T-shirt mock ups
Instead of doing what I usually do - spend ages researching, spend another while designing and then put it all together at the last minute, I thought I would mock up as I was going along.
As this is such an early stage in the design process, I can't see these being completely final designs but for initial mock ups I think they work quite well and show that I was inspired by 'old metal tees' (mainly iron maiden ones.)
I think by just making the image looks slightly worn away it gives the image more texture and looks more 'vintage' inspired...although I may have worn a little too much away!
As this is such an early stage in the design process, I can't see these being completely final designs but for initial mock ups I think they work quite well and show that I was inspired by 'old metal tees' (mainly iron maiden ones.)
I think by just making the image looks slightly worn away it gives the image more texture and looks more 'vintage' inspired...although I may have worn a little too much away!
Criminal Damage...
After i'd thought of 2 ideas for the Criminal damage brief, I was at a bit of a loss...so I went back to (what should have been) step 1...just noting down visual inspiration.
Thankfully I have more ideas now...
Thankfully I have more ideas now...
Initial ideas
After reading the columns and getting a 'jist' of them, I sketched a few ideas.
I didn't spend a long time sketching out ideas or thinking of lots of them because editorial briefs are generally a quick turn around thing.
This is what I will do for the rest of the weeks too...
1. A cross section of a house with very little in it.
2. Traveller with bulging pockets - illustrating the man who aimed to travel with only the things he could carry in his pockets.
3. Toilet - flushing away the things we use everyday but don't particularly Need.
'Diary of a disappointing order'
I picked up on the phrase 'Everyone is on their fruit phones' so I just illustrated it literally.
I didn't spend a long time sketching out ideas or thinking of lots of them because editorial briefs are generally a quick turn around thing.
This is what I will do for the rest of the weeks too...
'This column will change your life'
1. A cross section of a house with very little in it.2. Traveller with bulging pockets - illustrating the man who aimed to travel with only the things he could carry in his pockets.
3. Toilet - flushing away the things we use everyday but don't particularly Need.
'Diary of a disappointing order'
I picked up on the phrase 'Everyone is on their fruit phones' so I just illustrated it literally.
Skull/Water
Skulls was something that appeared over and over in the visual research and it is a generic thing that the brand knows will work on their t-shirts.
I don't think skulls are particularly overused because they can be used in so many ways so I wasn't going to avoid using a skull, because I like the image of them.
I then incorporated an open mouth skull with vintage/hawaiian tattoo style waves.
It still needs work, particularly on the waves and it needs vectorising but once again - I haven't really done anything like this before so I am happy with it.
2 drawings done and I already see my design direction going the way I want it to, good good.
I don't think skulls are particularly overused because they can be used in so many ways so I wasn't going to avoid using a skull, because I like the image of them.
I then incorporated an open mouth skull with vintage/hawaiian tattoo style waves.
It still needs work, particularly on the waves and it needs vectorising but once again - I haven't really done anything like this before so I am happy with it.
2 drawings done and I already see my design direction going the way I want it to, good good.
Hula/Hawaiin pin up
After doing some visual research into the themes, and looking at various hawaiian imagery I liked the visual aspect of a hula girl - more specifically, a hula pin up girl because I really like old pin up style illustrations.
It wouldn't have been very criminal damage if I just frew a straight forward pin up girl, so taking into account the 'quirky criminal damage twist' I chose to make her a zombie/tattooed hula pin up.
This was really something new for me because before, my illustrations have been quite basic in the content - they were all based on an existing image i.e. photograph or object. Therefore, to justify this as being my own work I couldn't find an image of a zombie hula pin up girl with tattoos because...it would be copying. So I did have to imagine some of it.
To get the proportions and position right, I just base my drawing on an old hawaiian pin up girl illustration (in retrospect, I wish I had used a generic pin up so that I didn't end up copying the hula skirt.) I then added...and substracted 'bits'.
When vectorising it, the main thing I didn't want to do was just use a standard 1pt stroke and then colour it in - so the outline is a shape in its self so that I could get different thicknesses around to add more depth and I just think it generally looks better (again, this is something new for me - in the past my illustrator have either been live traced or a 1 line stroke.)
Also, I haven't vectorised all the tattoos yet and she didn't have the criminal damage type on her leg on the original but after some development I thought this was a simple way of incorporating the brand name without needed anything else - however, if there is other type on the final composition I can simply remove the type and replace it with the other tattoo.
Same as the typefaces - none of these are set colourways, it was just a case of experimenting.
Up until this point...apart from the white eyes and the missing foot, it wasn't clear that she was supposed to be a zombie of some sort. With my wacom tablet I just added some shading a few bits of 'bloog' - I definately think this makes the image clearer.
The image does need more work (i.e. the grass skirt wasn't vectorised properly and it needs more gory detail on the face) - considering this is the first time I have illustrated something like this, I am really happy with it...which in itself is rare for me!
