Barclays Student Card

As Rosie and Adila were creating the design for the app, I developed the prototype of the card. I knew I wanted to create a card that I could leave behind with the client as it would separate us from the other 44 pitches on the day of the final pitch. But it was also an excuse to learn how to laser cut acrylic, as I have experience of using the machine but that was back in secondary school using CADCAM.

The student card had a variety looks over the course of the project but below you can see how it originally looked and the development of it:

I initially experimented with card designs establishing a look and feel for it. The first one I created was influenced by the typical millennial stereotype - Millennial pink and pot plants. The idea was that students could create their own designs to make it personal to them. Barclays already provided this feature with photographs but not patterns.

I then experimented with gradients (blue and purple) however, we collectively decided against this as we didn’t think it had the excitement we wanted. Thus leading onto the gradient and paint swish and the colour gradient we subtly changed. The paint swish was a nod to the personalised aspect where students could change and adapt the design.

Below is the final design of the card: We decided on the gradient and the simplicity, we also thought about the material it could be made out of. This was done by prototyping the card and cutting it out of 3mm acrylic.

I created an illustration of the card on illustrator but it was all lines. No solid shapes other than the chip. I had to use the RGB colours red and black, Back was to etch and the red was to cut. It took a few attempts to get the design right, as we trialled cutting the numbers out and then etching them into the plastic.

I tried three different types of materials - Perspex orange acrylic, Solid coloured acrylic 5mm and mirrored acrylic 3mm. I thought the 5mm would be too thick and I was right, however, we thought about making them magnets for the client as fun little reminders of our idea, again to make it more memorable. However, I showed a couple of students the orange design and mirror design and they said ‘how cool would tis look in a night club paying’ ‘its like the Superdrug card that gives you a discount as well as a mirror’. They said they liked the clear aspect of it.