Minor Project: Haelan Herbs

4/4/2023 - 14/7/2022 ( Week 1 - Week 15)

Sasilvia Cheong Pei Hoong / 0345031 / Bachelors of Design in Creative Media
Minor Project: Haelan Herbs



INSTRUCTION


Fig. 1.1 MIB



Fig. 1.2 Project Briefing


Important Links:

Miro Board (full progression)






Minor Project
On week 1 we were briefed on all the available topics, and we are allowed to choose the one that interest us the most and form a group of 6-7 with people from other specializations. I chose "Apothecary" as it got my attention the most. 



Tasks 1: Proposal 

Topic Brief:
For our topic "Apothecary" we are collaborating with Brandialouge and the objective is to launch a new brand identity and e-commerce platform for an Apothecary brand and launch its OUD product range on Kickstarter. 

Fig. 1.1 Brief 

Contextual Research: 
For contextual research, we separated the task evenly and we did the research on our assigned topics. I was in charge of the main competitor's strengths and weaknesses for 3 companies with OUD-based products. 


Fig. 1.2 Contextual Research assigned roles



Fig. 1.3 Main Competitors (OUD) Research


This is the summary of our research after some discussion:


Fig. 1.4 Contextual Research Summary


Draft Questionnaires Questions for Wach of the Personas
We came up with the draft questionnaire questions for the 4 personas that we have and also a general question list. 


Fig. 1.5 Draft questionnaire questions 


Meeting with Mr. Damien
On week 2 we got to meet up with Mr. Damien where he showed us the product their company produces, which is OUD incense sticks he also explained on what he wanted us to do, like come up with a story for the brand, packaging designs, website, etc… We also had a discussion on the site visit to the Dadvance Agarwood Solutions Sdn Bhd store in Bukit Jalil, we all settled a date and time that we are convenient with and confirmed it with Mr. Damien.


4 Personas
We went to the library together and book a discussion room to discuss the 4 user personas.


Fig. 1.6 User personas 


Questionnaire Form
We gathered all our draft questions into google forms and arranged them according to the personas. After a week later we close the form as there was no longer any response. 
Yiki and Alicia helped out in analysing the answers from the form.



Fig. 1.7 Questionnaire questions


Fig. 1.8 Questionnaire in Google Form

SITE VISIT!!
We went D’advance Agarwood Solutions shop in Bukit Jalil to do our site visit. Mr Damien guided us to the shop and introduce us to Ms. Zaiqi while she gave a further explanation on their agarwood products. She explained about the agarwood market, target audiences, reviews and transparency of the brand. Other than that, she showed us and let us test out some of their available products such as their essential oil, agarwood oil, skin care, agarwood leaf tea, agarwood chips, incense sticks, terrarium, sculpture, candle, bracelet, coffee and powder which all contains agarwood in them. She answered a lot of our questions during our visit, Yi Ki, Adeline and Alicia helped with taking pictures and videos of the shop and products, while Adena helped in taking the notes down.


Fig. 1.9 Images of D’advance Agarwood Solutions shop products that we took



Fig. 1.10 Site visit image 1



Fig. 1.11 Site visit image 2


We went to Pavilion Bukit Jalil after the site visit hehe had a lot of fun with besties <3


Fig. 1.12 Apothecary!



Fig. 1.13 goofy people.....


Insights Discovery: Technical 
We continued with the insights discovery: technical and came up with our top 5 ideas then categorize them accordingly. After that, we identify the key themes and come up with 3-5 insights statements. 


Fig. 1.14 Insights discovery: technical


Empathy Map
Following that we also did our empathy map in google docs.

Fig. 1.15 Insights discovery: technical


Logo Sketches
I decided to help Adeline who is our art director out with the logo sketches. I looked at the references from our mood board and also went onto Pinterest to get some ideas. I proceed with the sketches wanting top give them an elegant and luxurious look with some leaf motif. 


Fig. 1.16 Logo sketches

User Journey Map
We had a meeting f2f and wrote down the User Journey Map contents together. 


Fig. 1.17 User Journey Map


Proposal Presentation



Fig. 1.18 Haelan Herbs Task 1: Proposal presentation   





Task 2: Design Development
For task 2 we were required to come up with a Gantt chart to sort out the roles of who does which task. Adena our group leader did the chart and asked if we were okay with the roles. I was in charge of doing the social media calendar, Kickstarter products, the OUD incense box, OUD wood chip box, the product description and product photos.


Social Media Content Calendar
I did the social media content calendar and was able to come up with 42 posts, I did the planning in both Google Sheets and Miro. I was stuck with the descriptions so Adlina and Yi Ki helped me out with them. 


