OUGD503 CRISPIN ORTHOTICS BRIEFING

ORTHOTIC DESIGN - The Cosmesis Challenge

This is a PPE briefing which is optional, however it caught my eye as it involved making a pattern for orthotics, which is relatively simple but is applied to something really cool which impacts on peoples everyday lives.

The Briefing (by Emily & Mark)
Orthotics (splints and braces)
Create a pattern specifically aimed at adults to be applied to their orthotics.
It should be electronically submitted
There are prizes of £150, £100 & £50 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place designs
You can submit multiple designs, although only 2 initially so as not to overload, then they will come back for more or different colourways if interested
Two types of materials used for orthotics:
- Silicone (ink takes really well - high quality illustrations)
- Plastic (is the most used material but the ink bleeds due to the process of applying the pattern)
For the plastic material black outlines are good to define between the different colours more easily
They want us to embrace the old fashioned leather and metal side of orthotics, whilst also embracing the futuristic tech side, which is more where they are moving towards
Limb = portrait pattern
Torso = landscape pattern
Head = square pattern
For the plastic orthotic the plastic gets stretched and pulled around the mould, along with the pattern, so some areas will be slightly or quite distorted
They advise us to make the pattern/design messy so that it isn't clear when it's distorted for the plastic material
Crispin Orthotics is the only orthotics company in the UK who can produce orthotics with any design on them, as all the others use stock images. This makes for a fantastic opportunity to get my designs out there in the orthotics, as no other company will have anything similar
They suggested when designing the pattern to think of what you'd want on a splint, as splints last people years, so it has to be something that isn't going to age quickly, and they're still going to like several years down the line, as they have to live with it every day.
The design has to be in JPEG format, flat design, can be of any colour and as many colours, although I must remember to email to ask if it's CMYK or RGB colours, although I imagine CMYK, and the Crispin logo doesn't have to be included.
They put an emphasis on the adult audience, as there isn't any designs out there for adults, but there are quite a lot for children, and children are often satisfied or even happy with dinosaurs or little ponies, whereas adults obviously wouldn't be
If they like our designs a lot, there could be opportunities to become their go to designer for designs, which is a really great opportunity!

My understanding of the brief
For this brief I have to produce some sort of design, preferably a repeat pattern that can be applied to a specific orthotic or a range of orthotics. This design must appeal to adults and fit the material it is to be produced in, silicone or plastic. The design can use as many colours as is wanted. They would preferably like a design which connects to the traditional production method of orthotics, but still embraces the more futuristic direction as well. The deadline for electronic submissions is the first week of Easter.