Assignments

Assignment #1 – Introducing yourself…

 

So the first assignment is ungraded and is to get you used to the way things work.

The idea of this assignment is to come up with at least 3 postcards that say something about myself…

So I decided to go with one postcard about my interests, one about my artistic influences and one about myself. One would be type-based, one digital and one illustrative…maybe. I listed some characteristics about myself. I listed my hobbies and interests. I listed the artists that I like and have interested me.

I started with the hobbies/interests postcard and decided that this would be the type-based one. I picked rugby and scuba for this design as they both consisted of 5 letters and have letters in common. Initially I wasn’t sure whether to make this more illustrative and depict these 2 words pictorially – representing rugby with mud and grass and scuba with an underwater element. The word scuba should be displayed below rugby as it is below the surface in real life. Should the text be reversed out of a scenic background image? I started to research type-styles that I liked and thought that maybe the 2 words could be overlapped in some way, whether their opacity would add to the design. Then I started to look at the negative space between the letters and how this could be used. The design was lending itself to just a type-based design rather than any pictorial elements.

I liked the negative space idea and began to wonder what the minimum amount of the text would you need to see and it still remain legible. So I picked a bold font and began playing around with the space around the letters and removing as much of the letters as I could and still read them. Here is the result for this postcard:

Next I began working on the design of the postcard about myself. There were a few characteristics on the list, the decision was which ones to choose? I decided that the fact that I had originally studied graphic design when I left school until my life took a different route was a good subject to base the second postcard on. The fact that it took that ‘different route’ gave me the idea of some sort of road sign.

My initial thoughts started with the fact that I had moved around a lot and the sign could depict the places I have lived before getting to this point.

Then I decided to use the fact that after gaining my diploma I took my life in a different direction before returning to graphic design and starting this course. I researched the font and colours used on British road signs and the format of suitable signs.

Here is the result for this postcard:

Now for the third and what I thought to be the trickiest of the 3 choices I’d made – my influences. My artistic influences that I chose to use were David Hockney, M C Escher and Paul Rand. Both Hockney and Escher I was introduced to when I did my diploma in ’93. Rand I have discovered in recent years after renewing my design interest. So I did some research into all 3 artists and chose Hockney’s pool scenes, bright and bold colours of Rand and Escher’s impossible shapes.

My first idea was to have a water-style background as in many of Hockney’s pictures. I tried to recreate using watercolours and masking fluid to little success.

This was the point where I discovered Photoshop watercolour brushes. These were a revelation! These new brushes only recently released were really good for the effect I desired. The idea for the design involved the watercolour background with an Escher shape coloured with Rand’s bold colours.

I was unsure how I would be able to render the movement of the water. I then thought that the Escher cube could be transformed into a mosaic tile-effect to overlay the watercolour layer. So I began to experiment turning the cube into a mosaic tile and also creating a watercolour base layer for the design.

As you can see, the Photoshop watercolour brushes worked really well. The Escher mosaic worked well too and I added some brightly coloured segments in primary and secondary colours.

When I combined the 2 to get the finished design I was pleasantly surprised at how well it had turned out as this was the one I was postponing and procrastinating about the most. Here is the finished postcard design: