I hand-designed tons of snowflakes, using the blob brush and rotation. After a lot of practice, things began to flow. It took me a few hours, but I finally had the design I’d been looking for.
Arranging them took tons and tons of drafts. Finally, I thought about having a lot of concentrated small snowflakes that faded into bigger ones.
At first, I was just going to create a hot-cup warmer, but it wasn’t my favorite. It wasn’t too interesting.
The biggest problem that I had was figuring out the dimensions to a cup. This required tons and tons of drafts. But, as I figured out that I could use a razor blade and apply pressure to the edges, and start from the center of the design to apply, things started really working out.
Creating the book was so fun. I put the colors here, created a layout, and worked with product photography. After all the work that I did, it was a blast finally finishing it with a grand touch.
Celine rachelle 