OUGD503/ RESPONSIVE: Studio brief 2 :Bear cereal/ collaborative: Character development.

OUGD503/ COLLABORATION.

BEAR CEREAL.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.

Today I worked on the character/letter ideas we had, in which the children would be able to cut out the animal letter from the back of the box, place it on matching stand and keep it as a visual reference in their house, whether they wanted to collect the letters of their name or the full alphabet, for the range myself and Caitlin have decided to design the boxes for 4 different animals. 

The first animal letter I started to work with was B for bear. 

The process I started with was taking a capital B, (Helvetica bold) and editing the shape and features of the B, to also give it attributes of a bear.

Once I sketched the idea I scanned it into illustrator and began penning over the illustration.  

I tried to create an expression on the bear that was realistic or authentic to a grizzly bear, however wasn't too scary for young children.  

I then started trying to create a texture to make the bear look furthermore realistic, I could also further the design in the future, and help the children learn about animals more cognitively, as they are learning about the animals using more than one sense (sight and touch). 

I continuted to apply the texture to the rest of the bear, however I found that it didn't take very well and failed to look particularly realistic, and so I searched for something that would be more appropriate.  

I found that with the style of the illustration I had done, the textured patten was just too heavy and bold, and that it needed something more delicate that would support the rest of the illustration rather than distract from it. For this reason I used the same colour pallet, however I changed the shape of the texture to small vertical fine lines.

To take this further I decided to apply an illustrator texture to the body of the bear which I had given a gradient, the texture I applied was grain, with a sprinkled affect. This stopped the surface of the bear looking so perfect and gave it some roughness.

I then checked in with Caitlin and some other peers who suggested I could try a different expression on the bear, as the current one still might be too scary for young children, therefore I created a few different options. 

Below I changed the shape of the muzzle and gave the bear smaller teeth, as well as adding lines under the eyes and over them which people often get when smiling. 

Next I simply added whites into the eyes of the design above, however I felt that adding this detail combined with the lines above and below the lines made the eyes appear too agressive. 

I took the original mouth shape with the large teeth and applied whites to the eyes to see if it appeared less wild, which it did, however it had now become slightly emotionless in the face.

I then took the bear with the new teeth and mouth shape and applied the lines above and below the eyes, as well as white highlights in the eyes. I felt that this was the most successful design so far. the new mouth shape gave a hint of smiling, however still seemed wild, and the eyes witheld an expression that supported the rest of the face.

I tried the exact same design with the old muzzle shape and found this worked just as well as the previous. I sent the final design I had come up with to Caitlin and we decided that the design below was most preferable of the two. 

we took the above illustrations and any other ideas we had to the next class, it was here we decided that Caitlin would hand draw each of the letters and then I would recreate them digitally.

Below is the next illustration I began to work on after Caitlin had sent me the sketch she had done.

I flipped the sketch so it took on the frame of the letter J and traced over the illustration with the pen tool.

I changed a couple of characteristic of the drawing, such as the eyes to match those that I had already done for the bear. 

I adjusted the facial features slightly to be more in tune with the previous bear character I had illustrated and digitalised. I then began to colour in the jellyfish, giving it colours that were most fitting (as jellies are usually clear). I decided to colour the fish in with a pale mint and pink colour, as these are the colours seen in jellyfish when catching the light, or the blue of the surrounding ocean. I textured the head of the jellyfish in illustrator, to cohere with the texture of the bear.

I then coloured in the tentacles of the jellyfish using deeper and more bold shades of the pale colours I had previously used for the head. I thought that adding gradients allowed the jellyfish to look more mystical and ethereal, as it does when it travels through the ocean. 

Above are the two characters I have illustrated so far against a cream background (As on the box). 

Next Caitlin sent me the character we had decided on for the letter 'C'. C for Chameleon.

 

Again I took the letter into illustrator and drew around it with the pen tool.

In order to achieve the chameleon above I split the character into five different sections. The body, the eye, the spine, the chin and the head fin. I applied heavy gradients of about 10 different colours to each of these five sections. Once I had done this, I applied the crystallise effect to each area individually, this created the texture in which the chameleon looks like it has a number of diamond shaped facets across its body. Not pleased with this as the final product, I wanted to edit the surface of the character to really draw upon the scaly skin of a reptile. In order to do this I applied the mosaic tile texture to each section, which broke the previous facets into smaller scales, which looked more true to a chameleons skin.  

We then looked back at the characters and compared them to the current branding and decided that they were particularly coherent and could be improved. Caitlin suggested that we should eliminate the textures and use flat colour instead, as the brand already has this focus and style. Before I digitalised the final two letter characters I edited the current 3 to be more consistent with the brand. 

I went back and edited the previous letters I had done removing any textures and turning the character letters into completely flat colour objects. These would then be more honest to the current branding. 

The chameleon character took the most work as I was quite adventurous with different textures. However I managed to still imply the same ideas as previous (scaly skin etc) however using the new rule of flat colour only. As I had taken the textures away, I used darker, and lighter shades of my main colours to give the characters some depth. 

I then moved onto the elephant illustration Caitlin had sent to me, and played around with shading, facial features and extra details, subtracting and adding until I found the best combination (pictured bottom)

We took these new flat character versions to the next crit and were told they were more in keeping with the brand style and personality, however they felt that we could improve the appearence of the chameleon to be easier for the children to identify. One of the first things children learn about chameleons on our cereal box, in in regular education, is that they have the ability to change the colour of their skin. This is what makes the chameleon stand out from other reptiles. However when it was shaded in a variety of greens, the illustration looked like it could be representative of one of these other many reptiles. Therefore we made a joint decision to change the colour of the chameleon to be more experimental and distinguishable. 