It wouldn't have been very criminal damage if I just frew a straight forward pin up girl, so taking into account the 'quirky criminal damage twist' I chose to make her a zombie/tattooed hula pin up.
This was really something new for me because before, my illustrations have been quite basic in the content - they were all based on an existing image i.e. photograph or object. Therefore, to justify this as being my own work I couldn't find an image of a zombie hula pin up girl with tattoos because...it would be copying. So I did have to imagine some of it.
To get the proportions and position right, I just base my drawing on an old hawaiian pin up girl illustration (in retrospect, I wish I had used a generic pin up so that I didn't end up copying the hula skirt.) I then added...and substracted 'bits'.
When vectorising it, the main thing I didn't want to do was just use a standard 1pt stroke and then colour it in - so the outline is a shape in its self so that I could get different thicknesses around to add more depth and I just think it generally looks better (again, this is something new for me - in the past my illustrator have either been live traced or a 1 line stroke.)Also, I haven't vectorised all the tattoos yet and she didn't have the criminal damage type on her leg on the original but after some development I thought this was a simple way of incorporating the brand name without needed anything else - however, if there is other type on the final composition I can simply remove the type and replace it with the other tattoo.
Same as the typefaces - none of these are set colourways, it was just a case of experimenting.
Up until this point...apart from the white eyes and the missing foot, it wasn't clear that she was supposed to be a zombie of some sort. With my wacom tablet I just added some shading a few bits of 'bloog' - I definately think this makes the image clearer.
The image does need more work (i.e. the grass skirt wasn't vectorised properly and it needs more gory detail on the face) - considering this is the first time I have illustrated something like this, I am really happy with it...which in itself is rare for me!
Criminal Damage type 3
I did the piece below to go along with the hawaiian/surf theme that I was advised to look at - initially, I don't think this ones works very well (hense the reason I didn't vectorise it), however, I do like the incorporation of hibiscus flowers with the type to represent the hawaiian/surf culture.
Criminal Damage type 2
The typeface below is partly influenced by Metallica, with the two enlarged letterforms at each end, and partly by Megadeth for the sharp serifs.
When I initially drew it, I mis-judged the sizing so I had to add an exclamation mark at the end of 'damage' to fill the space - once I vectorised it, I could remove it thankfully.
At the moment I haven't added the final outline around the text, but I wanted to experiment with it at this stage to see which of the two would work better.
If I choose to pursue this style of type I firstly need to address the D - it doesn't work with the other letterforms and looks too small.
The Megadeth type looks kind of 3D/metal (for some reason it won't let me upload an image of it). Taking this into acount I tried a similar effect on my type - it looks a lot more crisp that the image of the Megadeth one that I have. I'm not sure if thats a good thing because it brings it up to date, or a bad thing because it doesn't look vintage.
In contrast to the metallic/3D one, I use a similar effect to the vintage looking Iron Maiden inspired type. I think with a few alterations (the D in particular), the red one could work really well.
When I initially drew it, I mis-judged the sizing so I had to add an exclamation mark at the end of 'damage' to fill the space - once I vectorised it, I could remove it thankfully.
At the moment I haven't added the final outline around the text, but I wanted to experiment with it at this stage to see which of the two would work better.If I choose to pursue this style of type I firstly need to address the D - it doesn't work with the other letterforms and looks too small.
The Megadeth type looks kind of 3D/metal (for some reason it won't let me upload an image of it). Taking this into acount I tried a similar effect on my type - it looks a lot more crisp that the image of the Megadeth one that I have. I'm not sure if thats a good thing because it brings it up to date, or a bad thing because it doesn't look vintage.
In contrast to the metallic/3D one, I use a similar effect to the vintage looking Iron Maiden inspired type. I think with a few alterations (the D in particular), the red one could work really well.
Criminal Damage type 1
After looking at some of the visual inspiration that the brand gave me, I initially started sketching type ideas based on type from vintage metal t-shirts.
Obviously the one below is based on Iron Maidens typeface.
I like the letterforms, I'm just not sure if the two seperate words work well together.
After vectorising them I tried a few different colours, none of these are what I see as being a final colourway or layout, its just experimentation.
Although I like the initial text - the block colour just didn't look right, so I tried to make them look more washed out or 'vintage' (in terms of quality) and I think they look immediatly better.
I prefer the ones below, without the black outline. The black outline looks too thick and cheap whereas by simply taking this away, I think the type looks better quality.
Obviously the one below is based on Iron Maidens typeface.
I like the letterforms, I'm just not sure if the two seperate words work well together.
After vectorising them I tried a few different colours, none of these are what I see as being a final colourway or layout, its just experimentation.
