It's Up To You. - Research, Development and final outcome

It's Up to you-

Research

Logo designs

I really wasn't sure what I wanted to achieve first, so I looked at my favourite artists and designers for some inspiration into logo designs-

I looked at Jessica Hische's Daily Drop Cap challenge for some quick insights into lettering design. I thought that maybe I could feature my initials as the logo.

I really like the drop shadow on this and the flat colours. The colour scheme is warm and complimentary.

I could maybe feature gold elements on my logo- it has been a consistency in my work so far and so would reflect me well.

I really like circus style serifs on capitals!

I really like the fluidity of the lettering. I could use different materials such as wood. I really like the laser cut effect.

I really like the colour scheme of this business card. It's nice that it isn't the standard shape - perhaps a coaster? I also really like the combination of illustration and typography.

I like the use of banners in this design. I would like my logo to be symmetrical if I can

I could intertwine my initials like this?

I like all these different features that could be included such as this border and gentle colour scheme.

This overlapping effect can be utilised through the interesting medium of screen printing and might be a nice feature as part of my design. I really like the mix of serif and sans serif also.

Something clever like this might add to the symmetrical effect?

I would like to hand draw my logo in a sort of script font like this as it looks elegant and reflects my favourite style quite well.

Again, it would be a nice feature to make my script text as elaborate as possible. This would look nice in gold, engraved or laser cut.

If not used in the text, swirls etc would look nice combined with illustration and capitals.

Book cover designs

I do know that to fit in all the information I want to include, it would be nice to feature it all in a book. So I have looked at some book cover designs to help inspire some ideas.

I really love this book cover by Jessica Hische. The line illustrations look great against the dark colour and the colour scheme is vibrant and mysterious. My favourite feature is the banner and the type - something I could combine with my existing self promotional design of my silhouette.

The variation of the cover is beautiful too - I like the banner, it really brings out the text.

I liked the use of colour and the script text featured on this business card.

I like the combination of embossing and colour contrast on this, it really lifts it out of the page.

Pack and stationery designs

I would really like to feature a cut- out element of some sort in my info pack.

I really like the oval shape, its very victorian style and the embossing is a nice touch, and even though its an elaborate pattern in the background, it doesn't interfere with the oval

this colour scheme is very elegant. The combination of pastel and dark on white is something I would like to include

I really love the use of victorian typography in this piece. It's my favourite style, and this is particularly inspiring.

Even after looking at research, I decided to start designing off of the questions asked to be in the brief:

By using the previous posts off of my PPP blog, the list was relatively easy to put together.

I started to draw a few ideas up.

I only had a few ideas, but they were relatively weak in my opinion. I knew I wanted to create a book of some sort. I even thought of featuring a slot together card 'tree' to feature as part of the design. I wasn't happy with any of my ideas, and so pushed on with the logo designs for inspiration.

A close up of my main inspirational artists list that I wanted to include.

One of my logo design sheets.

This was one of my favourite designs, it's very 'me'! The script text would look really good illustrated digitally in my opinion, the swirly furniture created movement and the pencil helped stabilise the design.

Another logo design I really liked was this 3D 'S' with a thick outline.

I tried to intertwine my initials like in my research. I like the result. I thought that maybe incorporating the first design with this could look cool?

Tried a different style of 's' combined with my name either side.

I tried a more elaborate 'S' and tried to refine my previous idea of the intertwined initials. I really like how it turned out - but I was still no closer to my final design! 

I like this design that was a variation on something I had already designed for the self promo mini ad brief back in February. I like the use of script type combined with capitals.

I decided that I wanted to create a book for definite - and it be around the normal size and shape of a coffee table pocket book. I drew a couple of ideas combining some of my logo design ideas:

I wanted to include the script fonts not primarily used in the logo design.

I also wanted to feature some sort of banner to break up the layout and help combine the illustration in with it. Here I am messing around with banners etc.

I chose to name it 'The Graphic Design Chronicles' because it sounded rather posh like a victorian journal.

Here are my two favourite/ final designs. I would eventually pick the one on the right, but it took a lot of deliberation. I picked the one on the right because of it's rigidity in comparison to the one on the left. 

I finally decided on my book design! I came up with basically a normal coffee table book, with a special feature - the book would open both ways! I decided to split the book into two chapters - one about the past year and one about my future based on the decisions of the past - a good way to review the year. Here is the book mock up:

rough sketch of front cover

back cover yet to be decided

The book from above - showing both intertwining chapters

On both sides of the book, to emphasise and utilise my hand drawn typography skills I have recently acquired, I wanted to feature the numbers '1' and '2' to represent and present each chapter.

In the middle of the book would feature the victorian style oval - cut out like a window. Either side of the oval would be 2 pages answering 2 of the questions asked in the brief- 'who are you now?' and in response, 'who do you want to be?' These would be typographically based designs each mirroring the other. It would be a window into the future and likewise into the past.

from the first chapter

from the second chapter

my (very rough) design for around the oval. The side inside the first chapter would say 'learn from the past' and the second chapter would say 'live for the future' around the oval. This is inspired to side-show style posters from the victorian era.

