First Parcel Tag Distribution

I tied my first parcel tag into the general public area. Obviously, I still have many to distribute, but it was quite exciting seeing the first one go up in the branches of the tree, flying around in the wind, waiting to be found or seen or thrown away even. Guerilla advertising is all a big social experiment, all of it relies on how different people react to certain methods within the marketing strategy.

More pics to come of parcel tags in different environments!

Pasting up the Poster

Today I managed to get one of my large scale posters out into public space. Myself and two friends drove to a nearby abandoned building. It's a common place for graffiti artists to enjoy large areas on wall space to test their larger pieces. I really badly wanted to get my poster out into the public domain, but as mentioned in a previous post, I was worried about the time scale of the project and the legality of the entire process that could jeopardize a lot of my work.

So we went to this derelict area, and found the perfect spot for my poster. It was next to a couple pieces of graffiti work, so I felt that it would look good surrounded by other pieces of art. I had made my own wheatpaste out of flour, water and sugar (trying to maintain an environment friendly project) which worked so much better than I had expected (as the cooking process was rather interesting!).

Since the inDesign pages that got printed out through the tile print option, each page was numbered with a row and column number so the design wouldn't get confusing. This was really helpful in the construction of my piece since it kept me organized and allowed for minimal error. Overall, it took over an hour to complete the piece, pasting each A4 sheet one by one. We also realised, as the poster grew in size with each row, that I could have used a ladder to paste the top rows. Thankfully, the place we chose actually had an upper section to it, so I was able to hang off the top of the wall and paste from above.

I'm so pleased with the results of this experiment, I think that large scale posters work really well as a way to grab and capture the attention of passer bys and the general public, and by taking them down a different route to common advertising, they can become more of an interesting way to market a product, a service, etc. I also think the contrast between clean, simple graphic design and a dirty, industrial abandoned building also really worked well and made my final poster really stand out against the grime. Given the time scale of the project, I unfortunately couldn't take the large scale posters further, but it's something I'm glad I've experimented with as a possibility not just only for future personal projects but as a method and/or way in which to present work in university modules.

Bus Stop Ad Poster

Using the design I had created for the parcel tags as an experimental design, I created a 1.3 metre by 1.8 metre size poster to advertise my company. I used the inDesign tile option when printing and it created the large scale poster using 49 pages of A4 paper. As it printed out, I laid the paper onto my bedroom floor and watched as it began to grow in size.

My plan with this poster is to take it to a derelict place in Devon and paste it up using a homemade wheatpaste. I think due to the time scale of the project and the possibly legal issues I may have to deal with due to the nature of guerilla advertising, I won't be able to post my poster up in an area commonly used by the general public at this stage. I do still want to put up the poster somewhere in a busy place, but it would take a lot of planning to do so, of which I don't have the time to do. However, I do want to see the poster pasted up and in its full glory, so I think using an abandoned building could be a way of really showing it off before testing it with people. I think after doing this I will have a better idea of the impact it will have when placed in a more appropriate environment.

Final Parcel Tags

This is an image with all of my parcel tags finished. I had to individually stick each sticker to the parcel tag, but since the stickers are clear it allowed for small human errors to slip past the net of people who will recieve the tags. However, no quality was lost, and when I showed the final result to a number of people I received some great compliments in how well they had turned out.

The next stage of my parcel tag project is to begin distributing them.

Sticker Production

I printed out the design I have created onto sticker paper that I ordered from Amazon. I couldn't be more pleased with the result, the ink dried really nicely onto the sticker paper and left a really nice texture (a matte effect with raised text from the ink design). Despite being printed off at home, the quality of the final images was fantastic. Since the sticker paper was one A4 sheet, I printed off my design nine times on each page - which left with 99 stickers to cut out by hand.

This was quite a daunting task, but once I had figured out the most time effective way to cut out all of my stickers with minimal problem. This stage was very exciting in the production of my parcel tags, since it really felt like they were taking shape and I wouldn't lose any quality - which I was worried about.

Example of Us As One bus stop advert

Just a quick example of how I could use the bus stop advert to market Us As One. If I were to use this space, then I probably wouldn't use such a simple design as this. I would probably try and experiment with eye catching phrases to keep the general public interested and interacting with my poster and design.

The only issue with using this space for artwork, would be the possible legal implications of vandalism, littering, etc which could lead to a fine.

Ready to print into stickers!

Final Tag Design

After a lot of playing around with type and after discussing my experiments with peers and tutors, I decided on using the above image as my final tag design. I originally didn't want to use any colour in my designs, since that keeps the process more cost effective, however, when a few people looked at my font experiments, a lot of people complimented the only colour choice of the designs, but weren't sure about the font.

Again, with more help from my peers and some tweeking with leading and kerning, I decided to use the font Tall Films, layered with three colours, magenta, cyan and black. This also gives it a fun 3D effect and an optical illusion feel that I think works well. I wanted to keep the design clean and simple - there's no need for excessively flashy graphic design when it comes to simple guerilla advertising. I want people to be intrigued and to want to find out more themselves. I also wanted to create something that people may want to remove from the environment and keep for themselves, stick on their bedroom wall etc.

To create my tags, I'll be printing onto the clear sticker paper that I bought and assembling the final artefact myself.

Large Scale Posters

As another idea to collaborate with the parcel tag guerilla, I wanted to develop large scale posters. Through a friend, I discovered an option on printing through inDesign which allows my designs to be scaled and then tiled to be printed out on A4 sheets. The sheets are then printed out with a customizable trim, and then once trimmed and placed together, create the original image at a large scale.

This is a design I created at an A0 scale, which allows for a lot of impact with its size.

I spoke briefly to a couple people about the large scale poster idea, and they all agreed that yes, it would have impact due to its size but would it be interesting enough to be valuable as guerilla advertising. Stuart suggested making it an 'interactive' poster - maybe by taking something that's already in the environment, recreating it in the poster and then distributing the poster around - for example, making a design with a door frame, inviting people to interact. So taking this on board, I'd like to play around with some designs and see if I can make the product more inviting to interaction and connection.

Clear Sticker Print Method

Found on Amazon

As a way of tackling the problem with printing onto postal labels, I began looking into printing onto stickers. This would maintain the level of quality required and desired for the project, but also come under the handmade criteria of the project, which would mean I'd be printing it from home, and assembling the final product myself. I've figured out that I can fit 9 of each design onto an A4 sheet, meaning that with buying the 20 sheets on the website, I will definitely be able to cover all of the 100 parcel tags I've bought.

Design & Parcel Tag

Just a few quick mock ups on how the final product could look.

Parcel Tags

As an idea for my guerrilla advertising campaign, I've had an idea to use parcel tags as a means of advertising my design collective Us As One. By printing onto the parcel tags, and leaving them in certain areas of the city, by tying them to benches, trees etc, it would be a cute and creative way to get noticed.


I've developed a number of different logo ideas, that feature similar traits. I want to have a 3D sort of effect to the logo, but I wasn't sure which font would stand out as a good logo for the parcel tag. I think my preference at the moment is towards Phosphorus Trichloride which is a serif font that I found online, although I do find Didot Italic appealing as well.

The only problem with doing clean designs such as these for the logo, it could mean a lack of quality when combined with a rougher type of printing method. I'm beginning research into clean printing methods that would work well for this project.