Fig. 2.1 Social media calender Google Sheets



Fig. 2.2 Social media calender Miro


OUD Incense sticks box
First I had 3 colours to work with and 3 scents to come up so I gave the peach colour for pure OUD scent, Green for eucalyptus and pink for rose. I utilised the graphic elements Adeline made on the packaging. I did a few mockups of the boxes and let the other members give out their opinion and refined them accordingly.

Below are the final chosen ones:
Golden Serenity


Fig. 2.3 Golden Serenity OUD Incense Sticks Front



Fig. 2.4 Golden Serenity OUD Incense Sticks Back




Fig. 2.5 Golden Serenity OUD Incense Sticks Details Front and Back


Tranquil Meadows


Fig. 2.6 Tranquil Meadows OUD Incense Sticks Front 



Fig. 2.7 Tranquil Meadows OUD Incense Sticks Back



Fig. 2.7 Tranquil Meadows OUD Incense Sticks Details Front and Back


Gentle Blossom


Fig. 2.7 Gentle Blossom OUD Incense Sticks Front 



Fig. 2.8 Gentle Blossom OUD Incense Sticks Back



Fig. 2.9 Gentle Blossom OUD Incense Sticks Details Front and Back


OUD Wood Chip Box
I did the same for the wood chip box but since the mockup didn't have the wood chips I had to photoshop them in. 


Fig. 2.9 OUD Wood Chip Box Front



Fig. 2.10 OUD Wood Chip Box Back



Fig. 2.11 OUD Wood Chip Box Details Front



Fig. 2.12 OUD Wood Chip Box Details Back


OUD Tea Refill
I was not in charge of this at first but I had some time in my hands so I decided to help Adena out. Same situation as the wood chips where I had to photoshop the tea onto the mockup. 


Fig. 2.13 OUD Tea Refill Front



Fig. 2.14 OUD Tea Refill Back



Fig. 2.15 OUD Tea Refill Details Front



Fig. 2.16 OUD Tea Refill Details Back



OUD Tea Strainer
I also helped out with the tea strainer. Where I added the Haelan Herbs logo onto the handle.


Fig. 2.17 OUD Tea Strainer


Social Media Posts
I was in charge of doing posts 16-18 and 23-25

16-18


Fig. 2.18 Post 16



Fig. 2.19 Post 17



Fig. 2.20 Post 18


23-25


Fig. 2.21 Post 23



Fig. 2.22 Post 24



Fig. 2.23 Post 25A



Fig. 2.23 Post 25B


Progression Slides
Below is the progression slide that I have done to receive feedback from my members and capture the progression of the Kickstarter products and social media posts. 


Fig. 2.24 Kickstarter products and social media progression slides



Task 3: Final Presentation Deck 



Fig. 3.1 Final Presentation Deck



Fig. 3.2 Haelan Herbs Website



Fig. 3.3 Haelan Herbs Website Walkthrough



Fig. 3.4 Final Project Document





FEEDBACK

Feedbacks are recorded in the project document: 




REFLECTION

Week 1
On week 1, we were given a brief on the MIB by Mr. Mike and then were introduced with a list of topics and their brief that we have to choose from. “Apothecary” got my attention the most as I myself love using herbal and natural products such as tigerbalm, organic soap bars, essential oils, herbal face mask and so on. Forming a group was pretty easy, since Adena, Adeline and Alicia was from Monday class they asked me, Yi Ki whether we are interested in the topic and if we wanted to join their group together, after that Yi Ki also recruited Adlina, that’s how our group of six was formed. Soon after, we had to decide on a group leader, since all of us are fine with each other being leaders we decided to just spin the wheel and it landed on Adena. After that, we created a channel in Discord to manage things easier, we listed down 6 tasks that we need to do for the contextual studies and let the wheel assign the task for each of us. We then set a deadline for each other to finish the task by Saturday night and compile them into the Miro board that Mr. Mike has given to us.

Week 2
This week, we received some feedback from Mr. Mike on our contextual studies and we made changes according to it. Me, Yi Ki and Adlina came up with interview questions for each of the personas and also added a few moodboards that we have for the brand name and packaging design into Miro. On Friday, we got to meet up with Mr. Damien that showed us the product that their company produces, which is incense sticks, he also explained on what he wanted us to do, like come up with a story for the brand, packaging designs, website, etc… He also told us really interesting stories! We also had a discussion on the site visit to the Dadvance Agarwood Solutions Sdn Bhd store in Bukit Jalil, we all settled a date and time that we are convenient with and confirmed it with Mr. Damien. After meeting with Mr. Damien, we head to the library and book a discussion room to continue our meeting further on the personas, we decided to come up with a total of 4 personas. We also discussed on the possible interviewees

Week 3
On week 3, we received feedback from Mr Mike about our personas and the questions that we created for the online questionnaire interview. Mr Mike mentioned that interviews were supposed to be done face to face and normally done if we do not get enough data from the online questionnaire. Through that feedback, we changed our gathering method to an online questionnaire that anyone can answer. After doing some final amendments and getting approval from Mr Mike we send out the questionnaire survey to our targeted personas and also on multiple social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc..

Week 4
This week, we received feedback from Mr Mike on some of the findings that we got from the questionnaire survey. He mentioned that we can close the survey once there is no one else answering it anymore. We decided to close the survey on Friday, Yi Ki and Alicia helped analyse and sort out the answers from the questionnaire. On the same day, we went to D’advance Agarwood Solutions shop in Bukit Jalil to do our site visit. Mr Damien guided us to the shop and introduce us to Ms. Zaiqi while she gave a further explanation on their agarwood products. She explained about the agarwood market, target audiences, reviews and transparency of the brand. Other than that, she showed us and let us test out some of their available products such as their essential oil, agarwood oil, skin care, agarwood leaf tea, agarwood chips, incense sticks, terrarium, sculpture, candle, bracelet, coffee and powder which all contains agarwood in them. She answered a lot of our questions during our visit, Yi Ki, Adeline and Alicia helped with taking pictures and videos of the shop and products, while Adena helped in taking the notes down.

Week 5
In week 5, we conducted a meeting online on Monday to discuss and work on the Insights Discovery: Technical part in Miro. Mr. Mike provided input on our insights discovery: technical on Tuesday. He told us that our top five ideas, categories of ideas, and key themes are okay, we simply need to revise the last two insights statements because they were unclear. He also commented on our empathy in Google Docs and stated it was fine, and we discussed our observations from our site visit at D'advance Agarwood Solutions. We were confused whether we were building a new brand under Mr. Damien or rebranding an existing brand, NYCX, during the feedback. So we planned to ask Mr. Damien a few questions to have a better understanding of what we were doing. After receiving our answers from Mr. Damien, we all agreed to meet on Friday at 1pm for a group meeting on campus so that we could get our work done faster without distraction. We rewrote the final two insight statements, double-checked the problem statement, How Might We, and personas, and then completed our user journey map during our meeting. We also went over all of the brand names that everyone suggested, and we unanimously agreed on "Miyu Herb," which means (Me and You, it signifies sharing apothecary products with one another). We separated each topic for each other to do for the presentation slides before we ended our meeting. I was in charge of doing the contextual research. On Sunday, Adeline, who was appointed to be our art director, made some digitalizations for the brand logo, and I pitched in with a few sketch concepts.

Week 6
After Adena and Alicia received feedback from Mr. Mike, they let us know what needed to be changed via Discord in week 6. I then went on to edit my section, which is the contextual research, in which I categorize the competitors based on their group categories, such as TCM, ayurvedic herbs, and oud. Then I summarized the entire contextual studies part while Yi Ki helped me proofread and edited it. On Friday, we agreed that everyone would suggest one brand name by Sunday morning so that we could discuss and vote on which one was best. We sought a name that wasn't associated with a country. My suggestion "Hælan Herbs" got picked while Adeline's "The Herbarium / The Herbaria" came in second.  We also completed our product listing with a total of five products, we went with three products from the brief and came up with two of our own, agarwood tea and agarwood hair treatment oil. Following that, I assisted Adlina in revising her objective with the assistance of Yi Ki and Adeline.

Week 7
On Monday, we received valuable feedback from Mr. Mike regarding our User Journey Map and proposal presentation slides. Taking his insights into account and confirming our brand name, Adeline and I decided to proceed with the chosen design direction. I assisted Adeline in creating 12 brand logo sketches, which she then digitized and incorporated into the posters. On Tuesday, we received further feedback from Mr. Mike on our design direction, and we realized that some adjustments were still needed before our upcoming presentation. To ensure we delivered a polished outcome, we scheduled a meeting on Friday to address any remaining tasks and finalize crucial elements. Our aim was to incorporate Mr. Mike's feedback once again and ensure that our work resonated effectively with our intended audience, while accurately representing our desired brand image.

Week 8
During Independent Learning Week, our team continued working on finalizing our design direction and presentation slides. Taking into account Mr. Mike's feedback, we made necessary changes to address the length and content of the slides, ensuring they were concise and impactful. We also adjusted the posters to align with our design direction, incorporating elements reminiscent of existing luxury brand posters. An insightful suggestion was given to incorporate some of our designs into the slides, gradually introducing our concepts to the client. Adeline, Adena, and Yi Ki collaborated on shortening the slides, while Adeline took the lead in redesigning the posters, with me providing image suggestions. On Friday, Alicia, Adena, Yi Ki, Adeline and I successfully integrated Adeline's graphical elements into the slides, and once all the changes were made, we sent the revised version to Mr. Mike for further feedback. Meanwhile, we began organizing the slides and working on our script in a shared Google document, preparing for our upcoming presentation on Tuesday.

