APP Words: YouTube Tutorials & Videos

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I am not very experienced in hand lettering so one of the first things I did other than gather inspiration was watch some videos on YouTube. It’s surprising how many good tutorials and ‘speed paints’ there are on YouTube, and I could spend forever just watching all of the videos.

Below are some of my favourite videos and those that I find most relevant for this project. I concentrated on mainly the layout of the type and how to draw/paint/sketch different type styles such as cursive, Blackletter and sans serif. 

How to Layout Hand Lettering Tutorial

Here 'Redhead Cobweb Crafts' covers the basic principals of typography where she takes the Times New Roman typeface and mimics it, looking at where the x-height, cap-height and baseline are. Then she shows how to shade in the thick strokes as well as drawing serifs. 

In the second part of her video she shows how to layout a phrase by circling 'major words' which will help decide which words would be emphasised. What's interesting about this was that when she wrote out the words she works from the middle, out, so that each letter would be placed at an equal distance (so that the last couple of letters wouldn't be squashed to fit on the line). She briefly talks about how to do other typestyles and how to shade letters. 

Intro to Hand Lettering

Unlike the previous video, Maureen Wilson (Made by Marzipan) talks about what kind of materials to use such as the ideal paper and ink/pen choice. She also stresses the importance of analysing existing typefaces to see how thick and thin the strokes are, where they sit on the lines, how 'curvy' they are, before moving onto drawing the letters. 

She mentions how we shouldn't worry if the letters aren't perfect, because "minor flaws can add charm and interest to the piece." This was quite a relief to hear as I had been worrying about drawing my letters perfectly! 

Another aspect that separates this video from the previous one is that she briefly talks about the connotations of the type style and that, for example, for words like 'love' how it's nicer to use script. She also says the layout of the type could reflect the quote. 

APP Words: Doodles

I watched a video interview on Steve Simpson and this really inspired me to go back to my childhood hobby; doodling. I just loved drawing doodles in the margins of my school book, and the way that Simpson has assembled his illustrations made it appear like he was bunching up a group of doodles. He creates such perfect compositions, and his cartoon characters just shows that illustration doesn't mean that everything has to be extremely perfect in terms of anatomy, but cartoons are acceptable as well! This was really inspiring for me because I am a bit of a perfectionist and got bogged down by the thought of having to draw 'perfect' characters... Now I can simply draw cute and funny little cartoons. 

This is the video in question:

It's just so inspiring! Especially when they show his little sketches, which he also does in his portfolio so that we could see how he managed to put the illustration together. 

After watching this video I decided to do some quick doodles in my sketchpad of almost anything related to this project. I tried out using different coloured pencils but it seems that they didn't really show up on the page as well as I thought, hence why it's difficult to see them in these photos. 

APP Words: Twinings

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As Twinings will be my "client" for this project I carried out some background information on the company, including what kind of teas they sell. I'm hoping for my travel mug to be aimed at coffee as well but because Twinings specialise in tea I might have to skip this idea.

Background Information

Twinings is a British-based tea company where a man named Thomas Twining wanted to produce a drink to topple coffee from the top spot as the nation's favourite beverage. The company was birthed 300 years ago – 1706 – and even now tea is a definite passion of theirs. They haven't sold any range of coffees (from what I can see of their product range) which shows that they have been true to Thomas Twining in promoting tea, even to this day and age.

“So far, ten generations of the Twining family have been there to watch it all happen, from the creation of our famous English Breakfast blend to supplying tea to the Red Cross for food parcels during the war. In fact, Stephen Twining still works for his family's company, helping to make sure Thomas's promise is never broken.”
(Quote source: History of Twinings)

List of Types of Tea

When I went onto their tea section I was overwhelmed by the different types of tea they sell; they sell so many flavours! Here is a list of the types of tea they provide:

Limited Edition Early Grey's

Black Tea

Decaffeinated Tea

Everyday Tea

Floral Tea

Green Tea

Redbush Tea

White Tea

Organic Tea

Flavoured Black Teas - International

Classic Earl Grey

Afternoon Tea: 

English Breakfast Tea

Assam Tea

Fruit and Herbal Teas

Simple Fruit Infusion Tea

Herbal Benefits Tea Blends

Black Loose Tea

White Loose Tea

Green Loose Tea

Oolong Loose Tea

Darjeeling Loose Tea

Flowers, Herbals and Fruit Loose Tea

Lady Grey

Yellow Loose Tea

You get the gist of it... They do do a wide range of teas, but from this list I can see that there are some main sections: Green, Black, Earl Grey, Herbal and Floral. Hopefully my design can cover most of these sections but I might have to do some variations in design just in case... But it would be more cost effective if I just produced one design. If I did two, Twinings would have to produce twice as many products and if one sells more than the other than the other would just be a waste.

