Fairy Tale Wedding Stationary

My FMP (Final Major Project) was to design an invitation for a fairy tale wedding and, if I had the time, some other parts of wedding stationary. I wanted to create something that links in with traditional media, taking inspiration from Illuminated Manuscripts and the work of Jan Pienkowski.

Portraits: Design Brief, Learning Outcomes & Analysis

Design Brief

University of Kent at West Kent College

HND Graphic Design

Year 2,  Term 1

Modules: Option Module Illustration

     OR    Option Module Photography

(please note that whichever module you pick you must also use for the second project in this portfolio for Options)

Preamble

At this stage of your HND you are offered the chance to undertake further work within a pathway – these are illustration or photography.

In answer to this brief you must produce outcomes that conform to ONE of the options. You should check the appropriate learning outcomes and work to achieve these.

The Brief

 New Scientist magazine is running an article about the psychology of faces. You are asked to design an editorial image made in any format that you like (providing it can be assessed against either the Illustration Module or the Photography Module).

Design the editorial image to fit one page of the magazine (using the proper format).

You should also include on the page in any way you feel is appropriate a small label that details the name of the sitter and no more than 20 words describing them.

Specific Learning Outcomes

Please see Moodle and your course handbook for the specific learning outcomes for each module. Please note that the pathways options (photo and illustration) have different learning outcomes.

Screenshots - Album Sleeve

So, like I did with the first album cover design, I open up InDesign and wrote the following values for the dimensions. I used the largest dimensions.

Logo Design

The Result

And now onto the process...

Logo Design Research - Mood Boards & Inspirational Designs

The Logo is the most important thing when it comes to identity design; it brings it's own connotation to the brand it's representing, so I'm going to take special care when it comes to designing one for Jonny Pain.

CD Cover Research - Moodboards, Inspirational Designs & Templates

Mood Boards

I'm not sure which way I'm headed with the CD design so I  start again by creating a mood board of "grungey" CD designs. This is to gather some sort of idea of what rock music - most specifically post-hardcore bands - would have on their designs and if there is a specific style similarity. I have also looked at the bands that Jonny Pain had mentioned that inspired them. 

LizJOwen - Metallic Grunge Type

I did some experimenting with layer styles in Photoshop today because I wanted to start playing around with different typefaces (as the main focus is on typography after all). I used this tutorial that I found by typing "grunge type tutorials" and I thought it would be really good to use in future.
I took some screenshots because it's a bit of a habit now, and I also want to show you how I did it step-by-step. It wasn't really necessary as you could easily just look at the tutorial... But oh well!

Typeface | Rothenburg Decorative
Brushes | Subtle Grunge Brushes 

I first start by creating a new document at 72dpi and 1800x1300px. I filled in the background layer with black and then created a new layer - Grunge Brushes - and just took a couple of the brushes and dotted them around, varying with different styles to create more texture.

To-Do List

My projects always start with a to-do list of some sort. I don't know why but I just find it so much easier when I have one of these lists because during those projects I didn't... Well, imagine me just rushing around the room waving my arms like a lunatic. Yes, I have panic attacks when I don't know what I'm doing.

I've been doing these lists for as long as I can remember - I do them on a daily basis when I know that there's a pile of things I needed to get done but I had put off because I am procrastinating too busy. I like to be organised and know what kind of "deadline" I was working under.

So this is my to-do list for my Live Music project:

• Mood boards - business cards, logos, CD covers
• Design Brief & L. Outcomes - analysis
• Background info. on band
• Sketches
• Screenshots
• Evaluation
• Tutorials 
• Research - type, business cards, music genres, logos, CD covers

I'll just tick these off when I have done them.

(Okay now that I've done this I'm kind of worried that I won't have time... I guess that is a downside to creating a to-do list!)

Live Music Design Brief

University of Kent at West Kent College

HND  Graphic Design

Year 2, Term 1/2

Project:   Live Music Brief

Module: Graphic Design and Typography 2

Une Annonce Importante

(Feeling a bit of the ooh la la vibe of la France.)

In case you don't know French, I have an important announcement to make! From this day I shall be using this blog for my uni work. ("Uni work?" "Ah, oui.") This is because I learnt a very important lesson that working on Word and having to print out everything the day before the deadline is a killer; it takes far too long and I have several panic attacks when I thought I hadn't saved a document etc etc.

This means that I'll be blogging a lot more (yay!) and it won't be of endless sketches and final pieces, but also of my research stage. I normally hate to put out my research to the public because of people just strolling along and copying & pasting my words and using them as my own, so I have included a little notice on the side of my blog saying please do not steal my ideas. It would be great if you could follow this as well! I might make it bold and shiny so that it'll attract your attention or have like a cat gif or something, tehe.

Aherm anyway enough rambling for now - I really shouldn't have drunk that tea - and onto whatever post I'm going to post next! I suppose I might as well start with a to-do list... Hmm.

Until next time,
Lizzie.

Avicide Illustration

In my last couple of posts I showed you the final design for both of my unsual words, but I thought I'd create a post displaying the illustrations themselves.

First up is my illustration for Avicide, my favourite out of the two.

Avicide means "the killing of a bird or birds" or "the slaughter of birds, bird-shooting". Pretty gruesome huh?

Tools | Biro | Photoshop to paint blood and do the blur

Unusual Words - Final Designs

I managed to finish my project two days before the deadline, woop woop!
I actually did a lot better in this project than I had done before. I guess that's because I had only researched on what was relevant instead of rambling off on one topic or another that wouldn't help me at all through my sketching and designing stage. Hmm.

Anyway here are my final designs, and I've also included a photo of when they were all printed out and pretty. I'm just so happy with them! Especially Avicide... Really tapped into my creepy side with that (not that I have a creepy side though!)

Printed out:

Margate Poster

Hello all!

I'm back again, and this time with a fairly old piece that I did in my first year at uni. Just thought I'd update this blog with all of my old posts from tumblr because I've decided to blog a lot more, so the next few posts would consist of my old work.

The Brief:

"Create a poster that is a (mainly) typographic response to your visit to the Turner Contemporary and Margate in general. This poster could be commissioned/used by the local tourist board to promote art in Margate in general and at the Turner contemporary in general. Please present this at A3 portrait format."

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