I then passed this onto Caitlin, and she made a selection of the chameleons in different colours which could be placed onto different parts of the box. 

OUGD505: Yankee candle publication - Box front cover design.

I had decided the concept for the front of my box which was to create a doorway scene, as if when people opened the book they were 'opening the door on Yankee candle'. I had to keep in mind the traditional aesthetic of Yankee candle and create a scene that is considerate of this. I began looking at different doorways for inspiration, as many doorways could be traditional but not in keeping with the brand. 

I loved the simplicity of this doorway, and the simple impressions on the door, placed against a traditional red brick background. However this door did seem slightly too modern for the current aesthetic of the brand, as the doorway is quite minimalist. 

I found that this doorway breathed the essence of Yankee candle, the layered impressions, and concrete framework are reminiscent of the edwardian era. However I wanted to find an edwardian door with more detail and so I began to look further. 

I found that this was a perfect representation of what I needed for the Yankee candle brand, Edwardian and traditional, the door has some detail, however is not overly individual as the image shown above, but is more general. The Backdrop also uses the traditional red brick already seen in some Yankee candle merchandise.

With an image in mind of the kind of scene I wanted to use, and the style in which I should complete this, I drew up a sketch based upon what I had found, taking the most appropriate parts of each design and adding extra details such as the candle lit lantern (Yankee candle).

The style which I need to complete this in needs to be resemble current Yankee candle style, in which gradients and authentic textures to give illustration a realistic feel. Such as that seen on the Yankee candle sweet shop and house sets.

I scanned in the illustration of the door I had done and digitally mocked up the outline of this:

I started to think about how I could make parts of the illustration look realistic, I started working with the shrubs at either sides of the door. I made two different petal shapes and layered them on top of eachother until this part of the illustration was totally covered. 

Once I had done this I selected half of the leaves and gave them a green gradient, taking the other half of the leaves I gave them the same gradient however I rotated it 180 degrees to give the piece more differentiation. Adding the gradient instead of using flat colour as I normally do when using colour, allowed the design to start to look more true, and credible to past Yankee design. 

I applie the gradients to other elements of the design such as the shrub branches and the lantern hanging above the door. On a new layer I created the title section using the fonts and colours used throughout the Yankee candle brand Book antigua and Halo hand letter. 

I used the same idea on the door layering gradients in order to create the illusion of the square shaped impressions/ imprints into the wood using a classic deep red seen throughout Yankee candle branding. I also applied this to the concrete frame surrounding the door. 

However I felt that the use of these gradients by themselves did not solely create the true to life image (textures) that the design needed in order to be recognised as part of the brand. For this reason I look into playing with textures in illustrator. 

The first section I played with was the slabs of stone underneath the door used to represent the pavement. The gradients made the stones look to perfect and so I looked into illustrator textures where I found one called grain. The grain texture made the surface of the section appear rougher and less perfect creating a more honest reflection of the object it was mimicking rather than an immaculate yet more false impression.

I went back to the lantern I had previously illustrated and looked at textures which could make the refraction of light look more realistic. I way in which I edited the piece was pixelating the background in a crystallised effect, much how light would look when passing through a multi faceted surface. 

I went back to the illustration of the shrubs I had previously done and took the same crystallisation effect and placed it upon all of the leaves. I found that adding these textures made parts of the design look less ideal, and more sincere to the object that they were representing. And once viewed altogether, would create a realistic looking representation of a scene, rather than a fanciful image.

Lastly I applied the traditional red brick texture into the background, I choose red brick over any other type such as sandstone as I thought this would suit the vernacular of the country and colour scheme more than any other. Instead of attempting to create and mimic my own red brick pattern, I sourced a brick texture from online, with a 1mm mortar gap in between each of the bricks. I wanted one that was not too clean cut (unrealistic) and not too industrial, A slightly weathered brick would match the overall brand aesthetic, much like the bricks seen on previous Yankee candle merchandise (sweet shop).

Once I had this texture I imaged traced it in to illustrator so that the appearence of the background match the rest of the design I had already Illustrated. I did this in a 16 colour image trace so that the texture would keep its natural imperfections and identity. I felt that this was a better method than drawing the pattern out brick by brick, as a natural appeareance is what I really wanted to pin down.

Below is the finished front of the box:   

OUGD505: Yankee candle publication - Page size and box net.

In terms of ratios, I wanted to keep the same shape of the book inspired products currently distributed by Yankee candle, but scale it down to be more appropriate for my amount of content. 

The box shown above is of portrait format and slightly bigger than A4. This box is much too large for the amount of content I have and therefore I think it would be more appropriate to scale the size down to A5, however keeping the classic portrait shape. 

Inside pages size:

I could then work out how big the cover would be as I am planning to case bind the book. I need to leave a 3mm overlap on each edge so that the pages do not peek through the outside edges of the front and back cover. 

Case bind dimensions:

This then gave me enough information so that I could start create a true to size net for my box and begin designing. I decided to create the tray inside the box which would hold the book to be 3mm bigger on all edges to ensure that if the book bind was to take up more room, the book would still fit comfortably inside the tray.  

Tray base dimensions:

Box base dimensions:

For the spine (depth) of the box I am not able to give an exact measurement, as I am not sure how thick the book will be until it has been produced. As I am not able to calculate the depth of all my pages plus the case bind. For this reason I decided to create a depth of spine that would be aesthetically appropriate for the a5 format (box is slightly larger) which was a 30mm depth. 

I know that looking at 30mm this depth is much larger than the spine of the book will be, however I can rectify this by making a shallow cuboid to place in the bottom of the tray so that the depth of the book + cuboid = depth of the tray.

Below is the front and back cover as well as the spine (depth of the box) that I have to play with for the design.