APP Words: Hand Lettering Experiments

I haven’t dabbled in typography that much during my studies, and so I decided to carry out a few ‘experimentations’ before delving into research so that I could see what stage I’m at and what I could improve on. My focus will mainly be on the illustrations but as this is going beneath the ‘Words’ theme I would have to pay attention to the typography.

The brief doesn’t specifically state that I should do hand lettering but I thought that hand lettering has that organic and personal connotations as it’s done by hand (much like a watercolour painting could appear more ‘personal’ to the painter than a vectored image). Plus I think it would be a good idea to try something different and not be constrained by existing typefaces.

In my first experimentation I concentrated on the layout of the words rather than their form, because composition is the key if I’m going to do a motivational quote. I was inspired to do this after looking at Sean McCabe’s work and he also recommends laying out the words before stylising them. After picking out the ideal layout I then ventured into type style.

I moved on and then looked at doing just one sentence in a series of random styles. I did this while waiting for my lecture to start so it was quite spontaneous and I didn’t have any material to reference from. The sans serif looked like a cartoon and the italic script looked a lot softer and girly (which wouldn’t be good for a unisex design). However if I did want to produce something like Steve Simpson’s or Linzie Hunter’s work this could work as a standalone or group of words. 

APP Words: Typography Inspiration

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Typography is one of the main focus of this travel mug design, so I shall first do some research on inspirational typographers and perhaps hand-lettering artists. I shall possibly include an overlap of typography and illustration in this post to make things easier, but I might do a separate post on illustration on its own.

I had built up on this post throughout my project, so these inspirational typographers were ones that I found over the duration of the whole research and experimentation process. I might create a new post later on if I find anyone near to the end of the project.

Moodboard

Now that I know the brief of one of my APP, I’m going to continue to look for inspiration on hand lettering as I still don’t really know much about it. Here is my first mood board from the “possible ideas” post:

I want to look mainly at typography and their form, but I’ll also include those with illustration in it (or I’ll never find it again!) Now that I have Pinterest I find it easier to gather inspiration because I wouldn’t have to create a mood board in Photoshop and link everything, as Pinterest links the images back to their original sources. 

Image sources: Matt Hunsberger http://www.saysomethingposters.com/2011/12/21/it-doesnt-matter-how-slow-you-go-as-long-as-you-dont-stop/; Oh So Beautiful Paper http://ohsobeautifulpaper.com/2013/09/calligraphy-inspiration-hardink-calligraphy/; Oh So Beautiful Paper http://ohsobeautifulpaper.com/2013/09/well-said-type-31/; Fabian De Lange http://www.behance.net/gallery/London-Show-us-your-type/9552693; Printerette Press http://www.printerettepress.com/; Madison Park Group http://madisonparkgroup.com/ (Photo credits from Oh So Beautiful Paper); Kate Forrester (2) http://www.kateforrester.co.uk/; Joan Quiros http://www.behance.net/JoanQuiros; Steph Baxter http://www.behance.net/stephsayshello; Shauna Lynn http://www.shaunaparmesan.com/; Svetlana Lomakina http://www.behance.net/lomakina; Jill De Haan http://www.behance.net/jilldehaanart; Mary Kate McDevitt http://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/MaryKateMcDevitt; Jessica Hische http://jessicahische.is/awesome;       Aoirostudio http://creattica.com/typography/the-grid-inspired-by-tron-legacy/49235; Christopher Fowler http://christopherfowler.deviantart.com/; Jamie Smith http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamiesmithdesign/; Craig Ward http://www.behance.net/wordsarepictures; Adolfo Correa http://www.behance.net/kultsi; Sam Bevington http://thebevlak.com/      

To view more of my inspirations you can look at my ‘Typography’ collection here. I have collected as many inspirational pieces I can so not all of them would relate to this project.

APP Words: Design Brief Analysis

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As the proposal is the main brief (with the APP brief as the background/overall brief) I shall have to analyse it to ensure that I hit all of the right spots so that I could produce a successful product. The learning outcomes for the APP has already been done, so click here to see it.  

