Many congratulations to Annika McFarlane (IDEA Grad 2022) for gaining the 2020 GDC Foundation Ray Hrynkow Scholarship Honourable Mention for “Wild Ones” brand identity. Course: IDES 249 — Brand Identity with Dominique Walker.

2020 Ray Hrynkow Scholarship Award Honourable Mention

Annika McFarlane, Honourable Mention 2020 GDC Foundation Ray Hrynkow Scholarship.

Annika McFarlane 
Capilano University, BC
Instructors: Judy Snaydon, Dominique Walker

“I am applying for the GDC Foundation Ray Hrynkow Scholarship because I resonate with what Ray stood for and because it would be an honour to be recognized as a designer seen fit to carry on his legacy."

"My hope is that my career will encompass just that; using my skills as a designer (and hopefully art director in the future) to communicate big ideas that make the world a better place.”—Annika McFarlane

The Process

The packaging is the main star of this project, but there was a lot of strategy work that we did in the beginning to get the brand right. The very important work that you'll never see. But, I'll focus on the work you do see. Creating packaging is always an exciting opportunity. Since it's a 3D object I always try to think about how the user will be interacting with the item and how I can make it a more interesting experience. For this project I knew I wanted to combine photography and illustration. In this case, photography helped showcase the real plants and illustration added that hint of imagination that I love. In my experience, finding hidden berries, flowers or critters in the forest brings a child-like sense of joy so the characters I designed reflect that. It took a lot of trial and error to work through the illustrations and design. The amount of times that I printed out the labels, sketched on them and then reprinted them has probably damaged my relationship with my at-home printer beyond repair.

Unexpectedly, one of the hardest parts of this project was actually taking the photos and editing them. Using reusable jars made sense for the target market's preferences so I knew early on I would be working with them. I even bought a jar at the beginning of the project just so I could handle it and experiment while designing. While that was incredibly helpful and informed some of my most important design decisions it meant I had to take the product photos myself. There weren't any mockups online that I could easily toss my design into, so I had no choice. You might not be able to tell but the "ice cream" is actually mashed potatoes mixed with food dye. I used an immersion blender to really get the potatoes smooth. Turns out potatoes create a very strange sticky texture when you whip them like that. Since the potatoes had some not-so-subtle yellow undertones, getting the desired ice cream colours was very difficult, especially the blue colour. I even tried using the juice from frozen blueberries to help get a more natural look but it didn't really work out. I ended up spending A LOT of time in Photoshop colour correcting the ice cream to look more palatable. I definitely learned that it is much much easier to get things right in camera than trying to fix them in post-production. Something Jay Bassan stressed with us in our first year photography class. This was a really fun project and all of IDEA 22 really took their design skills to the next level. I can't wait to see what incredible work everyone creates this year. Also shout out to Dominique for an awesome class.

About the GDC Foundation Ray Hrynkow Scholarship

This national scholarship is awarded to a third-year student in a Canadian four-year program whose submission has demonstrated a deep understanding of problem-solving through communication design. The Scholarship was created in honour of Ray Hrynkow, a respected Vancouver, BC design professional, teacher and GDC Fellow who passed away in 2012. It is supported by Casey Hrynkow FGDC and other donors.

One step away from joining the professional ranks, the promise of the design talent in Canada is demonstrated by the recipient providing great design for social innovation and sustainability in a robust package with a strong rationale and supporting research.

For all the winners, see gdc.design.

Follow Annika on Insta @annikamcfarlane.