Week 9
On week 9, while we already started in writing the presentation script, Mr. Mike gave us his approval on our presentation slides. We then finalized our script and did a few practice rounds in Discord the night before the presentation. On Tuesday, we joined the Zoom meeting with Ms. Zae, Mr. Damien, Mr. Mike and the other Brandialouge groups for our presentation. We were third to present. While we were presenting we faced a little hiccup due to the internet connection issue that disconnected a few of our members who was sharing the slides. Although that happened everything else went well. After our presentation. Ms. Zae and Mr. Damien gave us their feedback. We were told that our research was great and had lots of rich informations. However we could improve more in the art direction. At the end of the week, Adena worked on the Gantt chart, while Alicia did the website mockup on Figma and Adeline did more research and coming up with a new art direction.

Week 10
Since Monday was a public holiday, Yiki, Adlina and I showed our progression to Mr. Mike based on the feedback from Ms. Zae and Mr Damien from the presentation. We showed the Figma mockup of the website which was done by Alicia and the updated art direction in a presentation slide done by Adeline. After our feedback from Mr. Mike we were told to refine the art direction much further by looking at other fonts and colour palettes and also look into existing websites to see how they manage to get their signature look. Later that night, we let adena know what task are we comfortable in doing and she separated us accordingly. Currently, I am tasked with doing the social media calender, kickstarter products, the OUD incense box, OUD wood chip box, the product description and product photos. I was not able to help much this week due to an overwhelming amount of deadlines from other modules.

Week 11
This week, I joined Monday’s feedback session along with Adeline, Adena and Alicia. We showed Mr. Mike our new art direction and a few wireframes for our website. At night, I did the social media content calender and was able to come up with 42 posts, I did the planning in both google sheet and Miro. On Tuesday before class, Adlina and Yi Ki helped me with some of the descriptions since I was stuck on certain parts. They also helped me move the images from Miro into google sheet because I was struggling on my side since google sheet did not want me to paste images in there for some reason. Yi Ki then attended Tuesday class to receive feedback from Mr. Mike about it. On Thursday, I made a google drive file for photo sourcing and started searching images that are related to our brand to be used in the website/ social media / etc….At the end of the week Adeline updated us with new posters for our art direction.

Week 12
On Monday, I was able to finish writing the product description before class. Adena, Adeline and Alicia showed Mr. Mike the refined version of the vector graphic, teaser pictures, gradual posters, imagery that Adeline had done. Before Tuesday class, Adlina and Yi Ki managed to produced several test videos that will be used for the website and social media page. Mr. Mike suggested a few things that we could do to improve the videos and Yi Ki was able to make necessary adjustments and showcase the improved videos to Mr. Mike before class ended. We all agreed on having a meeting to discuss how to manage the social media on Friday 2pm. During the meeting we managed to sort out which content will be posted on which date in the social media calendar.

Week 13
On monday we received feedback from Mr. Mike that our design direction is good to go and the social media calender is fine too. On Tuesday, we showed Mr. Mike the customer service and a few of the Kickstarter posts. During the Friday and the weekends I was able to come up with a few of the incense sticks packaging mockups and well as the wood chips. After getting feedback from the others, I progressively amendment the packaging until everything looks finalized. I then proceeded with the social media posts on Sunday, I was able to complete 6 of them, they will be refined later on week 14.

Week 14
This week, Adeline, Adena and Alicia received feedback from Mr. Mike like usual and there were some parts that we had to refined. I then proceeded to update the incense stick mockup for the green packaging as we were told that a 3D pattern would look better and be more consistent with the others. Following with that, I refined the social media posts according to the feedback my members gave me. I also helped out with making the refill packaging for the tea and the strainer since I had a little time in my hands. On Tuesday, Yi Ki, Adlina and I showed the updates that our group did on Monday. I was able to finish my part of the work this week so at the end of the week I was able to focus more on other modules that I have placed on hold.

Week 15
In week 15, we are started finalizing our tasks like the Kickstarter products, social media posts, video, and website. I had to update the social media posts that I was tasks with and add on the Haelan Herb logo on the top right. After that, we had a meeting on Tuesday afternoon to finish writing the insights, ideation and idea in the Project Document. Then we proceed to split the presentation topic to each other, I was in charge of the Kickstarter products and Brand Merchandise. We then wrote our script and had one final meeting on Thursday night to practice our presentation so that we would make sure everything goes well. Finally on Friday afternoon, we had our final presentation on Zoom together with the other Brandialouge groups. Mr. Mike, Ms. Zae and Mr. Damien was also there. Soon the long and tiring process had ended with positive feedbacks, we were very happy with the outcome and was very proud of ourselves. To finish up everything I wrote my blog and submitted everything that is needed.

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