To make things easier I shall copy and paste the whole brief again to analyse.

"Background Information

Tea and coffee seem to be rising in popularity; it isn’t unusual to see a person stumbling into work or class with a mug of coffee or tea in hand to wake them up. It is also an easy way to relax with friends after a hard day of work. We often look upon inspirational quotes to boost our motivation to get us through the week long of reports or essays we have in our workplace and yet they can even go to the lengths of providing us with the courage to pursue our life long dreams.

Twinings is a British-based company that specialises in tea, and due to their interest in the environment they would like to have a travel mug that would appeal to students. Their aim is to help students cut down from continuously buying paper cups and save money by using their own tea bags. The student could always have a part of home with them in their travel mug, even when they’re far away from it.

The Brief
You are to design the outer design of a travel mug using inspirational words integrating illustration where possible. To reach a wider audience you may design an appropriate unisex design, as the company (Twinings) that would be supplying this product could maximise the potential to sell. You should associate this project with the idea of “Words” theme that is outlined in the learning outcomes."

Background Information

As stated above, my "client" (I say "client" because this is a made-up university brief) is Twinings which is a British-based company specialising in tea. The fact that they're interested in environmental factors would mean I would probably have to create a design that's environmentally friendly but then again my design would be for a ceramic travel mug which will be used more than once. This would give me more freedom, nevertheless I would still like to look into environmental issues.

Recycling is still very expensive and actually uses a lot more energy and this might be the reason why it's ideal to use a ceramic travel mug because it won't use as much energy... I would need to do some more research to confirm this though.

Breaking Down the Brief

I will highlight the part of the brief that mentions 'inspirational quotes' as that seems to be one of the most important factors. I need to do something light and amusing to brighten up a student's day, so this might mean that I'll have to use bright and bold colours or intentional puns. To make it easier for me to break this down I shall list all of the main aspects as bullet points.

• The "client" - Twinings

Need to look at their company information - logo, design, environmental factors, existing mug designs or even travel mug designs.

• Inspirational quotes

Could be really long or even short quotes. The longer quotes could cover the whole of the mug and could be the main focal point. I would therefore need to look for inspirational quotes or find out what makes words inspiring, because I could simply do something like, "Good morning sweetie! You can do it!"

• Target marker - Students - Unisex

I am part of this target market so I would need to find designs that I would find appealing as well as asking my fellow colleagues and friends who are also students or around that age group. I need to produce something for men and women, so I should avoid fully 'feminine' and 'masculine' designs. 

• Travel Mug Design

I need to have a look at travel mug dimensions, possibly purchasing one of the ideal size so that I could measure it up. I would also need to look at existing designs to see what's in fashion and on trend because I want my design to appeal to the target market. This emphasises the thought of having them take pictures of their own mugs so that I know what designs they have already purchased. I shall also look at Twinings mug designs and see if they do travel mugs. 

• Illustration

It mentions that I could mix up the typography with illustration, and this is ideal for me because I love illustration. I've already listed some typographers and illustrators in my proposal so I will be having a look at their work to see how they do it. 

Conclusion:

By breaking up the brief into simple, short bullet points I'll be able to draw up a successful design more easily because I if I ever needed to refresh my mind on what needs to be done I could just flick back to this post and quickly read through everything.

I've noticed that I've got quite a short deadline to work with so I shall have to make sure that I only do relevant research so that I can dedicate my time to experimentation, unlike my last APP where I seemed to have run out of time for this. 

[n] Learning Outcome

APP: Proposal - Words

Liz Owen
Graphic Design BA (Hons)
Advanced Professional Project

Background Information
Tea and coffee seem to be rising in popularity; it isn’t unusual to see a person stumbling into work or class with a mug of coffee or tea in hand to wake them up. It is also an easy way to relax with friends after a hard day of work. We often look upon inspirational quotes to boost our motivation to get us through the week long of reports or essays we have in our workplace and yet they can even go to the lengths of providing us with the courage to pursue our life long dreams.

Twinings is a British-based company that specialises in tea, and due to their interest in the environment they would like to have a travel mug that would appeal to students. Their aim is to help students cut down from continuously buying paper cups and save money by using their own tea bags. The student could always have a part of home with them in their travel mug, even when they’re far away from it.

