Welcome to the Beginnings of postcard 4! :)

2nd Jul 20194th Jul 2019Leave a comment

This weekend has been.. well!… I have definitely had better! After allowing myself Sunday and Sunday only to mope around in my head with my own stupid thoughts! 😦 I pulled myself together last night on my night off and spent 8 hours.. (yes 8 hours, I really needed the distraction!) on binge watching the whole series of Lost once again and trying to finally get these postcards done!

Ideally I want to have them done for the time I break up from work for the summer in 3 weeks time.

I seem to be spending so long on them but I am a perfectionist; I know that can be seen as good and bad in this industry!! I really want to finish my first assignment and know that I did the best I could. I feel like I am testing my strengths and really pushing myself again after not studying for so long. I can feel my confidence building and my skills progressing in each postcard I am completing.

I feel that I have good ideas for the final 2 and I really want to see them through to the end right.

I started off last night by doing the changes I labelled on my post-its from my previous post. I wanted to get postcard 2 finally complete! One of my lovely friends at work gave me a printer to help me with my work, so last night I could finally print stuff out at home instead of emailing it to myself at work! I printed out the 2 completed postcards last night and laid them together again and I am pleased with the outcome.

(** The only thing I need to change is the colour of the pink.. It prints out a red colour. I need to find the correct pantone colours and match them to my designs so that they print correctly.)

I decided to keep the LA tattoos on here even though I wrote that I would take them off.

I then started on postcard 4. I have hopped from 2 to 4 because for postcard 3 I am planning on some mixed media work. This is the one I want to be inspired by Design and magazine layouts and by David Carsons work which I am interested in. I plan to bring in paint, marker pens, collage and some home DIY letterpress work on this one. I have started on postcard 4 for now because postcard 3 runs into this one.

The hand runs over from postcard 2 to 4.

I started again by taking my original drawing of the LA wing map and placing it into Illustrator, and with the pen tool tracing around it.

I am going to change things on it from my original drawing as now I have had time to sit down and look at it I can see ways to make it look better and tie in more with the other 2.

Postcard thoughts, changes and updates…

29th Jun 2019Leave a comment

So today on my lunch break I sat with more print outs of my current postcards. Like last time I put them together to see if they work and wrote on post it notes changes I want to make to adjust this weekend… I sat with my work colleague and surprised myself for the first time ever that I was actually quite open in talking about my ideas, thoughts and feelings about my work so far. Usually I am shut off and keep everything close to my chest – the fear of rejection or not pleasing!

I was telling her that I need to make changes to my postcards in that I need to add more “Graphic Design” into them. Curently I feel that my work has my own style attached to it but I am worried that at the moment it looks too illustrated rather than Graphic Design.

By the end of my lunch break I decided that ideally I need 4 postcards instead of 3. My original idea was that the 3rd and final postcard would be LA themed, I have now decided to add an extra postcard and split the wing image across both. One will represent my design influence and the other will still be LA themed.

This is what I mocked up…

I started to look on pinterest for inspiration. I decided I need something pink that will fit in with the current theme of the first 2 postcards but I need something that looks more design and represents Graphic Design or influential designers.

I really liked these images:

I like the way Chanel is written. I like the colours and the style of type. It looks to me like brush strokes.

This is different… using marker or highlighter pens to make an impact

Another example of the Chanel and the brush stroke appearance

The top image although I think is marker pen reminded me of post it notes… I had the idea then of using bright pink post it notes and importing this image through into Photoshop

I like this. This reminded me of David Carsons work with the ripped paper and the collage style. I like the simplistic type at the top and the colour that is used.

This uses a map design; similar to what I want to achieve with my LA design postcard. I like the colour used and the bright, modern look of it. The type and colour makes an impact.

My designs and style of work are quite modern in appearance, I want to one of the designs back to the origins of Graphic Design/ what area of design I am interested in but I still need to keep the same modern, bright appearance that it has currently. To reflect a style such as Bauhaus for example just wouldn’t work. I then started to think about what I am interested in…

I love magazines…

Now I don’t just mean the naff celebrity gossip ones that come out every Tuesday (even though I am a little addicted to these also :s) I really like a good quality, well designed, quirky, attractive looking magazine. One of my all time favourites has always been Nylon. Nylon is alternative, its arty, quirky and the way it is designed and laid out is always very different. I later learned that Nylon took some of influence from David Carson and Raygun. I then thought what about doing something similar in my design. To have influences from magazines with the type and layouts but have the quirky, collage influence from Carson.

David Carsons new book. You can see the style of collage and type.

I really like the highlighter/marker pen idea and I have messed around with that approach in some thumbnail sketches. It then got me into thinking how I would incorporate magazines into my design… like Carsons work where he rips up pages and uses them in his work, how could I use this influence in my work? I then thought I have the LMU magazine that got sent me (I wrote about this in my research section on my blog) the magazine was designed by Pentagram so it would also have that designer influence. If I could take pages out of this magazine and incorporate them into my design. The articles from the magazine all also relate to Los Angeles and around “what is an Angeleno” which ties in with my design.

