FMP (BA): Poster Designs

I wasn't too sure where to start exactly but after writing down my thoughts in the last blog post I thought that I should start by drawing some compositions that involved my illustration for my book cover.

Due to the lack of information displayed on the Ftweekend “poster” that I saw in the newspaper I decided to add some additional details such as the date and location as well as a little heading. I'm still a bit unsure of whether or not that poster was actually for the festival but as FT weekend is sponsoring the event, I assume it was.

I sketched out a few ideas, trying not to simply repeat what I had done in the illustration and aimed to just show a segment of it. After I had run out of ideas I looked back at my previous post to have a think about what to do next.

I decided that I would just create a template for the poster where each of the designs I had done for my book would be dropped in. This is because when I looked at other exhibition posters such as Pick Me Up and the ones in Somerset House, they normally displayed someone's artwork which will be showed at the event. In this case, I will be displaying the designs of the book which features literary quotes and other subjects that will be included in the event (such as politics).
I thus quickly sketched out some ideas having been inspired by Somerset House's designs.

FMP (BA): Back Book Cover - Design Process

I found it much easier to design the back cover because of the fact that I had completed my first. All that needs to be displayed on this is "designed by Liz J Owen". I was going to do this through hand-lettering but I then realised that I would need to write up the copyright notes and other notes on the inside with an existing font anyway.

Putting that aside, I first focused on positioning my book and quill which I decided to include on the back as a small illustration. This was quite easy to do as I just edited my original file. 

Then it was just a case of adding in my type. I was already set on using Minion Pro as it's a really elegant and easy-to-read typeface as well as a serif one which would connect with what they use on the Oxford Literary Festival website.

That's all I wanted to have for the back... It looks quite plain but that's because I'll be displaying most of the information on the inside pages.

So here's what both of my covers look like as a DPS:

Reflective Thinking - Summary

I'm not quite sure about the logo so I decided to thus go back to concentrating on the front cover and logo arrangement. I would like to add more information such as a blurb to the back, but I think I might do this when I have put everything into InDesign to carry out some test prints.

N.B. Please note that I had produced my front cover design process all at once, so this post may appear to have been posted after I had made my adjustments with the logo even though it was done around the same time.

FMP (BA): Front Book Cover - Digital Design Process

Making Adjustments

I scanned everything in and made adjustments. This process didn't take long at all as I have gotten so used to doing it, and once everything was done I put them all together on the same document and began to put everything in place. I had taken note that the quill was too close to the book so I shifted it upwards using both the lasso tool and transform tool.

Fixing the Type

With that done I decided to edit "Quotes" in Illustrator because the inconsistency with the white gaps was really affecting the whole design and made it look slightly messy. Using the Pen tool I started to draw the white gaps again - having redone the inking and filling in the gaps before scanning it into Illustrator.

I didn't want to spend too long doing this so most of the white gaps were inaccurate, as I just wanted the general idea. I wasn't too sure about this though so I added in some white diamonds to see if that would improve it. 

FMP (BA): Book Cover Sketches & Final Sketch

After gaining some feedback I was really motivated to do my book cover design, and as I was flicking back through my previous sketches I realised that they have become really structured and 'stiff'. Therefore I went back even further to look at the designs just before I reached this stiff appearance, and found one of my sketches where the words were flowing around the page. 

That together with one of my inspirations, the Ely poster, I began to start sketching again and this time just improve on this 'flow'. I really liked how the designer connected the words and let some of the swirls overlap them. These swirls have a very strong Art-Nouveau appearance as they are heavily detailed and there is more focus on the illustration than on the type.

One of my old sketches:

Sketches & Development

I had the idea that quills will be floating around the type and towards the book like words floating off of the page. There was going to be a mixture of flow and structure, so I kept in mind that I wanted my type to remain in a set boundary. I too want the illustration to be dominant but not so much that the type disappears behind it.

At first I was going to display all of the information on the same page but, once again, after looking at how I did the DPS design for Moby Dick I decided to feature my name and "FTWeekend" on the back cover. 

FMP (BA): It Always Seems Impossible - DPS

For my Nelson Mandela design I decided to flick back to my old sketch where I had drawn up several layouts. The one I wanted to go for was where I only had the banner with his prison number on it, and his name beneath it. The background would be white as I want to keep this design as minimalist as possible - a heavy contrast to my other designs. This would then provide the viewer a small chance to breathe before turning over to another 'filled' design.

Before I moved onto designing the other page, however, I needed to make some small changes to my existing design. When I had done this design - it seems so long ago - I had asked for feedback and one of them was to delete his name from the banner and create an 'end' to it. Otherwise the banner would look like chains which isn't the connotation I want to produce. 

To do this I used the eraser tool to erase his name, and copied and pasted the 'end' of the banner that was at the top. I had roughly drawn a guideline for it, so I just shifted it so that it rests atop of it. Using the transform tool I flipped it horizontally so that it fits on the end. Then I used the brush and the eraser tool to smoothen it slightly. 

FMP (BA): Not all Those Who Wander Are Lost - DPS

With my the Raven DPS safely out of the way and awaiting feedback I can now work on my other DPS designs, and the first one that I want to do is the J.R.R. Tolkien quote. I am a big fan of his work and have always loved the little sketches of the maps in the books, so I used them as a big source of inspiration for this design.

I had the idea of just carrying the design on as if it was a map, possibly just using the same tea-stained background as I did before. They actually have a really good format so I might just use theirs as a reference. I really like how the compass' and the name of the map are laid out and drawn, so I thought the best place to start was with the book title and author's name. It would be nice to practice uncial handwriting again!

As it had been a while since I had done uncial lettering I allowed myself a couple of hours just to practice with the letters I was going to use. I first started with the ones I had already done before, and after a while I was beginning to get used to it again so I tried out different letters.

It didn't take me long until I was able to actually write out "the fellowship of the ring" with ease, so at least I had that section ready. I had to practice several times on how to write the uppercase K but once I got the hang of that I was able to write out "J.R.R Tolkien".

I was now able to do both lines and so on another page I used black in and wrote them out.

FMP (BA): The Raven DPS

I have decided to do this project separate from my other DPS designs that I had done so far as my process was a bit chaotic; I couldn't make my mind up about this design and kept going backwards and forwards, that even I am confused with what I did sometimes.

The Raven

For my Edgar Allan Poe piece I only really had one decorative font on there, so there was a possibly of either going with the same font or produce another one. I therefore produced four versions: the one that's already been done; two script styles in different thicknesses; and one sans serif with the same width and height as the sans serif I had drawn for my book cover.

I practised with my dip pen on the bottom of the page but it didn't really carry that thick-thin stroke effect I was looking for, so instead I just went with what I already had done with micron.

I scanned all of my versions in to have a closer look at what I had, and from this I picked out the advantages and disadvantages of each one.

FMP (BA): DPS Spread Designs

I've been a bit stuck with my book cover design so I thought that instead of lingering on it, I would move on to producing designs for my DPS so that I could carry on churning some creativity. I am worried that if I don't do any designing or sketching that I would lose inspiration... So here's a way to solve that.

The first one I worked with was for "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green, with the quote "My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations". I had a couple of solid idea of what I wanted it to look like which I quickly jotted down alongside my ideas for all of the other spreads:

-

The Fault in Our Stars 

Sketch

My first idea was to write the author's name and book title in the exact same format as I had done on the other page, so I lay a piece of paper over my design and lightly traced it's baseline. I then drew my cap-height and median lines in before writing out the title and name. For this I wanted to keep to the same typestyle as I had previously used.

My second idea was to use the same typestyle but on a straight line, and my third to just do it in sans serif on a straight line.

FMP (BA): The Raven

The Final Outcome

The Process

Drawing the Type

I wanted to be as accurate on the type as possible so I measured the width of the whole quote that I had done yesterday and halved it. This would then be the centre point of each section, for example, "Quoth the Raven" measured to 16.2cm so I halved it to get 8.1cm. I measured the centre of the paper I was working on and drew a faint line, as this line would serve as the centre point of all of the quotes. I then measured the points I had earlier according to this line so that all of the quote will sit central on the page. This is quite confusing to explain so hopefully the image below will help out a little bit. 

Now I can work on the type and I focused on the first section first (Quoth the Raven) because this one will be sitting on a straight line. I took reference from my sketches in terms of kerning and character width, and once the guidelines were done I was able to draw each letter.

To retain accuracy I made sure that the thickness of the letters were the same and used a ruler to make sure the lines were straight. This will help me out a lot later on when it comes to inking. 

FMP (BA): Moby Dick - Design Process

The Final Outcome

The Process

With the sketch all inked and scanned in I brought it up onto Photoshop and then went to Image > Adjustments > Invert to make the background black and everything else white. On a new layer I began to fill in the whale in white by drawing around it with the lasso tool and using the paint bucket. This was a lot easier than trying to paint it using the brush tool and erasing the areas that went outside of the lines.

FMP (BA): Dr Seuss - "Sketchy" Version

Reflective Thinking

I have briefly mentioned in a previous post that an illustrator named Carlos Garde-Martin came to visit the university and I managed to have a little chat with him about this project. While I was flicking through showing him some of my sketches and designs he pointed out that he really liked my hand-rendered work, and preferred my sketch version of my Dr. Seuss design than my digital one. This brought me back to when I was talking to one of my lecturers as he also mentioned that he preferred my sketch. I know I said that I would leave this quote until I've designed some more but while I was stuck on inspiration I decided to sketch out my design again. 

The Process

Sketch & Line Work 

To do this I simply traced my printed version onto another piece of paper and started to sketch it out like my old version, using two different thicknesses of micron pens when it came to line the work. 

FMP (BA): "You Are You..." Contin

The Final Piece

The Process

I wanted to develop this design because even though I'm going to be selecting a few of the most appropriate ones for the festival I just know that this design was "me". I've started to find my own voice with this and because I enjoyed doing it so much... Well, why not include it?

I brought the design back up in Illustrator to tweak the design slightly according to the annotations I made (which you can see here in a previous post). 

FMP (BA): You Are You Contin.

Okay so to pick up from where we left off, I scanned my sketch into the computer and started to work on Illustrator. I hadn't typed in the exact dimensions of the book as I wanted to mainly focus on the illustration itself, as I had the idea to crop it down at a later stage.

N.B I had taken a lot of screen shots for this exercise because there was quite a lot of adjustments made, so I had to bunch a lot of screenshots together in one picture. To see the images in more detail just click on them. 

Drafting the Type

I started to work on the type first as the type was one of the main focal points. I had quite a fair amount of practice with hand-lettering now on Illustrator so I was able to do it in just a few hours (compared to a day, which was how long it used to take me when I first started). I haven't really thought about colour schemes just yet so I did everything in shades of grey. 

I worked on the easiest type styles first, and to make it as accurate as possible I drew each letter as if it was sitting on a straight line before tilting it slightly. I might change this later but for now I wanted to see what it looked like. I did this for quite a lot of the type - mostly all of it - so it was rather time consuming. I drew the hat outline around the same time. 

FMP (BA): Lettering Exercise - "You are You"

After gathering all of the necessary research for this little 'project' I started to draw up some sketches that was inspired from this research and from the list of connotations I had written down. This time I aimed more for the style of lettering I had stumbled upon in my last university project (APP Words) because I really enjoyed doing it, and it would match the 'fun' aspect of the quote. 

I wasn't too sure where to begin at first so I just wrote out the quote and put a circle around the words that really stood out before moving on to drafting my first layout. It was a bit all over the place at first as I tried out different layouts, working with one section at a time. I kept looking back at my inspirations before deciding that I should integrate my words with illustration to see if the process would be any easier. 

It was at this point that I wasn't too sure if my quote would be appropriate for the book, but then I realised... What if children were looking at it? After all, there would be children at the book festival, so I could try and create a product that appealed to the general audience. Thus I carried on sketching and drawing up ideas. 

Once I decided that I wanted the design to be more illustrative I tried out drawing up some crazy type styles with lots of decoration, much like the type shown in the pieces I gathered as inspiration [examples]. It was at this point where I wanted the type to be placed within the striped red-and-white hat that the cat wears in Dr. Seuss' books.
This type of placement was inspired by weareyawn where I analysed one of their pieces where it had the type within the shape of the Direwolf. [click here to see my analysis] 

FMP (BA): Lettering & Illustrator Exercise - "My Dream"

The Final Piece

The Process

As Valentine's Day is around the corner I was really inspired to come up with a romantic quote, and looked through some quotes by Nicholas Sparks who wrote The Notebook and other notable romance novels. After a while I came across one that was short and sweet: "You are, and have always been, my dream."

APP Words: Sorting out the Details

[5] [6] [9]

Camouflage Problem

I now need to sort out that 'camouflage' connotation that kept cropping up whenever I looked at the tea leaves pattern, so I went back to the tea leaves document and using the sketch as reference I started to delete some of the leaves. 

I copied this square and went back to my mug document, pasting it on the side before reducing it so that it was the same size as the other pattern. I then created a swatch and changed the background.

I put the designs side-by-side to compare them both, and I much prefer the one that had the lesser amount of tea leaves. The leaves are more prominent because there's now more of a focus on the larger ones, so it doesn't resemble the camouflage pattern so much anymore. 

APP Words: Final Design Contin.

[4] [6] [8] [9]
One of the main focal points are the teapot, banner and cup, and it is necessary that the link between these is smooth to reflect the flow of tea from the pot so I created a new document to solely focus on that. I made the background green so that I could see everything clearly.
To try and do this link as smoothly as possible I created a smooth curve on a new layer. I used my sketch to help me out with this as well.

I used the paintbrush tool to try and make it a bit smoother, and it was a lot easier to draw the line with! I wish I discovered this function earlier. I just used the paintbrush to draw my line in the end.
That's when I realised that the paintbrush tool also had anchor points, so this should hopefully make it easier to draw the 'banner'. I ungrouped the Never Give In illustration and started to adjust it to match the line.

APP Words: Putting Everything Together

[6] [9]
I've finished all of the illustrations that I wanted to include, so now is just the case of putting them all together and then I could upload it into Photoshop to start adding texture and shading.

I am going to use the latest template - as that was the one that worked best, shown in this post - so I opened up all of the documents I needed, then put them together with the template document on separate layers. I deleted the old templates then saved it under a New Document so that I didn't lose anything.
Then I played around with all of the illustrations, scaling and arranging, before I came up with a layout I was satisfied with. I've left the colours for the Twinings label because I had the idea of including the logo on the teapot... Hmm.

As you can see, I decided to choose the most successful vote from when I gathered feedback from my peers. [4]

I tried to use the pattern but it doesn't seem to appear on this document, only in the tea leaves document, so I copied and the illustration next to the template and made a pattern by going onto Edit > Define Pattern. I then selected the template, and used the pattern as a fill colour. However it only showed the leaves and didn't have a background.

I tried out a little experiment where I filled in the pattern background with the same colour as the template background. I reduced the size of the pattern because the leaves were way too big. Adding a background colour didn't seem to work so I made it transparent. [4] [8]

The background of the template was still transparent even though the tea leaves pattern worked so I just duplicated the template, and on the duplicate I set the fill colour as the dark green. It worked! Result! I thought that the light green leaves were too light so chose a shade closer to the background. [4] [8]

Conclusion: [5]
It's nice to see everything coming together but I cannot help but think of an army camouflage when I glance at the background. I need to change something about it but I really cannot think what... Maybe I do need to make the tea leaves larger, or at least reduce the amount of them in a pattern.

So my next steps are:

• Entwine the banner with the teapot and cup
• Change the background pattern by reducing the amount of leaves in it
• Add colours to Twining label
• Convert everything to Photoshop

[n] Learning Outcome

APP Words: Template Prototype 2

[4] [5] [8] [9] 
Even though I already have a template drawn out I would need to do it on the computer and then print it out just to double check that the dimensions are correct. This is really important because everything could go horribly wrong; it isn't ideal to produce a design if it doesn't fit on a standard travel mug size!

I scanned in my sketch and started to trace around it using the pen tool. It was nice and easy to do as it was quite a simple shape, so this didn't take long at all. I then hid the sketch layer and printed the template out to wrap it around the mug.

It didn't fit as well as I hoped, and I thought it was probably better to actually base it off the costa design.

APP Words: Tea Leaves Pattern

[9]

Right, now it's time to (finally) produce the tea leaves pattern! I haven't really done many - if at all - patterns on the computer so I might learn something new today. 

Luckily I found quite a detailed tutorial (here) [4] to help me out with this, because even though I have roughly sketched my pattern I know that it wouldn't be ideal as everything needs to be placed perfectly so that it would repeat effortlessly. 

I first start off by uploading a photo of my pattern sketch and draw out vectors of all of the elements that I want within the pattern design. Once I was done I selected them all, copied them, and created a new document sized 600px x 600px. I then pasted them and shifted them to the side for a bit.

I used the rectangle tool to create a box by selecting it and then clicking anywhere on the screen, then I typed in the dimensions 300px x 300px. While it's still selected I went to View > Snap to Grid so that it'll be easier for me to place all of the tea leaves in, and put the box at the centre of the document. I locked this box. Then it was just the case of placing all of the tea leaves, taking reference from my sketch.