McDonalds
This evening I decided to walk to McDonald's to see whether I could get any inspiration for my work. At the moment I am struggling to think of an idea which is original enough, because there have already been several examples of work which reflects McDonald's and their food relating to sustainability and ethics. I therefore don't want to produce something which has already been done before as this won't be a challenge and I won't feel satisfied with the end product.
When I went inside I took some photographs of some of their displays. I had thought about creating something to do with the Happy Meal, but instead of calling it the Happy Meal, thinking of a more controversial name to communicate the negative aspects of the meal and how children should be encouraged to eat healthier food instead. I feel like this idea is a bit too cliche and predictable though.
One thing that hasn't changed much over the years is the packaging for the toys including inside of the Happy Meal box. It has always been a plastic bag with all of the information printed on it in black, I have thought about creating packaging which is more sustainable and that would interest children.
Interestingly, all of the necessities are presented in quite a dull way. The presentation of them isn't particularly appealing and the design is very 'stripped back' to basics. This is something I could take into consideration when designing my outcome. I think it is important that people are made aware of packaging as it used to be, when it was just a brown paper bag with black ink printed on it. This is a much more sustainable way to work, as not so many colours are used, and the brown paper is recycled. Perhaps this is something I could consider when I create my packaging. Taking the idea of using one colour of ink instead of several or even using brown paper in some way.
The food is presented behind the counter in a very vibrant way, to attract the customers' attention. They are using advertising strategies in a clever manner, to draw people in to buying into their brand. This ties in with the fact that on the visuals that they create to portray their food, they make it all look so tasty, when the truth behind it all, even if they are using '100% beef', it is still not the healthiest food out there.
I saw this on the wall near to the till, positioned at the right height for children to use. I could consider creating some sort of colouring book or exercise book which would engage the children to educate them about the food which they are eating and a bit about McDonald's as a brand. I am not sure whether this links to my essay enough though, and really want to focus on re usability and sustainability as much as possible the more I think about it.
This was also on the wall, there was a space for all of the leaflets to slot inside of and many of the leaflets relating to 'people' had been taken, apart from one. This shows that there is a lot of interest in people wanting to work for McDonald's. I picked up some of the leaflets and they are photographed below.
This leaflet is to inform people of what makes McDonald's food. It is interesting how they have this on display for customers to take inside of their stores. They are making a conscious effort to try and change the way in which they are viewed by the general public. This isn't necessarily a bad thing by any means, but it is something I could consider for this brief.
I picked up the leaflet about 'people' which mainly focuses on their employees and how people can apply for a job and what is expected of them. For some reason this is standing out to me as being a potential start for my work. I don't know what exactly I could do with it yet but I think I may find it inspiring later on in my development.
Portraying themselves as 'best big company' demonstrates a reinforced idea that their customers should think of them in a positive light. This is questionable however, as there have been so many conflicting views over the years.
Here, the menu is also displayed in the window, however they don't tend to illustrate all of the ingredients here which is something to be aware of.
I thought it was interesting to see that they had advertised 'free fruit friday' in the window of the door to enter McDonald's. They are really trying their hardest to change people's perception and encourage their customers to continue to go back for more.
I decided to photograph the lid of the drink purely because I have always considered it to be a very clever design. With all of the individual circles there, the staff can simply press each one in as appropriate so that the customer is aware of what they have ordered.
I found it quite interesting the observe how different some of the packaging is from each other. Compared to the packaging aimed at children (Happy Meal), this is much more simplified and straight to the point, using a brown paper bag. This almost implies that there is no real need to persuade the older audience to come to McDonald's, as they have already established a want/need for the brand over the years and as a result have starting to take their children.
Below is the print out used on the tray to put all of the products on top of. Often food isn't always removed from the tray by the customers (as observed when I visited) and so they wouldn't necessarily see the text in the bottom left corner which is informing the customer to 'see reverse for nutrition and allergy information'. The illustration almost takes over the design as well, so that the attention is on the fact that McDonald's 'source ingredients from over 17,500 British and Irish farmers. This is clever, yet deceiving marketing.
I noticed that on the reverse of the tray mat is all of the products that they sell, listing all of the calories etc. This isn't information which is readily available however, as they have printed it on the reverse side for a reason. This is a clever way of them hiding the negative aspects of their food, as I know for a fact that if I hadn't been to visit McDonald's to collect primary research, this is something I probably wouldn't have noticed.
When I was in Wagamama recently, I noticed that they had newly designed mats to be placed on the tables. I thought this was interesting because before now, they had only advertised their old menu which isn't as healthy as the new and improved menu with healthy salads on. This gave me the idea of perhaps adapting the ones which McDonald's currently have in place and designing some more controversial place mats, taking the stereotypical, negative views of McDonald's and illustrating them in this way instead. The only problem with this is, I would like to be able to put whatever I make into context, and would actually like to be able to imagine my product to be used. Therefore, if I made something which was perhaps too controversial, it wouldn't necessarily be used in McDonald's.
Below I have photographed the Happy Meal box. I asked if I could have one when I went in and he had no problem giving one to me for research purposes. The design of the box is so busy and colourful and the content has very little information about the food on there. This implies that they are targeting young children to try and persuade them to eat the food, as they know that they will receive it in this box with a game on it, and also a free toy inside. Therefore, the fact that the food may not necessarily be good for them, doesn't particularly 'matter' as much as it should do.
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