OUGD503/ Responsive: Studio brief 2 : Bear cereal/ collaboration: Design development.

Next I began working on digitalsing the chameleon game above. The concept of this game was through a colouring in function, in which the users are asked to colour in the chameleon to help it hide from its predators and blend into the background, as chameleons are known for camouflaging.   

Therefore the idea of the design was to keep the chameleon white, whilst the rest of the design is coloured in to look like a busy an exciting jungle, pushing the users to experiment with colours and really understand the idea of camouflage. 

I also integrated a space for the title to sit that matches the background, the font selection is not final, but is used to understand how the title would integrate into the space. 

I then added the chameleon we had decided upon onto the back of the design with cut out marks for easier cutting. This is how the design last looked before I emailed it over to Caitlin. 

We next considered how to place the facts we had collected about each animal upon the box. Caitlin sent me this idea back with the facts listed to the left. However I thought that this was much too structured, and too much text in one place for such a young audience interest to take in. I suggested moving the character to the centre of the box and inetegrating the same motifs within the facts section as were in the game. Therefore I suggested the idea of surrounding the cut out letter with leaves, which in turn, had the 5 facts on which we had researched. 

After I had suggested these alterations Caitlin sent me the above design back. I thought that the new layout was much more appropriate for the age range, and would draw children in rather than push them away with a large area of text. 

The last detail that needed designing for the back of the box was a small diagram explaining how the cut out letter should be slotted into the stand. I drew up a simple hand drawn diagram to match the aesthetic of the current box design, detailing the simple method of how the letter and stand slot together. I also re designed the stand to be more in tune with the rest of the design, taking on the same woody branch like.... alike to many other details on the box. 

Once we had the feedback that the chameleon should be of a more experimental colour to distinguish it from other reptile characters, we placed the new blue chameleon I edited on the back of the box. To finish the design we needed to pick a typeface which all the titles would be written in. 

We wanted to go with a san serif typeface that reflected ideas of adventure and fun, which therefore seems truly relatable to kids. We would have liked to use some of the same type as seen in the current branding, however we had no access to this in any of the downloadable files provided. 

Above is the completed design for the Chameleon box, Entailing the game, facts and cut out character letter. I am happy with the composition of the piece and think that its experimental layout will draw children in. The aesthetic of the box also matches well with the current branding of the cereal which was an aim of ours throughout the project. 

I approached the next box design in the same manner, using and layering simple flat colours to create depth. The aim of this game was to spot the jellyfish hiding within the scene, as one of the facts on the box relays 'Some jellyfish are almost invisible to the human eyes'. I decided to incorporate the same jelly character letter we had designed into the game to keep consistency and not confuse the younger audience.  

When I coloured in the piece I tried to keep the scene bright and busy so that finding the jellyfish wasn't such an easy task. To finish of the piece I added a black outline around in the edge in order to be coherent with the other box designs in the series. 

To in keep with the underwater theme I created a title box reminiscent of a Pirates lost map that had sunk below the depths of the ocean. I also suggested to Caitlin to keep the layouts consistent, as I had said for the Chameleon layout, the facts such be placed in leaves around the cut out character/letter, I proposed that for the Jellyfish the facts could sit around the cut out character on top of slabs of stone indicated in the image below.  

I then sent this piece to Caitlin so that she could put the facts etc in place.

Using the same colours and details I had digitalised, Caitlin made sure that these sections were consistent with the rest of the piece that I had created. 

She also placed the design on the back of a bear cereal box so that we could see what the design would look like in context. 

Again, the design we had created was well matched with the style already outputted and in use by bear. This was a main focus of mine and Caitlin's throughout the project, and so I am glad that it is something which has been successful. However I did suggest a couple of slight changes, The chameleon box looked very busy and full, and in comparison the Jellyfish box looked slightly emptier, and so I suggested linking the game at the bottom with the character, by adding details from the game, to the midsection and top of the box design. 

Before and after:

Caitlin then mocked up the front and the back of the box onto the bear cereal box, adding the jellyfish character and other details to the front, to tie this and the back of the box together. 

We moved onto the final box to design which was B for Bear. As before, Caitlin sent me the drawing of the game which we had agreed on, for me to digitalise. The aim of the game on the back of this box was to find the fishing rod which the bears dinner was attached to. There are 3 rods to choose from, one with a boot on the end, one with a weed, and the correct rod has a salmon attached to the end, as one of the facts we found stated that bears fish for salmon in streams. 

As I had done with the others, I began colouring in the piece digitally, layering flat colours as I had done with the other two designs.

We decided that In order to keep consistency with the other two designs, the facts should be placed around the edges of the character/letter. Therefore the facts will be placed in the trees at the sides of the box. 

I then designed the stand for the letter to sit on, to match characteristics in the rest of the scene on the box. 

This is what the design looked like when I had finished working with it and passed it onto Caitlin.

Caitlin then added in the title section, facts, slot diagram, some extra background trees, landscape and changed the colour of the background, so that it matched more with the other two designs. 

She then took some of the details from the back of the box and applied them to the front so that the edition of the box could be identified from the front, when sat upon a shelf. Adding these extra details tied the front and the back of the box together. 

I then suggested that we go back to the chameleon box we had done a change it slightly to fit more with the other two box designs we had done. The jellyfish and bear box backs both had coloured fill backgrounds, whilst the chameleon box had the traditional cream background seen on the rest of the box. Therefore I suggested that we fill the background of the chameleon box to keep consistency within the range. 

Previous and new box back:

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.