Package Design - Project 1

Here's the first completed project of the new year!
Package Design is going to be fantastic. I can tell already.

This was our first project; the object was to create a package (either a new one, or a revisited one) entirely out of paper, without using any glue to hold it together. You know, it sounded like it would be a cakewalk but I was wrong!

Trying to figure out sturdy ways to keep a container together without glue takes a lot of trial and error! This little baby had several types of "locks" (where I made cuts in the paper and inserted tabs) before I finally settled on a design that worked.

Also a great surprise: these weren't designed to fit together...!
It was a surprise bonus. My professor suggested to make multiples so there could be a set, and while I was making them I noticed that five of them fit together perfectly. Hence the setup. The blue band is another piece of paper with locks to hold it.

They're roughly 3x3x3 inches.
They also fold up flat and can be stacked together (as long as you have an elastic band!)

Brunswick Street Christmas Poster

Thank you thank you thank you to Leah for inspiring me to actually try different drawing styles, because do they ever WORK! I've tended to use a lot of photographs or very technical things on posters for class, but this one... this one just needed to be so much friendlier.
Brunswick Street Baptist Church, the lovely church my mother attends, has two beautiful special services every year at Christmastime. A candlelight service, where Christmas carols and performances are the order of the day, and two Christmas Eve services.

This year they wanted to try and reach out to a "non-church" audience, so I drew this for them.
It's funny. I had a taste of HUGE posters this year, so it was really hard to think about where to put all this information onto an 11x17 and have it be readable by all ages.
All I knew when I started was that I wanted that star and the verse to be by themselves.

I've learned something from it, though. I have to start thinking like my professors, because they always seem to have much better answers than I do for most design problems (obviously! They're the ones that have been in the field for years)
I'll get there.
I just need more practice.

P.S. Curly hand drawn script (that took forever to make workable, I might add) beats pre-made script fonts any day. I can only take so much of seeing Edwardian Script curlicues everywhere.

Information Design 2 - Term Project

It's been a long time coming. Months, really.
Information Design 2 was all about design for advocacy. At the beginning of the year we picked a topic to fight for, or against, and researched until our eyes bled to make fold-out poster brochures.

Mine is on seed banks, and how they can protect food security and crop diversity.
It was satisfying to work with so much green. It's relaxing. Although the main green was the cause of a couple late-night mint cravings.
I'll be quite content never to look at a potato again for as long as I live, and heaven forbid you mention wheat in my presence.

The brochure, when folded up, is 7 x 9 inches. Unfold it, and flip it over, and you get the poster which is 28 x 18 inches.

It's so satisfying to see it done, printed, and sitting here!
I even got to test out a professional printer for this one. I was getting sick of having to use Kinkos print centres. There's very little you can do properly at a Kinkos for something this big.
God love them, they even managed to get the double siding ALMOST perfect.
So close I really had to look for it, which is a refreshing change.

When I picked it up it had new printout smell, which, for those of you who don't know, is kind of like new car smell. Only better.

Drawing for Design - Project 3

Another long-awaited project has been finished!
Drawing for Design is over, and I'm going to miss it - but this project was a pretty spectacular parting gift.

Instead of drawing objects like we have been the rest of term we had to pick one of our favorite typefaces, choose a letter combination that makes a new sound when you speak it (like kh, or ch, etc.) and combine the two letters to make a new symbol.
The goal was to make the new symbol readable, and fit in with the original design of the typeface.

I chose QU
Going to be doing this again for sure!

Christmas Tree

I whipped this up for mom for invitations to a Christmas Party.
You're going to be seeing a lot of this drawing style from now on - I LOVE it.

Communication Design 2 - Project 3

Part 3 of the Festival Identity projects in Communication Design: the infamous festival brochure.

I used similar images in this to match up with the poster.
But instead of the gent playing the trumpet there are: a saxophone player, upright bass player, and trombone player. It gets boring having the same images on everything. I wanted to have a little fun and see if I could do more guys in that style.

I have to say the saxophone player is my favorite part of this entire thing.

The booklet is pretty small: take a regular sheet of 8.5 x 11 paper, fold it in half, and you have the size of this pamphlet. It's double-sided, so when you flip it upside down you get the french portions.

Once again the internet has destroyed the colours of the poor image. That saxophone is really a nice VIBRANT gold yellow, and the browns are MUCH richer in real life.
The schedule, I realize now, has a bit of a salt and pepper issue (the bold is too bold - it looks like someone literally sprinkled pepper) but at the same time it really does highlight the concert headliners.

Felicitous, from the November Project

She has absolutely nothing to do with the word assigned to her. But I couldn't care less.
She was inspired by it, and that's all that counts.

I had so much fun looking at flapper dresses to put her in!
Google. How would I EVER survive without your image search option?

She makes me giggle.