“What did you do in half term Amy? In your time off from the day job?”

Welllllll………

I decided to photograph my final postcards on a… fridge. Whenever you receive a postcard in the post where is the first place you stick it to? The fridge. of course.

I then got the amazing idea in my head to order those kiddie alphabet letter magnets and spell out “Pink Angeleno” whilst they proudly displayed my finished postcards. £8 spent on Amazon later, one next day prime delivery and here I was sat on the floor of kitchen (as you do!) arranging the letters into their letter categories on my freezer door! (FYI the alphabet letters are perfect for spelling out expletives when you cannot seem to get the perfect photograph for your blog!!)

I then had what I thought was another brilliant idea…. why use a plain boring white fridge when I could go into a home electronics store and photograph them on a PINK fridge! easy peasy of course… one trip to John Lewis later, (my sister promised me there was a pink fridge in that store – there really wasn’t, it was BLUE (*eyeroll..)

The assistants in John Lewis thought I was an absolute mad woman trying to stick magnets and postcards to a blue (non magnetic by the way!..) fridge door that I told them like the pro I pretend to be “Its ok! I can photoshop the door Pink!!” (**cue another eyeroll!)

Admitting defeat I returned to the internet in search of a photograph of a beautiful pink fridge. Disappointed as I like to take my own photographs I was swayed by the fact that I found what I thought was THE perfect fridge. The perfect fridge was on Adobe stock photos for £20 a month.. although the first month was a free trial period. Perfect! sign up, get perfect fridge photo, cancel trial!….. Nope! signed up to Adobe stock with not just the wrong but non-existent email (really must learn my uni email addy!)… one rather expensive phone call to Adobe in America later (I’m still not convinced she understood my British accent enough to cancel that wrong account!)… my EE phonebill… through the ROOF! (thank you to the nice EE man for giving me a £30 goodwill gesture refund!) #FAIL. BUT!… It did magically download the desired fridge image..somehow?!

Next step was to use my epically bad photoshop skills (I am learning!) to try and mock up something that might look half decent! 3am in the morning later and I kinda have something ok ish that I can work with!

It looks alright on my insta account 😛

I got so caught up with designing the fronts of the postcards that I forgot totally about the backs!! oops!…. so here is my development process for the backs!!

I decided that I didn’t want a plain and boring back, I wanted the backs to all be the same but tie in with the front designs. The usual layout for a postcard is a split down the half of the postcard; the right side for the address and the left side to write the postcard. I decided to use this layout for mine.

I carried on the pink and black colour scheme and included the image of the hand and the lipstick, it looks like the lipstick is writing the message on the postcard.

I included a space for a real postage stamp and used my designs as part of some fake stamps alongside that one.

I have written my name in my signature handwriting and made it hot pink.

I decided to type my message on my postcards using InDesign. I messed around with a typographic grid and justified text and overall what I see on screen I like the look of. However, when I printed it out the text is very small and the legibility is not very good with the white against the black. I thought this would work well with having some contrast but with having to have such small text to fit into a small space the legibility is lost.

I then decided to change it to try and make it more legible. I created white squares for the text to fit into and reduced some of the text.

This is more legible than what it was. This would also work for if the postcard was handwritten also.

I think that this design would work better if the postcard was hand written. There is a bigger white space to write in. The text would be bigger and it would be more legible.

The blank space however does look too blank… the lipstick is there but isn’t writing anything.. I decided to write something coming from the lipstick; the best thing I could think of is my signature XO which I use when signing off any of my blog or emails.

These are what I ended up with. The blank white space is now great for handwritten or typed postcards and still has the personality that I wanted it to have.

It has been a while since I wrote my last post but since my last post I have actually completed (I think!) the fronts of my postcards!!! 😀 (I still have the back to design however).

I changed a lot on my design since the last post. I completely reworked the final 2 postcards – still keeping the same idea and concept but just completely changed them around!

I was feeling frustrated on my last post that I could not find a way to include the wing onto the design, I spent days trying to think of ways and then decided I needed a break from seeing it and did some other illustration side projects! By the time I went back to it a few days later I was actually surprised that I actually knew instantly where to go with it and what needed doing! I completed the final 2 postcards in 2 days! This was good but it also made me feel silly because I have spent so long on this assignment in general!

These are what I have for the postcards!

