hang ten!

Our fourth assignment is to create a free standing display, either table=top or or from the floor, for our product and/or its packaging.

Again, my product is a pineapple, so I began thinking instantly of Hawaii, and the surfing culture.

I first thought of creating a surf shack for pineapples -- a pineapple shack. I thought creating a habitation for the pineapples would give them a story; the customer has traveled all the way to Hawaii to get their beloved pineapple.

I started building the base of a structure, but realized that I was just building a box, which I thought wasn't original enough, so I scrapped the idea. I wanted something more creative. I stayed with the surfing idea, but thought about the idea of putting the pineapples on the surfboard instead of next to it. Creating a single or double wave would give the pineapples a surface to sit on. I didn't like the shape that the two waves created, and decided to just make one.

   

It took a lot of time to get the right shape for the wave. I started out by sketching out different shapes...

...then I looked at a lot of pictures of waves online and saw a lot of variety:

 

I saw a lot of imperfect C-shapes; most of them were pushed downwards and then pulled horizontally. The problem with that shape is that it doesn't leave a lot of space for the pineapple to sit, and it makes it hard for the customer to see inside of the space where the product is sitting.

 

I made some carved models of shapes out of board to see how it would cut; I started playing with the width of the wave as well. Then I made a model out of chipboard to see how it would look in three dimensions. It was too short, and too dark.

  

The final is still a floor display, with only one wave and a surfboard going across the front of it, like a surfer would duck to squeeze through a wave that has crashed on top of itself.

I reused the same logo that I had on my packaging project as my logo for the surfboard, to emphasize the brand of pineapple. I kept the rest of the design simple because I didn't want the wave to get too busy--in surfing, there's nothing there but the wave, and the surfer on their board. I wanted to mimic that simplicity.