Cards...

Well, the snow seemed to rock the boat a bit last week and it's meant that I havent been able to screenprint my card designs in time for the deadline, however I used a laser printer and printed them onto cream card that I bought...Here are some photos...

I also used sticky foam squares to help me stick my jewellery to the card as I did not want to pierce the brooch pin through the card. With not doing this, the customer gets a print a card and a piece of jewellery all in one. It's nice to give as a gift this way!

I'm pretty happy with how the look, I'm looking forward to screen-printing them in the next few days, but they colours really complement each other. Think the illustrations look brilliant with the jewellery as well. The only thing is the card which are just images, look a little strange with jewellery on them, as there's no correct place to really place it.

Be Ready For Anything...

So the snow just hasn't stopped over the last couple of days and college isn't open until Friday, which means that I am missing my alloted laser cutting time and also cannot visit the print room in Vernon Street, which therefore means that I will not have my cards printed or ready for the craft-fair on Sunday, not being able to show my new packaging designs.

Im pretty bummed out about it, but I will complete them before the deadline and just get feedback from creatives around me on the final outcome. Meanwhile I will package the brooches as I did for the last fair.

Before sanding it down...

After sanding it down, takes the burnt bits out of it, although sometimes I like to leave some in as it adds to this vintage look and gives it character...

A couple of darker brooches, they are a really nice shade...

Applying some boiled linseed oil, I have started putting a tiny bit of black ink into the linseed oil mix as it gives it a bit of colour, as well as bringing the grain of the wood out beautifully...

From feedback at the last Reetsweet, I am doing different sizes of the brooches now, as you can see by 'Michael and Moustache' below...

The perfume bottles below I am not going to sell, the wood I used was not American Cherry and they came out shit and stripey also as I was trying to sand the back to pop them out the wood as they hadn't cut all the way through, I sanded the front and it made the image really faint...oh dear.

New Jewellery Design...

I have been thinking about this weekends craft fair and how much I would like to create something other than brooches, the idea I've gone with is vintage glasses and so I've been drawing them to then translate into rastering files, making sure I have holes to cut out and then attach necklace fittings.

Here are my favourite 3 drawings...

Piercing holes in the corners, the glasses will then be like the way people wear glasses with the attachments on to hold them round their neck I hope.

Screenprinting, COLOUR?

Tonight I've been thinking about colour combinations and colours which will give my card designs a cute and vintage look. But I also need to be careful that they are not to loud and don't detract from the jewellery.

I came across this guys work:

I love the colours and think they complement each other amazingly well, although I think they might be to bright for the 'vintage' look I want. When I first think vintage, I think of browns and pinks, blues, well all pastel and light/dull shades of colour.

Although the images themselves aren't really my cup of tea, I love the colours used in the following images...

The idea of using one colour in different shades has crossed my mind, from looking at the bear all in blues...or I could do the opposite and produce bright images!

Ideas...for Logo.

Below is a screenshot of my first go at trying to figure out a type to use for my brand name and also trying a logo design out. I still havent decided between Pageant or To Pluto as a name. I like the logo, design although it looks quite graphic, perhaps it should be more illustrative?

Research into Logo Designs...

I've been looking at already existing logo designs to inspire for the work I'm doing with my brand name 'to pluto'...It's made me think a lot more about using colour within the logo that I screenprint onto the back of my cards...

The card below had a classy feel about it, not only the design but also the name of it...

The illustrative style of this one is really nice...

The type is lovely in this one, but it's not the sort of things I would use...

I like the pattern round the edge of this logo, it has a floral/vintage feel to it...

I like the old object used in this one...

Logo Research.

Here are some visuals I've been looking at to help in inspiring me for a type with a 50's feel to it. I've been looking at 50's magazines and 50's adverts for help...

The Magazines were a great help in finding a name for my brand, the words are all words that were used during the time period my work is set in and that then seems to fit the brand name...

Whilst, the adverts were really good in design and visual ideas for my logo design and type design to my brand name...

Typefaces.

Today, I got some help from a couple of the graphic designers amongst my year! I was asking for help in how to go about choosing a type. I got onto this site... FONT SQUIRRAL

Which is amazing and has more typefaces than you could ever imagine...

http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/list/mostdownloaded/20/20

They also mentioned a really good book to look at which I got out of the library:

It tackled this idea of corporate identity and it's logotype. But with no rules, so anything goes. It talks of young entrepreneurs and the contemporary designs of society today which need cometitive logos to go with them. The book identifies 10 key 'rules' of logo design, such as 'keep it simple' and 'make a mark which is unchanging'.

Tips the graphic designers amongst our class gave me were...

- Do it in illustrator, repeat the word in different type faces

- Always think about what size you're going to be using it and the spacing between the letters

- Always print it out to see how it will look at the correct size

- Take into concideration how you are going to apply it. If engraving think about how slim some serifs are.

Also I've been looking at Paul's work as he mainly has worked in 50's typefaces with his ' ' posters around the city. I've been looking at his blog and taken some inspiration from the types he's been using...also from his screenprinting work and like the layered effect he has which is scrrenprinted which gives depth and a 3D feel to the work. Then I though about how the laser cutter enables you to engrave/kiss cut/cut through and raster, which I could combine to get this 3D feel.

Other Brands...

I've narrowed down my brand name to 2 possibilities now, which I will design around:

'To Pluto'

&

'Pageant'

Think I'm going to produce Logos around the names for the back of my jewellery. I've been looking at others approaches to this...

From exploring these, I know that I need to search high and low for a good type to suit my brand title...I also love Good Woods' idea of putting the date on them...with the size of my pieces and having a brooch back on the back of it, I'm going to have to see how much room I have to do this... If I was to make a collection of necklaces this would be okay and space wouldn't be a problem. I may have to leave he logo engraved on the backs of the brooches and they are just not big enough, or maybe just put one letter on it. I think this is something I willeave for now and build upon as the brand grows.

Card Ideas...

For my packaging I want to make a series of cards to present my jewellery on...stuck with the painting of the women although I'm going to add to them to give it a border possibly...screenprinting them next thursday and Friday.

I had 3 different dot patterns which I chose from, the little dots seemed to insignificant and the bigger dots were to bold and took the emphasis away from the illustrations, but I guess this depends what colours I print the dots.

I tried other patterns underneath my illustrations...

...and others, When I was preparing the image for print, I separated them so that the background pattern wasn't shown through the face. But in some of the clothes of the women, I left the pattern showing through the jacket of cardie.

Also been thinking about the fact that I don't want the brooch pin to go through the card as it's a nice print to keep as well when the brooch comes off. I'm pretty sure you can get some sort of sticky foam which is to put badges through?