Postcard 1 and 3 have not changed, They are still the same illustrations that I did.

Postcards 2 and 4 however have changed a lot!

I shall start with Postcard 2! – This one is the postcard that I wanted to express emotion and feeling through. I wanted it to be raw and honest and show who I am on the inside. In the last post what I ended up with was a very dark and spacious design; I decided that it did not tie in all too well with the other pink, bright and girly postcards so I needed to find a way to keep it edgy but also bring it back a little bit!

I am interested in typography; I have stated before though that I feel It is not one of my strongest areas. My original ideas for this design were using the typewriter and using mixed media and raw type for the design. This changed though to me finding a suitable font which looked like typewriter type and using that instead. In my last post the placement of this text was set in the middle of the design, I have also changed this. One of my original ideas was for the text to “fall down” I decided to position the text along the top of the postcard and reflect it so that the text is backwards. You can still read it from left to right except that the text is backwards now. This makes it more believable for it to fall down to the bottom of the page. I then took the last words of the sentence and dropped them down the page. The idea for this wasn’t to be legible or easy on the eye to read. It is supposed to be messy and confusing and more of a visual impact than being legible. The mind is a messy place and this reflects in my type. The content of the text is still the same, it is still my original poem writing that I did.

The next problem was getting that wing in!… I decided that it needed to be simplistic and not too big so as to not take the attention away from the main design and also so that the negative space was not lost. I drew an outline of a wing in rough with the pencil tool and decided to keep it because it actually looked alright! In theme with the other designs I made it pink and put a neon glow behind it. I then wanted to get the “get lost” heading in there somewhere but decided that the original “get lost” that I designed worked better with the LA themed postcard (being that it is about Angeleno and “lost” Angeles etc) I needed an alternative heading for this postcard. I still wanted it to be about getting lost in your head so in the same style as the wing I took the pencil tool and drew an outline of “lost” I then tidied up the curves, put a neon glow behind it and I felt like it worked.

In the theme of a “messy mind” I thought I would add some pink scribbles into the wing.. this would add some detail as well as highlight the messy mind. After I had finished this I felt like I liked the effect and the overall design but that also it reminded me of the “mind” logo that already exists. I hadn’t thought about this existing logo at all prior to this design so a part of me was dissapointed that it resembled it slightly but there was also another part of me that was reassured that my thought process thinks in a similar kind of way to the professionals! 😀

The above images are postcards 2 and 4. Again, 2 has not changed. The idea for 4 however stays the same but the style has been changed! This postcard represents my love for LA. I wanted to also though keep it similar to postcard 3 with the edgy rawness of it.

I decided that I wanted to try something different for the inside of the wing; I still kept the shape of it to look like the Californian west coast but I felt like I wanted to try something a bit different with the inside of it.

I visited LA 5 years ago and while I was there I took a fair few photos! I browsed through the photos trying to find something that might look appropriate. What I found was a photo of the LA skyline from up in the Hollywood Hills. The photo looked murky and dull (even though it was a heatwave of a day!) from the haze of the sun and the smog from the city down below.I felt that this looked raw and edgy enough for my design. The original photo looked good but I felt it needed to tie in with the pink theme so I took the original photograph and altered it in Photoshop to make it completely pink. This is what it turned out like:

I then imported it back into Illustrator and clipped the photograph to the shape of the wing.

One of my really early ideas was to include bands I like or lyrics into the design. One song that stands out to me as LA themed in particular is “Under the Bridge” by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. It is a song where basically he explores loneliness and isolation (mainly through drug use however!) but explains how he felt like the only reliable thing he had in his life was living in LA and just moping around the city. I decided that these were good lyrics to include. They tie in well also with postcard 2. I used a grid system but also lined the lines from the pylons in the photograph to my text. I decided to place the text into what look like white torn pieces of paper. I felt this gives a more alternative look.

There are still elements of Illustration on this postcard as the illustration from postcard 2 crosses over onto this one with the hand. (I have also realised from looking at it that the foot should also cross over, I will need to fix this!)

I have again dropped some of the text on this postcard to look like it is falling and most importantly have used the original “Get lost – Angeleno” logo. I have also used the drip effect which I drew in Illustrator and used in the first 2 postcards. Overall I really like the look of this postcard!

Let me know what you think! – I am pleased however with what I have achieved so far! 🙂

I hate grids. I feel like a complete amateur to admit that they are so confusing and half the time I get totally lost wondering what on earth is going on with them.. so many lines, so many rules to follow… so many rows, columns, gutters, boxes….F**k the grid! Many times I have found myself quite literally lost in my copy of “making and breaking the grid”. I choose to break it! – literally f**k the rules! I am not saying I won’t ever learn and use the grid in future though; it is more than important but yet one of them frustrating things I shall eventually one day I am sure master… I mostly (as bad as it may sound!) work from what I feel looks right by eye or feels right. Negative space I CAN however abide, appreciate and understand…

As I wrote in my previous post I wanted to look at an existing font and then bring it into my design rather than just using my hand lettering which could look again… amateur! I chose Century as it matched my hand lettering the closest.

I then attempted to experiment in InDesign with the layout and appearance of how it might/could look. Making sure that I tried to make that “Get lost” element GET LOST!

I looked at the way I could use black and white on the letters, I feel the middle one works the best with this – it highlights the N which is important in the history of Angelenos. In the history of LA and Angelenos it was a debate whether to get rid of the accent above the N. It was assumed at the time that careless Anglo typesetters left it on there as an error. I feel this is important in the history of type, print and the history behind my design.

Overall I quite like the appearance of it. It is now just figuring out everything else around it; the mixed media experimentations and ideas that I had to make it appear more “grungy”. I need to get the wing onto it somehow to tie in with the whole design… again, it is how to do this without ruining the spacious, simplistic look that it has evolved into. I need to bring the typewriter art into it also..

This is what I shall be working on next….

Kinda feel the last week or so that I am losing my way slightly..

I have had such a busy work/social schedule that in all honesty I haven’t had time to sit down and do a great deal of work… It had been a case of dipping in and out of it whenever I can!

I have so many ideas and visions in my mind of what I want for this design that I feel like they have all become jumbled, mixed up, developed and maybe a little lost along the way. I need to get back to what my original message is for this postcard!

I was thumb nailing some layout ideas for postcard 4 to try and see visually where my idea could go. The above photo is the evidence of that. I have illustrated the typewriter wing, the black background to tie in with the other 3 postcards, the pink paint and the grunge style type.

I want to carry on with my original idea that I had for this postcard and make this design edgy, alternative, rough around the edges and full of my own thoughts, values and morals to give a deeper meaning of “me”.

From my research and looking at the LMU magazine, they used a cherub to symbolise the “Angeleno” I wanted to do similar but using one of my own illustrations. I feel like my illustration ties in more with the feel of the other 3 postcards.

I then wanted to experiment with the type more… I feel like the idea that I had wasn’t edgy or grungy enough. I really want to step outside my comfort zone with this idea and really try to make the type visual as well as just simply communicating a message.

My original idea for the type on this postcard was “Lost Angeleno” I felt though reflecting on this that it does not tie in with the theme of this postcard. The theme is me opening up and exposing my thoughts, feelings, beliefs, morals and values as well as showing an interest and influence from magazine design, David Carson and “grunge type”. I felt the feel was also too “girly”.

I had the idea one night earlier in the week of still using the “lost angeleno” but in a different context. Earlier in the week I felt pretty lost in my thoughts… My friend told me to “get out of my head” the theme of this postcard is very much all my thoughts so I had the idea of “getting lost” in thought. “Lost in my head” and then the idea of “lost Angeleno, get lost” came about. I then realised I could join “Get Lost” into the letters of “Lost Angeleno”. My only issue was that I couldn’t seem to find inspiration to make the “Get Lost” stand out from the “Lost Angeleno” I went to bed that night stuck on the idea….

I woke up early hours that morning weirdly having dreamt about this idea!… In my dream I used brown paper as collage to separate the letters slightly and stand it out from the rest! I decided to give it a go!..

I then developed the idea further to try and bring out the “grunge” more.

On this one above I experimented with trying to make the “lost” look like it was getting lost. I had the idea of the S and the T fading into the background and getting further away from the rest of the type.

This one I messed around with ink, I quite like this effect…It definitely gives it that dirty, grunge feel. I am not sure though how I could make the “get lost” stand out from Angeleno using this effect. I wanted the ink to rub and run at the end of the letters so that was legibility and readability is poor. This represents an idea or message being lost. It also gives a nod to Carson who says the quote “Don’t mistake legibility for communication.”