Although I like the initial text - the block colour just didn't look right, so I tried to make them look more washed out or 'vintage' (in terms of quality) and I think they look immediatly better.
I prefer the ones below, without the black outline. The black outline looks too thick and cheap whereas by simply taking this away, I think the type looks better quality.
Selected briefs
After taking my umbrella statement and aims for the year, when it came to choosing 4 briefs to pursue for Design Practice 3 I found it quite hard - After choosing the ones I wanted to focus on, I refined them; expanded one, completely changed one and wrote a new one. Now...I'm happy with them and looking forward to working on them! Obviously I have to take into account that I will be doing a competition brief...so I will initially just pursue the first 4 briefs.
Umbrella statement
"Driven by type as image, illustration and design for print with the intention to engage and entertain."
Questions regarding statement:
- What message do you want to get across?
- Am you commercially driven? Do you just want to put across the message that the client wants you to?
- What content do you want to focus on?
- What scale do you want to work to?
- What print processes do you want to focus on? Which do you enjoy?
- What proportion of your time will you spend on the illustration side of signs in contrast to the overall design?
- What clients do you ideally want to work for?
- How will you get your work out there?
- What context do you want your work to be seen in?
I accept all of the questions, however I think some questions like 'What scale do you want to work on?' and 'How much time will you spend on illustration?' etc. aren't really something that needs to be addressed in an umbrella statement, but they're definately something to think about.
Questions regarding statement:
- What message do you want to get across?
- Am you commercially driven? Do you just want to put across the message that the client wants you to?
- What content do you want to focus on?
- What scale do you want to work to?
- What print processes do you want to focus on? Which do you enjoy?
- What proportion of your time will you spend on the illustration side of signs in contrast to the overall design?
- What clients do you ideally want to work for?
- How will you get your work out there?
- What context do you want your work to be seen in?
I accept all of the questions, however I think some questions like 'What scale do you want to work on?' and 'How much time will you spend on illustration?' etc. aren't really something that needs to be addressed in an umbrella statement, but they're definately something to think about.
What do I want to do? What don't I want?
I want...
1) I want to concentrate on illustration and type as image because I want my career choice to always be something that I enjoy and have a passion for, not something that I feel I have do just to get money like a chore.
2) I want to contact more and more illustrators who produce work that I admire and have a client list that I aspire to have, so that I can gain contacts and more knowledge in the area that I want to become established in.
3) I want to further my knowledge in design for print so that I can produce work of a professional level.
4) I want to develop skills and knowledge to enable me to set up a freelance practice because I truly believe this is the way of the working and the sort of independence that would make me happy.
5) I want and need to develop my photoshop and illustrator software skills because I believe this is necessary to develop my general design practice to an industry standard.
I do not want to...
1) I don't want to focus on web or interface design because I have no interest in it and it doesn't 'compliment' the things that I do want to concentrate on.
2) I do not want to develop/focus on motion graphics or storyboarding because I didn't particularly enjoy the process and I wouldn't ever seek a career in it.
3) I do not want to work on branding because the whole design process that you have to go through is not something that I enjoy or a way that I would choose to work.
4) I do not want to focus on type, layour, grids and publication design because I feel the basic knowledge that I already have will enable me to better my own work in terms of the overall layout but I could not imagine focusing on it as a full time career (i.e. publication layouts.)
5) I don't want to work towards being part of an inhouse design team because I prefer the independence of working on my own and having the option to contact other designers for feedback or input, but ultimately producing my part on my own.
1) I want to concentrate on illustration and type as image because I want my career choice to always be something that I enjoy and have a passion for, not something that I feel I have do just to get money like a chore.
2) I want to contact more and more illustrators who produce work that I admire and have a client list that I aspire to have, so that I can gain contacts and more knowledge in the area that I want to become established in.
3) I want to further my knowledge in design for print so that I can produce work of a professional level.
4) I want to develop skills and knowledge to enable me to set up a freelance practice because I truly believe this is the way of the working and the sort of independence that would make me happy.
5) I want and need to develop my photoshop and illustrator software skills because I believe this is necessary to develop my general design practice to an industry standard.
I do not want to...
1) I don't want to focus on web or interface design because I have no interest in it and it doesn't 'compliment' the things that I do want to concentrate on.
2) I do not want to develop/focus on motion graphics or storyboarding because I didn't particularly enjoy the process and I wouldn't ever seek a career in it.
3) I do not want to work on branding because the whole design process that you have to go through is not something that I enjoy or a way that I would choose to work.
4) I do not want to focus on type, layour, grids and publication design because I feel the basic knowledge that I already have will enable me to better my own work in terms of the overall layout but I could not imagine focusing on it as a full time career (i.e. publication layouts.)
5) I don't want to work towards being part of an inhouse design team because I prefer the independence of working on my own and having the option to contact other designers for feedback or input, but ultimately producing my part on my own.
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