Make a collage from pages of this magazine and then add the marker pen idea and maybe some other mixed media.

The LMU “Los Angeles edition” designed by Pentagram.

I am going to sketch out some more thumbnails and experiment with some mixed media;

Letterpress/screen printing

ink splatter

marker pen/highlighter

brush strokes / brushed type

post it notes

lipstick

collage

using the highlighter approach mixed in with the Angeleno and having the idea to make the type run down it similar to the drips on the previous postcards.

This is the self preservation society…

27th Jun 2019Leave a comment

The only club you need to belong to! :p

Development: Postcard 2

26th Jun 2019Leave a comment

As I wrote in one of my previous posts; I wanted to work on the leg tattoo illustrations and make them more relevant to me. I decided to add my actual tattoo design onto it. I had the tattoo done for my 30th birthday and the design represented a lot to me in regards to new starts, rising out of adversity, entering my 30s single, stronger and independent. It also partly relates to my star sign and the moon. I designed the tattoo myself so I figured it is an important thing to show on this postcard as that does truly represent me. I will now work the other tattoos around it instead of having them as random images dotted about on the leg.

My wrist tattoo I designed and drew myself.

A close up of part of it. I quite like how the pink filled in lotus is not in line with the rest of it. I like the bright bold colour and the way they stand out

Development; Stupid Cupid (Who needs love?)

24th Jun 201926th Jun 2019Leave a comment

So I took the Lost Angeleno illustration away for the time being (for further improvements from my last post!) and decided to replace it with this one…

I had already designed the heart illustration for my Graphically Pink page but the idea sprung from a daft drawing a work colleague sharpie penned on my arm at work the other night, a heart tattoo with “Mom” drawn inside.

Thanks Matt! 😛

It made me jokingly think to myself if I had a tattoo for every guy I invested feelings in who had wasted my time and broken my heart I would have them halfway down my arm! I liked this idea for my design to show the vulnerability again; to show how I wear my heart on my sleeve and to show the strength in the weakness that regardless of the hurt… you carry on. I started messing around with the idea and drew out some random scribbles next to the heart with crosses through them to represent mens names… obviously I want the names to be faded and unrecognisable. I then decided to carry on the theme from postcard 1 with the drips of lipstick and include this bleeding from the heart. One of my earliest doodles which I still have is from when I was 14/15 years old and it was a broken heart with the words “Stupid cupid who needs love?” written around it. I have included part of this on my design also. I felt I needed to add this to show the “unlucky in love” factor rather than the fact it might just look like I just get through a list of men!

I also printed out rough versions of both the postcards so far and laid them out together to see if they worked and to see what would further need improving. I put post-its on the areas I wanted to add changes to and then carried out these changes on Illustrator. A few of the changes was to add a few further drips which would carry on from each other over the postcards, to improve the hand and then I drew on the heart idea illustration idea.

laying them both out and deciding what works and what changes need to be made so far

This is the hand lettering I did for the Stupid Cupid, it is very similar to the original I drew years ago.

Development; Postcard 2

21st Jun 2019Leave a comment

Following on from my previous post I have added some of the yellow into this postcard. I think it follows on more from the first one by adding this colour

I played around with the idea of this logo for one of the leg tattoos but decided I actually hate it!

Type whether hand lettered or typed should be legible and easy to the eye to read. It needs to flow and be comfortable to read! – I actually feel lost trying to move my eyes from letter to letter to fathom out how they work together and what they are. This idea will need completely redesigning!

As I wrote in my previous post I am not entirely happy with how the tattoo illustrations on the leg looks.. I want to more or less create one main image filled with all the different illustration icons so that the idea flows better.

Postcard 2 Development

19th Jun 2019Leave a comment

I spent last night (a rare night off!) doing some more development of postcard 2!

This is the point now that I am up to… (This is a low res screenshot image so the final thing will be much more high quality!)

So far I am fairly pleased with how it is turning out; although I do prefer postcard 1 more! When I put the 2 together so far they work well together but I feel this one needs a bit more ” wow!” to it. The colours I used in postcard 1 are exactly the same as these as well as the yellow for the blonde. I might see how I can potentially add this colour to this design.

The hand still needs a lot of work! Hands have never been my forte (in my college days the joke was that I used to draw “mutant hands”! this is very much at the moment one of them!

As far as the motivational tattoos go.. this design needs to further symbolise girl power and empowerment and being strong and independent and I feel like I need more supporting (leg tattoos) illustrations for this.

Postcard 2 Development – Be You.

14th Jun 2019Leave a comment

More development on postcard 2… It seems to be taking ages to complete this set but I’m conscious that I want them to be exactly how I envision them and also the fact that I am learning as I am going along.

In the last month since I started designing these on Illustrator I feel like I have progressed and learned new techniques and got more confident in producing digital media once again.