The Brief
You are to design the outer design of a travel mug using inspirational words integrating illustration where possible. To reach a wider audience you may design an appropriate unisex design, as the company (Twinings) that would be supplying this product could maximise the potential to sell. You should associate this project with the idea of “Words” theme that is outlined in the learning outcomes.

Research and Methodology
I’ll be looking into existing designs of both travel mugs and ‘normal’ mugs, and as the inspirational quote/illustration will be the main theme of the mug I’ll also be looking at hand lettering tutorials and books. Here are some websites and books I’ll be looking at:

“Hand Job: A Catalogue of Type” by Michael Perry
The Association of Illustrators - http://www.theaoi.com/
Behance – http://behance.net/
Hand Lettering by Sean Wes - https://seanwes.com/
Linzie Hunter - http://www.linziehunter.co.uk/

By researching into existing designs will give me a general idea on how much space is on the coffee mug – so the dimensions of that and the wrapping – and would also help me figure out what people are looking for in a mug. Do they want it to be incredibly decorative, or simple?

I haven’t yet dabbled in hand lettering and hand type so it would be good if I could practice and gain inspiration from people who are experienced in this field. By looking at books like “Hand Job” will help me out with this as well as being a source of inspiration.

I could also talk to my fellow classmates to see what they are looking for in coffee mug designs so that I could do some primary research on it. This is quite important because they will be my target market.

Reflection, Testing and Learning Outcomes
At the end of each research stage I would draw up conclusions to see if they contribute to my designing process. This would also ensure that the research is relevant because even if it doesn’t appear to be at the beginning I would still include it in my sketchpad just in case it helped me out in future. In my conclusions I could also mention how they are relevant to the project, for example: Does this help me understand hand lettering? About the current trends in illustration? Even during my sketching stage I could write annotations of where I got my inspiration.

As seen in a previous post, I have analysed each learning outcome to ensure that I fully understand it. For example, one of my learning outcomes is: “Develop skills of independent study, resource utilisation, problem solving and decision taking”. To cover this learning outcome I could make continuous analysis of everything I had done and draw up conclusions to show how I have solved each ‘problem’.

Experimentation
I would test my product by showing it to the majority of students that I know of and – as I have mentioned above – to my classmates as they are a part of my target market. I could also talk to those who aren’t necessarily students but in full-time work and around that age (so up to their mid-twenties). I know that A Level students would require the same inspiration, so I’ll be testing them as well.

Another sort of experimentation I would like to carry out is doing lots of hand lettering sketches and illustrations so that I could expand my knowledge in combining them. This project will be a bit challenging for me as I haven’t done it before which gives me more reason to do lots of experiments and research on it.

Professional Practice
After I have done all of my research, sketches, and final design I would like to actually make the coffee mug wrap by purchasing a plain travel mug and some paper to wrap around it, or find websites where I could customize travel mugs. This means that I have to plan ahead to ensure that I have all of the materials in time in a couple of weeks before the deadline date.

Production and Contingency Planning
Here I have drafted out a timetable to cover all of my APP projects as I aim to handle each one the same. I had already displayed this on a previous post but here it is on it’s own:

I shall stick to this schedule because if it might cause some complications for me in future if I keep putting a particular project, especially because I’ll be working alongside my dissertation. I can do this by writing up daily to-do lists to keep at a calm pace.

N.B Please note that this is a university project, meaning that this isn't a brief provided by Twinings. I am just using them as a potential client. 

APP Home (AOI): Evaluation

The Final Piece
My aim for this piece was to show a different perspective on the city of London, having been inspired by the work of Jan Pienkowski and storyboard techniques. I wanted to produce that magical appearance to portray London as being ‘Wonderland’ and the home to many little stories that are silently significant to the development of it as a city.
By using purples and blues I have set London in a surreal night time scene and also created connotations of magic. Purple is a colour heavily associated with this as it’s incorporated into all things Halloween as well as being used in fantasy art.

Most of my learning outcomes mention being able to undertake a project in a professional manner and produce an effective piece. I believe that my illustration is effective and is a perfect amalgamation of known and unknown methods; I was able to explore into the territory of digital painting, and yet I could also rely on my knowledge of watercolour and inking.

Drawing the Buildings - Perspective and Composition
In regards to my project as I whole I found drawing the buildings and perspective most challenging. I haven’t really drawn buildings before so I had to look carefully at my references to make sure that they were done accurately. I wasn’t able to do all of the tiny details in great detail, but I had managed to draw the general outline.

