APP Words: Adding a Splash of Colour

[4]
With only my pattern design to do, I thought it was time to start figuring out what colours to use on my design. I'm going to thinking of the background as well as that'll be the main factor affecting the colours I choose on my "Never Give In" design.

As we've seen from a few posts back, this is what my design looks like right now:

Right, let's start adding some colour! I'm going to just show a whole series of different colours and put them all in one picture so that it'll be easier for me to compared everything.

APP Words: Laying Down the Foundations

[6]

Three-Colour Palette

I still haven't figured out a colour scheme just yet, however I want to see what my design would look like with some colour on it so I chose three shades of grey. These three shades would then be the different shades of whatever colour I choose in the end, although I might make the darkest shade in a completely different colour. 

I drew three boxes and filled them in colours so that it'll be easier to fill the banner design in, as I just need to use the dropper tool to do so. I first filled in the colours for the banner -  I haven't yet incorporated what I've learnt from my experiments [6] - and then started to work on the ampersand.

For some sections they appear to be right at the back of the banner, so I just selected it to bring it to front. I then adjusted the parts that overlaps so that it looked like the ampersand is still going beneath the banner.

APP Words: Working on the Final Design - Never Give In Illustration

[6] [9]

I wanted to work my "Never Give In and Never Give Up" design on Illustrator as I wait for my Inkling to charge, in hopes of improving my vector skills. I looked back at Leslie Carbarga's book "Logo, Font and Lettering Bible" to refresh my knowledge a bit about some of their tools.

As I'm going to be drawing up a vector I didn't have to scan a perfect image of my design, so I just took a photo on my phone and uploaded it on Illustrator. I'm not too sure how to draw up the template just yet so I just created an A4 document (as it isn't larger than A4) and started working on it. 

I reduce the opacity of the sketch to around 35%, created a new layer for the line work, and then locked my sketch layer. 

APP Words: Working on the Final Design

I can finally make steps towards my final design, so the first thing I did was look through my pictures of tea leaves from my Pinterest board "Tea" and did a small drawing, trying to figure out how to do it so that it's like a pattern. I'm going to develop this further in Illustrator as they have an option on how to do patterns (but I need to look at some tutorials first!)

Then I had a look at the Twinings logo and after writing down some notes I tried my hand at drawing it. It went surprisingly successfully, although I'm worried that the type wouldn't work well at a small scale because of how tall the characters are.  

APP Words: Design Development - Teapot & Cup Design

After uploading my two designs I had (which you can see in this post) I was surprised to hear that most of my target market preferred the 'plain' design, saying that the elements of the other one distracted them from the "Never Give In and Never Give Up" illustration. After having a little think about it I've decided to follow their opinions because I realised that the other design might be a bit too "fun" for Twinings. Their designs are usually quite minimalist and sophisticated, especially in terms of illustration, so maybe a minimalist travel mug design might be best for them. [1]

I want to try out my idea again but with a slightly different design. As I was drinking some tea I thought of how tea could flow down the design and form the 'banner' of the Never Give In and Never Give Up. I used my board "Tea" as inspiration. 

I quite liked the look of this idea, and so took it across to a landscape orientation so that I could see what it would actually look like (or near enough) as a travel mug design. After that I made some small annotations on what could be adjusted. 

Conclusion:

Even though I quite like this idea I'm still unsure of whether or not it'll be suitable for Twinings, so what I'll do is carry on with the "plain" version, do it all up on Illustrator, and then figure out what to do next. It'll be easier to just add in a teapot and teacup if I did the plain version first after gathering some more feedback from my colleagues and target market and will be a lot quicker that way. This is because if I do draw from this sketch then... What if my target audience didn't like it? I'd have to try and adapt it onto it's own. It's definitely easier adding then taking away. [1]

[n] Learning Outcome

FMP: Illuminated Manuscripts Design

The Final Design

The Traditional Route
I have mentioned in my previous post that I was really inspired by Illuminated Manuscripts because of how incredibly detailed they were, and they instantly had that fairy tale feel to it and I found that they were very "rich" in the sense that only expensive designs would have that much detail in. Actually, thinking about it, I think only the rich were able to purchase such beautiful books!

I wasn't too sure on what I was going to do in terms of colour so I thought that I would do all of the drawing and inking first before going onto that. I wanted to just let myself go with the flow and not decide too much before I even start!

I start by drawing out the outline of the invitation (as I drew this on A4) with the dimensions of an A5 piece, and then drew another boundary of where the castle would be so that I could draw it as accurately as possible. And then I started to draw the castle!

Album Label - Screenshots & Design

I still need a CD label to go with my album - as I don't really want to leave the CD plain - so I downloaded an CD Label template off http://www.presentationsonpaper.co.uk/home/, as suggested by the label that I had purchased. I also downloaded a template off one of my colleagues - Alex Greenhead -  so that I could have two ways of going about this; either by using his template and doing it in Illustrator, or go and do it in Photoshop.

I chose to try out Illustrator first because it seems that he had placed the CD Labels exactly where they have been placed on the label paper.