Postcard 2 I want to represent girl power, girl code and generally being strong and independent. I felt like my original drawings for this postcard included too many LA inspired tattoos (which would take the attention away from postcard 3) and not enough symbols to represent the “girl empowered” theme of this one.

I decided to sketch up some ideas for the tattoos on postcard 2 that represent me more and the theme of girl power, strength and independence.

The main one that I wanted to include is “Be you.” I get told this a lot by friends, family and acquaintances. I get judged and criticised a lot for how I look and for my love of pink… “BE YOU, Be Pink Amy.”

My best friend Emma tells me that I am a “people pleaser” I tend to put others, their feelings and their needs before my own. This ultimately leaves me vulnerable, used and left feeling sad and insecure. An imbalance of emotions. Another common comment I usually always get is that I listen to other peoples negative opinions far too much. I have my own style, my own voice and my own unique quirks and I am confident with who I am so why am I sometimes too afraid to trust my own instincts and to free myself completely? This is something I work on everyday.. I grow more confident with age and experience. “Be you”. (This later ties in to another one of my tattoo designs for this postcard also.) The alien (Apart from my experience of random inappropriate men on a dating website years ago comparing me as “alien big eyes”!) is a symbol of being different; It’s OK to not “belong” to not follow trends, to not follow, chase or seek appreciation from people who are not right for us or to not stay in situations just because it feels like the right thing to do; comfort zones. There is a whole world out there to be explored! It is OK to break out of this metaphorical box that people tend to try and put us inside… Why do people think life is supposed to fit to a “plan” and to a specific time frame? It is OK to not conform or to be constricted. Think outside that damn box!!

The star sign aspect of the design (the crab) is important to me. My star sign is cancer and I feel I embody every trait of that sign. I have a sensitive inside and a hard outer shell. I struggle to trust, I “feel” with everything I have. I wanted to include this onto the design as the overall feel of postcard 2 is about femininity, the vulnerability of being a girl in a tough world and being “naked” in a sense that I expose who I am, what I like and how I feel.

Make lemonade from lemons is to overcome bitterness, bad luck and adversity to make something good out of bad experiences. Also as a reference to design advice I once received; Do not put any lemons out there!!

Adding details and adding more appropriate designed tattoos.

Postcard 2 Development

12th Jun 201912th Jun 2019Leave a comment

The original drawing – I might change the tattoos to represent more girl power, empowerment and independence.

I have started designing postcard 2. I took my initial drawing and again imported it into Illustrator and started to draw around it using the pencil tool and the pen tool.

I want all 3 postcards to work together and to show consistency. They all need to be similar layout, have the same negative space, similar colours and use the “Lost Angeleno” logo illustration somewhere so that all 3 relate to each other. If my postcards were to be mixed up with 100’s of other postcards I want mine to be recognisable that they all belong together as a series.

I have started with the black background on here like the first postcard, I shall also add the neon glow effect around the outline of the body. I shall use the “Angeleno” logo I used in my first postcard but possibly change the name of it to tie in to the theme of this postcard. This postcard is to represent girl power, independence and being strong and empowered, so I shall possibly use a name to represent this, for example; “Independent Angeleno”.

I need to look at the proportions of the body. I feel that the arm on her at the moment looks too chunky… I need to line it up however so that it fits together with postcard 1 as they join up.

Type Development for postcard 1

9th Jun 20199th Jun 2019Leave a comment

Today I have been messing around with the type for the front of Postcard 1.

I originally had the idea of “Graphically Pink” dripping down the arm but started experimenting with other ideas…

I figured that the pinkness of the overall image is actually quite obvious, I feel that when you look at the image you automatically see a love of pink and lipstick, the need for “Graphically Pink” in writing possibly isn’t needed. The colours are vibrant and I am hoping the overall image explains itself! I then went on to thinking about linking the 3 postcards as a series… I wanted some kind of logo or writing on this postcard; Ideally I wanted something that I could link all 3 with. The only other idea I have is the “Lost Angeleno” design that I did from my learning log sketchbook. I took that drawing and imported it into Illustrator and traced around it to create “Lost Angeleno” I then decided that I wanted to save the “Lost Angeleno” mainly for the LA inspired third postcard… I want to however link all 3 postcards with the same concept so started thinking of new ways to incorporate maybe just the “Angeleno” part on all 3 postcards. This first postcard represents pink so I decided on “Pink Angeleno” the second postcard shall incorporate the name “Angeleno” somehow and the third postcard shall be “Lost Angeleno”. They then all become part of the “Angeleno” series. The woman in my illustration shall be known as “Angeleno” as a whole.

What I am trying to create is a brand for these postcards; when you put them together you know they belong together and a theme runs throughout consistently.

The original “Lost Angeleno” sketch from my learning log sketchbook

I wanted the writing on the first postcard to look like it was dripping with the melted lipstick. I watched a few Illustrator tutorials and read tips and advice and decided on creating this one. I quite like how it has turned out. It is still hand drawn from my original sketch but it has been further digitally created and altered to tie in with the theme of postcard 1. I feel I am gaining new skills and growing in confidence with creating in digital again.