I explored with the perspective and used what information I had gathered from my research to achieve this. I would like to experiment with perspective in my other projects because it’s a really handy tool and I quite enjoyed creating an unusual composition. Even though my experiment with my second perspective wasn’t as effective as the first I learnt that larger objects leads the eye, so I should’ve drawn the Big Ben at the bottom and shifted the bus to the side. I did try this out in Photoshop (as shown in my experiment) but it didn’t turn out so well. This is because each of the buildings were drawn for the first perspective so when everything was shifted around, the perspective had to shift, which was quite hard to do even with the warp tool. Maybe next time I'll draw the Big Ben and the Bus at the bottom of the page so that it was bottom-heavy, but as I've already mentioned this was my first time I explored with an unusual perspective. At least I'll know for next time!

Poster Sizes
I have created two versions of my poster, one fit for A3 so that I may include it in my portfolio, and one in Double Royal.
The Double Royal poster design was more effective with the type placed beneath the image so that I could show the full illustration, and although the A3 version doesn't obscure any objects of the illustration I just find that the type sits more comfortably in the Double Royal. Unfortunately when I tried to carry this composition across to A3 the text would've been at a very, very small size, and I would have to cut it down so that it was actually smaller than A3 as the illustration wouldn't fit otherwise. This is why I thought it best to have two versions and present my Double Royal poster as a mockup.

Research
Initially, it was quite difficult to research into London folklore until I found one of the books done by Helen East. If it weren’t for this book then I’d still be stuck trying to figure out stories to portray and would’ve gone for the ‘obvious’ ones such as The Portrait of Dorian Gray or Sherlock Holmes. By looking more into the lesser-known narratives I was able to widen my knowledge and learn more about London.

Experimenting with Different Materials
As it was a purely illustrative piece it pushed my boundaries as an illustrator. I have played with aspects I wasn’t experienced in, experimented with watercolour, and managed to mix both traditional and digital media effectively. It has shown me that even though digital painting is difficult it all pays off in the end, and the methods of experimenting with colours are endless.
I have also found my ‘signature style’, which was something that relied on detailed line drawing and also watercolour painting. I would’ve like to do something entirely watercolour-based but wasn’t able to with this drawing as I hadn’t converted it onto watercolour paper. Next time I hope to try it out with watercolour!

I found experimenting with watercolour most enjoyable, because not only did it make me use unusual materials that I wouldn’t normally even think of, it made me realise that unsuccessful results were okay (the rock salt was perhaps the only method that worked). It was all part of the learning process.  Now it only makes me want to try more experiments!

Update - 14.12.13
I'm glad that I left my adjustments a couple of days after I had produced my design because I was able to look at it with fresh eyes. Even though I haven't managed to find the time to tackle a new composition I was able to change the layout of my poster so that it resembled the Double Royal poster but in A3 size. I preferred this text layout, and it was more consistent with previous AOI and Serco Prize Poster designs.

APP Home (AOI): Unveiling Wonderland

Update: To see my updated version, please click here

As I've mentioned in my previous post, I am going to produce two designs for submission; one as an A3 poster, and another as a mockup of what the Double Royal would look like. I'll also submit my illustration as a standalone.

This illustration was... Challenging. I haven't really ventured into digital painting that much so there were some parts where I struggled but I'm very pleased with the results nevertheless. It's really nice to see that it is possible to mix traditional and digital media without looking too 'artificial'.

A3 Poster Version

APP Home (AOI): Further Experimentation, Take Two

I decided to give my experimentation another try after looking at the newer perspective I created (which somehow didn't seem that 'comfortable' in my opinion). I'm going to try just shifting the bus around as that might be the reason why the newer perspective was a bit 'uncomfortable' for me as well as the other elements so that they cover one side of the illustration, leaving plenty of space for the silhouettes.

I first started by duplicating the most recent file because I didn't want to lose any adjustments I had made previously, and then I used the lasso tool to draw around the bus. I only selected the line layer first that's what I wanted to focus on. I duplicated this to a new layer "Bus on own". I then moved this layer to sit in front of the Big Ben and the other building as well as the coloured bus layer. Duplicating this Big Ben layer ("BB Edited") I erased the areas where it overlapped with the bus.

I used the same method for the bridge although had to make some more changes: I shifted the end of the bridge to the place just before the original bus, then erased this bus. After this I moved the layer and turned it, placing it behind the Big Ben. I erased any overlapping areas.