I planned the layouts for the book and everything I wanted to include:

• 2 x single intro pages to each chapter
• 2 x single numbered pages for each chapter
• double page spread on my design style before and after this year
• double page spread on my newly gained skills after this year
• double page spread on everything else I've learned this year
• 2 x typographic pages explaining who I am now and who I want to be
• double page spread on my design beliefs, ethos, ethics and my target audience determined by my design decision over this year
• double page spread on my newly favourited artists I have discovered since being in uni
• 2 x single pages of my CV including my new skills (double sided tear out page)

Sketch for my CV tear-out page:

I wanted to use victorian style text for the big main 'CV' with a banner and border. I knew I wanted to feature the Abraham Lincoln font, a tall serif font, because it would work well with the overall feel of the design. I had to re-sketch this a few times to get it right.

This is the back of the CV design. I wanted to keep the silhouette design consistent throughout the book.

I used loads of vertical guides to trace over the typography on the back cover

I then included the original illustration from my promo brief:

The finished back of the CV

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The double page spread design for my favourite artists didn't need any variations as I was happy with the initial sketch. I symmetrically included all of my artists! 

After tracing over one of the designs, I multiplied the objects and rotated them in various ways so the design was absolutely symmetrical. I then used the type along a path tool to create the wavy text.

I found suitable images for each of the artists and used the clipping mask tool to fit them to each of the shapes.

All of the images masked in place.

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I wanted to make the two centre facing pages similar without making them actually the same. I wanted to include a lot of hand drawn type, and so I am here sketching out the designs. I made a list of each of the 7 words I wanted to include on each page first, then started sketching out with a light pencil where they would go, then with a softer pencil what they would look like, then a fineliner to finish off.

I used many different vertical guides to make sure that my designs were sturdy

I used the type along a path tool for the 'efficient' and 'motivated'

Here I am trying different typefaces for the 'independant' part. (I wanted something really classy for this part!)

Here is the piece so far - I thought that the hand drawn part was too big and intruding into the design so I resized and repositioned it:

feedback for this piece:

"change the bottom typeface - it's lower case and doesn't suit the rest."

I decided not to change this, but I appreciated the feedback 

I scanned in my images and traced over them using the pen tool.

The existing layout that I had planned wasn't working onscreen so I had to improvise with the space onscreen that I had.

I added some furniture to the design, and tried to make it work. It wasn't my favourite of the two, but I liked the way it turned out.

I asked for feedback and this was the response:

"something about it looks uneven and wonky.. the aspirational bit is thick and heavy, then the eager perfectionist section is really spaced out and light. also the furniture at the bottom doesn't line up with anything in particular, maybe the eager perfectionist bit should follow the curve of it as well, like the aspirational part?"

"maybe loose the lines around restless or have one instead of two"

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This is a very vague sketch for the 'my design style' double page spread. I wasn't sure how I was to fill the rest of the page, and so would later improvise onscreen.

Again, I used many vertical guides to make sure the design was rigid but I used varying waves for the 'design' part, unlike the other designs where I had used the same wave copied and pasted for a guide.

Here is the design filled in.

Because I had found it hard to plan on paper, I decided to type out my copy, separate line by line and mess around with it on screen.

The only thing I had planned was the names of my two favourite artists in comparison. I traced over these with the pen tool.

I messed around with the layout of my bodycopy

and created this!

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Here is the sketch for my double page spread on 'my design beliefs'. It was largely based on something found in my research of the photos I took when in Disneyland. I re-drew the 'design and 'beliefs' part so they were more refined for when they were to be traced onscreen.

a few closeups

I traced over my sketches with the pen tool on illustrator:

I struggled to find a suitable illustration for the centre of the design, and so inlcuded some illustrations I previously created. I liked the contrast between flat colours and 3d elements.

Here are a couple of sketches for my design skills pages. I decided I needed one for book binding, drawing type, time management, paper engineering and screen printing. I chose the book design on the right and the half drawn 's' but I didn't inlcude the clock design in the end because the design would be overcrowded.

I decided that the screen printing illustration would take up one of the two pages in the double page spread because it was too angular in comparison to the other illustrations and so became a feature.

Tracing over the illustrations using the pen and line tools

Going over my illustrations...

The page coming together

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For each of the title pages, as before, I scanned in my sketch and went over it using the pen tool:

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I decided to print it in the studio using only the laser printer, as the quality was adequate enough. I decided to use antique white paper for that classier look, and printed the book as two separate books : one for each chapter.

After printing them at Blenheim Walk campus, I took them down to the Vernon Street campus to bind the book myself. I used saddle stitch since they were only small when separate. I then chose and cut out my Buckrum, and wrapped it around 3 measured sheets of grey mountboard. I had to kind of make it up as I went along, as no one really knew how to go about doing this kind of book. In the end I ended up making the spines a little too small and so they are not quite as functional as hoped. the book is still readable and I'm otherwise very happy with the outcome!

I completed the design of the cover and screenprinted onto both sides. I unfortunately smudged a little bit on the cover - I'm still a bit new to this!

Pictures of the final piece:

chapter one was stuck on first, then the hole was cut out. I then cut the hole out of the oval page on the loose chapter two and aligned it with the hole in the grey mountboard.

screenshots of the final pages: