PROGRESSION :)

Today I have managed to push my idea yet again, and in doing so, have become torn between 2 ideas as per usual!

One thing I am settled on is my logo for my 'group' who designed the cards 'Monsters'. Alongside this I feel as though the wrapping paper idea is pretty successful too, pictures will be up soon..

Progressing from yesterday with adding text to my designs, proved a good idea, however brought along a split choice. Right now I am wanting to make 12 cards; 6 plain, 6 with text. Hopefully I'll be able to have a casting vote on Thursdays critique.

Here are my designs with text.

I chose to hand draw the text as it looked a little more child-like, but also goes with the designs themselves. My cards are only going to be 10cm x 10cm so I think they are the ideal size for invitations or thank you cards [displayed above]. However they are also ideal to come as a set of blank cards for any occasion for a much wider target audience. 

This is what they look like without text:

Whilst I was debating on which set to put forward I started designing a logo for my card group. Here's my finished outcome:

I am really pleased with how they have come out! Now all I need to do is make them properly and decide my 6 to put forward, otherwise I'm turning up with 12 :)

ISTD MEETING.

I don't know if I'm biting off more than I can chew, however despite the Ink Rooms live brief, I would really like to tackle an ISTD brief too.

I still need to read through and decide which brief I would like to take on, but from what I gathered in the meeting with Sally and some of my peers, the briefs set are really interesting.

Although we have until March to hand this in, I still need to be careful with my time management to make sure I'm working on this brief at the same time as my other projects!

INK ROOMS LIVE BRIEF MEETING.

First group meeting on this brief and was really productive and loads of ideas were discussed. The more interesting ideas people had the better this brief sounded! Only bad thing about it is, is that we have 2 weeks to produce ideas in visuals ready to pass on and be printed ready for the opening of the bar on the 20th November! Tight schedule!!

From here we are breaking off into smaller groups to come up with ideas to put forward to Chloe on Wednesday afternoon.

I am working on two of the ideas we had for names:

JUST OFF THE SQUARE: Myself, James, Luke, George, Vix and Leanne...

INK - : Myself, James, Luke, George, Matt and Lewis.

Will update when it's progressed a little further! :)

GOT LOTS DONE TODAY :)

Today I've been a proper geek 8)

Yesterday I was debating which way I should go with my greeting card designs, so after I finished at the Institute I went to Wilkinsons to buy crafty stuff to help me on my way. I ended up with lots of googly eyes, a furry pencil case and corrugated coloured card. Out of these materials I managed to produce these:

I think they've turned out really well :) however I'm a bit stuck on my target audience as everyone I've asked said they would buy a card with these on...Maybe kids and kidults? 

I was able to scan these at the Institute today which enabled me to experiment with cropping, different background colours and different sizing of my characters to see the full potential of my design.

There are so many things I can do with these designs because they are so simple. I think the cropped monsters would work well as a set of greeting cards on white or coloured backgrounds. After this I applied colour to each monster to demonstrate how they could look.

Following this, I decided they could work with or without text. If I was to include text I think it should be hand drawn to portray the child-like image my designs give. I also have an idea for my 'brand' name :) Its all going well today!

I've also had the time to produce a possible wrapping paper design, looks alright I think... Opinions please?!

Can't wait to see the final outcomes :) Still a bit further to go but I'm happy I stuck with monsters now!

To have a break from all this I designed a brief identity for myself which you can see at the top of my blog, I have also decided to link this with my design sheets and anywhere else I can to tie my work in together.

Good times!

TUTORIALS & FEEDBACK.

Today has been a pretty productive day in terms of feedback and idea generations.

Sally and Neil have been talking to small groups either about their poster from the last mini project or about their ideas for the current project on greeting cards.

First up was Neil. I went in to the tutorial confused and indecisive about my ideas and came out with ways to make them work. 

I was torn between monsters with googly eyes, aimed towards kids, and a more photographic/collage which could be aimed at slightly older people. I was then given the idea to combine both ideas which could potentially broaden my target audience, however am a bit unsure as to how this would look good and appeal to people. I am aware it would have to be done well in order to target my chosen audience. This can also be helped in the language that I use too.

Can you imagine these two combined? 

I found Claire really helpful in this tutorial as she seemed to notice how confused I was and gave a few pointers to nudge me in the right direction. For example, I can't get the images in my head down on paper, so she suggested an alternative to use fabric, stick on the googly eyes, and that was my monster designed. This boosted my confidence a little - I now need to go buy some kids craft things :) should be fun!

However, I still like the other idea as no-one has really done that.

I have a few designers/artists I need to research but hopefully I'm on the road to a solid idea.

Next up was the feedback from Sally from our A3 posters from last week. I was interested in what she had to say about everyone's as she didn't know who had done what. I feel I received positive feedback and the only thing I was really told to make slightly different is to come away from black and white and try to introduce colour. Other than that I was told it was a good piece of work and the type used reflected my message well too.

All in all a positive day so far..

Now I need to make this happen.

MIND BLOCK.

I thought this next brief was going to be really good! Friday was a productive day with ideas and today I can't seem to reproduce what I'm imagining in my head! All very frustrating.

I know I have ideas, I have a clear idea of how I want things to look, however, it is not going to plan right now.

I have three possible routes in which I could take this brief. Although I need to work hard to produce something different and eye-catching to my chosen target audience (which I haven't yet worked out).

First idea was to produce a photographical series of greeting cards, although my images need to be appealing and become part of a series of 6.

Second idea was monsters. I can imagine them in my head, but now found I can no longer draw the way I used to. But looking at Juicy Lucy Designs, they are childlike illustrations but the target audience is chosen due to the language used. This was another possible direction I could take this.

My third idea is collage. Something I really enjoyed in first year for our editorial illustrations, and may actually be able to bring all three idea together. I don't want to over complicate my designs though, as they need to be reproduced easily and at a high standard.

So yeah, this is my mind block, I don't know where to take things from here. Help!

NEW PROJECT // GREETING CARDS.

Today we got briefed on our next mini project, greeting card designs, which went really well. I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in to some designs. We currently have a visiting tutor working with us for the duration of this project and have found her views and ways of working really helpful and will hopefully influence the way in which I work too. We have to produce 6 different cards to make a set, these can range across different occasions or all belong to one occasion. We have two weeks to do it. Let's start the planning!

An idea that I currently have is a card range with illustrated monsters on the front. These drawings could appeal to a wide target audience of both children and adults and is influenced by the language in which I use. I got this idea from 'juicy lucy designs'. I need to get designing on my characters and depending on how well that goes, depends on what occasion I will produce these for. I want to experiment with different props to symbolise the occasion, try some without for blank cards and if all fails I have a back up plan.

My back up plan consists of using my photographs from our first summer project last year. For this I took close up photographs of everything along the beach front and the textures and colours shown in each photo and think they could all potentially work really well as a greetings card set.

I'll try both, and put my strongest designs forward. I'm looking forward to this!