Zachary
Walters
I am a 25 year old designer currently based out of Sherwood Park. My creative inspiration often comes from unexpected places and can be hard to pinpoint. Whether it’s nature, fine art, history, advertisements, or film, inspiration can be found all around if you are in the right headspace. My ultimate goal in the world of design is to make an impact with what I am creating. I believe that no matter the project, and no matter the size of the target demographic, my design work has the opportunity to help create a positive impact on the world around me. Over the pandemic, I am attempting to learn Spanish.
Uniseks
Uniseks was a project I constructed for our Advertising Design class in year 3. The goal of the project was to come up with a brand, and advertising campaign. I developed uniseks, a body wash/shampoo company targeting both young men and women. People often joke about the difference between men and women’s products being unnecessary, poking fun at the different approaches in advertising. Just as it sounds, Uniseks takes a unisex approach to its marketing.
From my research I noticed that a lot of body wash/shampoo branding and advertising was generic and predictable. Men’s advertising and women’s advertising are very different from one another but there are very clear cliches within each. Where women's advertising focuses mostly on body image and a sense of softness and relaxation, men's advertising focuses on toughness, sports, and sex appeal. Ads tend to use an attractive or famous person to sell their product.
The wordmark for Uniseks veers away from stereotypical “man” or “woman” colours as to further communicate its main goal of catering to both. The word mark is minimal and fun, and does not take itself too seriously. The lighthearted approach is to appeal to a younger audience but does not cross the line into childish.
A minimal approach to the art style is taken, once again staying away from the “man” and “woman” design cliches that make up for the majority of body wash/shampoo packaging design.
Uniseks uses minimalistic ads. Where a lot of other body wash/shampoo advertisements get sucked into using cliches to sell their items, Uniseks focuses solely on the product. White and colour are used simply and dramatically to make a clear point: this is a product for both men and women.
Groundhog Day Time Based Infographic
The 3rd project in our infographics course deals with attempting to visualize a complex movie timeline. I chose Groundhog day and its repetitious story. Visualizing a metaphysical concept such as time posed a difficult task but also opened up many design opportunities. I presented my final timeline at an angle as to represent the idea of time being more than a two dimensional concept, and not simply traveling in a straight path.
Some details include the looping dotted lines of Bill Murray’s path through time, sending him back to the beginning of February 2nd over and over again. Exact movie timestamps are present as to easily pinpoint events in the film. As well as the legend and synopsis following the same perspective grid as the rest of the infographic.
Edgar Allan Poe Book Design
In our final typography class we had the opportunity to get a book professionally printed and bound. I chose to compile 4 short Edgar Allan Poe stories into a cohesive and presentable layout. I also made the decision to print glossy black on matte black for the cover and use strong, chunky, dark visuals throughout the book to best represent Poe’s overall aesthetic.
Some examples of the visual style that is present throughout the 52 page book. This project was a great lesson in printing requirements and what all goes into the production and layout of a proper book. The importance of keeping an organized and functional InDesign file was highlighted throughout this assignment.
Some examples of the visual style that is present throughout the 52 page book. This project was a great lesson in printing requirements and what all goes into the production and layout of a proper book. The importance of keeping an organized and functional InDesign file was highlighted throughout this assignment.
Learning how best to handle margins, borders, and other technical aspects of layout was a series of trial and error. But this hands-on experience is hard to beat and I gained a lot of knowledge from the process, experience I would not have had otherwise.
Parks Canada App Redesign
The task was to take the existing Parks Canada campsite booking website and create a modern looking app prototype for it. We had the freedom to make slight changes to the branding and style to help make it more engaging for our target demographic. I was surprised to see how much thought and testing goes into UX and UI design, and just how much of it is instinctive for us as users.
A good persona goes a long way in interaction design. I remember thinking personas were silly and a waste of time when I first started the degree, however I have more than grown to see the importance of them. Having a persona to help define a problem is key in developing a solution. The more in-depth, flushed out, and realistic the better.
I always enjoy going from low fidelity wireframes to high fidelity, I find it rewarding. Seeing your creation coming together and starting to look like a real app or website is exciting. Linking objects and adding a level of interaction to a prototype is a time consuming process but its fun to figure out what is the most natural path for a user to flow through an experience.
