OUGD505: Yankee candle research publication - Traditional aesthetic/ details.

I had previously spoken about wanting my book to take on a traditional aesthetic as Yankee candle is a very traditional brand. Therefore I looked into details of traditional books. There were two fine points in particular I found which I thought would help to push my book into that of the Traditional aesthetic and the Yankee candle brand, these are shown in images below:

Ornamental letters usually found at the start of each chapter in a book. 

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These ornamental letters were found in very old books dating back as far as the celtic era. Now when used in a modern sense, they are reminiscent of tradition and when looked at automatically take people back to a previous era. 

However I didn't want to go too historic with the design, as there was a chance that is could pull the piece from looking traditional to overly archaic. 

Therefore I looked for some design in which people had applied these details in a more modern sensibility, grounding the design in the current era, whilst still being reminiscent of the past. 

The two examples above draw upon the details of old ornamental type however firmly foot themselves within the modern world of design. The second piece of design is one that particularly inspired me for my book details. The design is a wedding invitation that was prescribed to have a story book theme. The design of the Ornamental letter looks somewhat modern due to its balance between ornamentation and minimalism. The letter combines both outline and fill shapes, however these are not clouded by any half toned, hand drawn style illustrations.  

I decided to use the ornamental letters as a consistent running theme throughout the titles of my book. Taking the first letter of each title and drawing it inspired by the above styles and completing the rest of the title in Yankee candles serif font 'Book Antiqua'. 

Not only did I want these letters to be adorned with detail, I wanted them to also be reflective of the heart of Yankee candle, the candles themselves. 

I sketched up ideas, using an extra bold version of the book antiqua font as a base, and adorning it with line, and white fill decorations, the main motif with a nod to candles. Below is the sort of Idea I came up with. I also experimented with doing the letters with both a white fill or black fill but found that the white tended to look too cluttered which Is what I wanted to stay away from. 

The figures which I needed to produce in the ornamental style were T,Y,H, F, 1 and 4, However once I felt comfortable with the first 4 I had drawn, shown above, I worked on them digitally. 

Inspired by the design of the invitations, I decided to take my page designs further by adding a slightly decorative border to each page. I again sketched up a design using only fill and outline elements, combining simple shapes and another candle motif. Once I scanned the design in as shown below I worked to create it digitally in illustrator. 

However I felt that this section of design could be changed to be more in tune with the Yankee candle brand and so I played around with the melting candle motif in the bottom corner, and interchanged it with the minimalist yankee candle logo, used across a range of their design. 

Below is how the border and titles appear when combines together: