Creative Furutres-Rough Designs – End of Year Show Materials

Introduction

This post serves as a visual documentation of my progress so far in this unit. It will document initial ideas turned into final drafts to continue on in the next unit. The products of interest are as follows: Business cards, CV design, a poster, artbook and finally, the setup for the end-of-year show. When these are all finalised, it will greatly advertise my work in a professional manner. In order to do this efficiently, I will be conducting thorough research into design and colour techniques. As well as that, I will be on the lookout for inspiration from similar themes, and apply this to the knowledge I already have. Ultimately, below I have sectioned off each of the products and their progress, starting with promoting myself.

Business Cards

For my business card, I have decided that I will provide physical copies for the show. This will aid with the theme of my table and further help to promote myself. However, they will be preserved for professional interests only. To allow the general public to connect to my socials, I will additionally provide an online version of my cards. This provides a back-up if my physical copies run into any issues. Not only that, but it is inclusive to everyone. Moreover, the online version will most likely mirror the artwork and layout of the physical card, which avoids any confusion to the audience.

Inspirations

In order to get a rough idea of what theme I wanted to go for, I gathered a few examples for inspiration. I decided that the best call of action would be putting this together as a ‘moodboard’. This allowed me to further view all of my inspirations at once, whilst also drawing up my concepts. These examples are shown below.

I tried to pick a wide variety of different styles, layouts and colours when it came to the inspirations. This would help me to further think outside the box, and be more creative with my design, rather than stick to the standard rubric of just having a name, contact details, and a logo pasted over a single-coloured backdrop. Although there’s nothing wrong with that, it is my goal to try to instil creativity in my design to cause more intrigue as an independent artist.

Concepts and considerations

As I want to advertise myself as both a 2D Animator/Character designer, I wanted to go for a more illustrative, cartoon-like approach with my cards. As shown below, some of these concepts include self-inserts and some of my creature designs during this time. I feel that any of these can work as cards, however, I am currently favouring the front-facing insert as it displays my personality a lot more. This would be a great way to display my qualities outside of the exhibition, especially if there are times when I am absent. In addition, it is clean, simple, and provides a great balance of space.

Linework

Colours added!

Timelapse video- start to finish

Final choice and thoughts

Overall, I am really satisfied with how these concepts turned out. I feel as though they all have their own qualities that deem them worthy of being business card material. However, I will most likely continue with either the front-facing self-insert card design as it complements the current colour palette I have in mind for my CV design. It is clean, neat and is more personal to me and my art. Despite this, I really like the card featuring Meeko, so this might change, or perhaps I may end up using both. Regardless, for the further development, I will take the concept sketches and develop them further, using a standard UK size 88x55mm card, matte finish with round corners to convey a soft touch to the design. At the moment, I have not decided on what manufacturer I will choose, so this will be further considered as the design is in the final stages.

CV Design Process

For my CV, I wanted to create something that conveys my friendly, and outgoing personality. In order to achieve this, I had to put a lot of thought into the theme, layout and my brand, whilst also mirroring my business card design. This was challenging, but otherwise, completely rewarding to be satisfied with the final draft.

Inspirations

In order to get a better idea of what I wanted to go for, I felt that looking into other CV examples would benefit me a lot in this journey. Below, I looked at some past student examples from my course to see how they presented themselves. These examples included what I wanted – colour balance, impactful text and beautiful illustrations. The only thing that I wanted to stray from was the very similar layout these all conformed to. Although it is professional, simple and provides a hierarchy in these CVs, my aim is to make mine slightly more original, with the breakdown of some of these shapes shown below.

Concepts and considerations

A Placeholder for information

Here, I created a rough draft of a CV in Microsoft Word. This was to mostly fill in the information that I deemed was most important for employers. This would allow me to keep in mind the amount of space I can work with in my concept stages. With the layout shown above, it illustrated to me that it looks quite clinical with the cold tones, which conveys the opposite of ‘friendly’ and ‘outgoing’. The layout itself is also quite bleak, therefore these two aspects go hand-in-hand to create a lifeless CV design. Nevertheless, creating this CV made me realise that I like the combination of the font Lucida Sans and Century Gothic. I will further experiment with other fonts closer to the finalisation of my design, but for now, this combination will be used as an example.

Altering content to suit potential job positions

In this section, I have modified the contents of the placeholder CV to fit three possible sectors that I wish to go into after University. These include the following jobs: 2D Animator, Character Designer and Storyboard Artist. I did this activity to improve my ability to analyse job descriptions. Doing so will allow me to interpret what an employer wants, and how to write this, and further show that I am suitable for the position. It is important during this process, to use my own wording, as I want to avoid my CV looking like a carbon copy of the job description. However, technical keywords used in the description are essential to include.

Job Listing- 2D Animator

Requirements for the position

Above is a screenshot of the requirements of the job. I took each bullet point and marked them off as I filled in the key attributes into the placeholder CV. This was quite challenging to decipher, but I am glad that I tried this out as it has given me valuable experience on how to fill out a CV for this particular role.

CV Output

Job Listing- Concept Designer

Requirements for the position

Source: Glassdoor

Here, I also decided to include the bonus points for the position, as I wanted to challenge myself as much as possible with this one. It definitely made me feel more confident once I realised I have most, if not all of these requirements within my skill set.

Cv Output

Job Listing- Storyboard Artist

Requirements for the position

Source: Animatedjobs.com

CV Output

Conclusion

In summary, this activity was a major learning curve for me as it made me consider what I actually want to focus on, career-wise. I have always swayed between all three of these career paths, but creating these makeshift CVs and reading the in-depth descriptions and requirements has proved that the area I feel most passionate about is Animation. This activity was additionally beneficial as it gave me a more thorough expectation of what a studio will expect, and how it is necessary to meet the criteria to secure an interview within the company. Ultimately, I have gained a better understanding of how to write and adapt a pre-existing CV to match the criteria of another job. I will incorporate these skills to aid the process of my CV design, which will translate into the layout, colour scheme and typeface of the document.

CV Concepts

Below are some concepts that I made for potential CV designs. I started off with a very similar layout and colour scheme to the placeholder example I used earlier for job research. The reason I did this was to slowly branch out and change the shape over time. I noticed how bland the first drawing was, so for the second thumbnail, I added more colour, and less contrast for a less threatening colour scheme. I still had hatred for the cool tones, however, so I changed it to warmer hues, beginning with the third thumbnail. It then slowly adapted further in shape, and I experimented with altering the bar on the left, changing its shape entirely. This provided a unique approach to the classic CV format I see everywhere. Although it doesn’t stray too far away from the typical CV layout, it feels almost refreshing to have it altered even slightly. During the progress between 5-9, I experimented using yellow/orange hues which honestly, I feel suited the theme a lot better. It conveys a more friendly, positive, yet professional persona, which is exactly what I wanted to portray to potential employers. I added more contrast and changed around some colours, to eventually decide on what will be my chosen draft – that being the 9th thumbnail. Evidently, this design will be further developed over the course of the next upcoming weeks and the final result will be achieved using either InDesign and/or Photoshop. By using these softwares, it will ensure that the final piece will be sleek, professional and of great quality. The next aspect I will aim to work on will be a fully-fledged Logo of myself, and this will complement my business card, which will have a similar theme.

Negative/positive space experiments

Here, I took it upon myself to draw over the three most favoured layouts shown from the sequence of thumbnails above. Before I decided on a concept, I wanted to ensure that the shapes involved would be balanced with the space of my CV. Initially, the first drawing here seems crowded at the top side, though, it does have different colours to the side banner/main body which ultimately balances out through the colour scheme of the design- it’s just not evident here. The rest of the space in the design seems quite balanced and will be used in a way that won’t jeopardise the legibility or visuals of the CV. Moreover, the second illustration here depicts an earlier CV concept. Looking at it now, it is almost too spacious. Albeit, there would be text within the blank spaces, that doesn’t prevent it from being plain and lacking in substance. Lastly, with the third concept, it is evident that the balance is way off. The upper part of the body is almost passable, but the middle section will undoubtedly be a problem. Not only is it confusing, but because the text would be split into either side, it would be a challenge to read, therefore potentially an eyesore to employers.

Ultimately, I will continue developing the first concept here, as also detailed in the previous section. I will continue to edit and tweak the design so that it equally looks pleasing and professional. To do so, I will consider the hierarchy of the material, and put focus on what is most important, and to employers which is probably the main body of the CV ( About me, experience, education & portfolio link).

End Of Year Show Materials

Below are all of the EOYS-related designs which include the process of my poster, artbook and the set-up of my space. These were all carefully considered as important, as creating an environment that hosts my project, whilst inspiring others means a lot to me as an artist.

Poster Design Process

Inspirations

During this time, I was quite inspired by poster designs such as ‘Monster House’, and ‘Paranorman’ and anime such as ‘Parasyte’ and ‘Attack On Titan’. I love how they all incorporate a sense of looming, inevitable danger which is a similar vibe to what I aim for. I especially like how Monster House has all of the main characters facing the monster directly, it gives the viewer a sense of inclusion into the scene, as well as identifying what/who the enemy is in the story.

Initial ideas

Below, I show my visual journey of creating my poster designs. I began with some quick, rough sketches that were inspired by the theme and genre of my animation. As detailed beside the artwork, I wanted to portray a theme that would emphasise overcoming fear and felt that having a composition that included both the antagonist and protagonist/s facing each other would be the most impactful for advertising the pilot.

Further ideas and compositional planning

Continuation of this…

Final designs visualized

Here, I took five designs which I liked the most, and added colour and fine detail. Although this was quite time-consuming, it allowed me to visualize how they would look as final products. Moreover, out of these five, I will continue adapting thumbnails one and two. These are the most dramatic, and powerful poster designs, and provoke curiosity through their composition and usage of strong colours. In comparison to the other three, they feel a lot more energetic and accurate to the storyline of the pilot. Although this took me a great while to finish, the results are completely worth it, and any designs that are discarded here will be used in other forms (e.g. artbook cover, portfolio content and/or extra artwork for my EOYS Display).

Timelapse of progresses

Art Book Design Process

Inspirations

Before I began the process of sketching out potential concepts, I gathered a bunch of different examples of artbooks for inspiration. These all seemed to follow a similar format, and I realised that instead of having a pile of text in mine, I want it to be completely visually oriented (excluding the intro and outro text). I thought in depth about why I would do it this way and my decision was solely dependent on how busy the show will likely be. Instead of relying on the public reading through a 10-page book, I want to make an impression solely through my artwork alone. This is more likely to be retained than intense walls of text and probably irrelevant information, which may be off-putting to the viewer.

With the examples here, I favour the ghibli ones the most as the pages include various examples of work from their productions. They do this in a way that still retains creativity and fantastic balance within the page. My favourite example has to be the spirited away one, as they do an amazing job at including a full shot of the film by spreading it between two pages. To me, this is a perfect example of an art book, and I wish to take these observations and apply them to my own concepts.

Artbook formula

I decided that until I have all the artwork readily available to plan a fully-fledged mock-up of my artbook, that I would first plan out a formula for the hierarchy of the book. This also included how many pages I would deem suitable, as well as the finish of the print. I began by drawing out a diagram, and then decided how many pages per chapter would be best. I then started sketching out the rough page layouts based on the amount of work I currently have, whilst checking off the completed page concepts. Moreover, I found this task to be fulfilling. Initially, I began the planning with unease, and I was unsure what I wanted to include in an art book. Watching videos on other artists’ experiences made me feel a lot more reassured with the early stages and I began small. I came to the conclusion that my work style pairs well with creating diagrams that follow the order of a concept, which especially applies to the page order. Checking these off as I went also helped immensely with managing my time.

For the finalisation of the book, my first step will be to create and complete art pieces exclusively for the book. This means that I will have the most important elements ready to go. Deciding a theme for the book covers will be fairly quick and easy, as I plan to reuse material from other concepts (e.g. Posters/business cards). Furthermore, this is also an option if I get stuck for time and need more artwork to fill up space.

EOYS SPACE PLAN

Once I had finished all my other planning, I moved on to creating ideas for the final year show. This started with inspiration and conducted research into layout, colour and the knowledge of hierarchy which were previously applied to the other concepts in this module.

Inspirations

In order to inform my initial ideas, I looked at examples from last year’s show and chose three that I resonated with me the most. The reason that I chose these ones in particular is because they are visually appealing and mirror the aesthetic of their projects. This is specifically achieved through the use of props, effective layout and colours. For example, for the project, ‘Birthright’, the space is laid out to convey a natural setting, with earthy tones that complements the poster and artwork. With the project ‘Wake-up call’ the artist/s have included props that are from the animation directly- the cups, old clothes, sleeping mask, etc. The same goes with ‘Desolation’ in which the mere title is brought to existence through the use of an old, decrepit, overgrown guitar. In conclusion, these examples have inspired me to make my space more creative, and I aim to portray my animation through the physical appearance of the space I occupy.

Space Design Process and considerations for promotion

Below, I began my process by listing things I may need for my set-up and worked from there. Starting with the first concept, I felt that it was a bit too cramped, and further altered it to be more spacious in example two. Despite this, it still felt lacking, and I ended up changing up the usage of some decorations, most notably the fake rocks. This was an interesting idea theoretically, but in practice, they made the set-up feel boring and lazy. Instead, I decided to add more foliage as well as tiny mushrooms for a more exotic, jungle-esque feel. Along with that, I moved the placement of the monitor and artbook as I felt these could be easily knocked over, further becoming a safety hazard. With the final draft, I added colour and included one of my poster designs and creature concept art. Lastly, I pitched the idea of having LED lights behind the bushes for the purpose of extra immersion for the viewers and having a higher amount of contrast. In anticipation of the show, I plan to create a social media account that will advertise my space and progress in this project. During the end-of-year show, I will promote my work through the use of the design deck and business cards which will have my contact information on them. After the show, I will continue to make use of these promotional strategies, as well as posting my showreel online for publicity. These strategies will ensure that I will be able to reach a wider audience, especially with the popularity of social media.

Some aspects that I may change include the colour scheme of the space. I am thinking that the purple might be too abstract in contrast to the earthy, green hues throughout the rest of the display.

Research Conducted during this assignment

During this assignment, I have researched into many sources to inform my creative decisions. These are shown below, included with feedback and notes relative to my experience. A lot of the design-related research was applied to all sectors of my concepts, which is why some of them they may not be labelled for specific usage.

Video content

An artist’s personal experience with business card design

This video was quite informative and made me realise that a unique quirk in a business card can be really effective. For example, the video premise is all about creating cards that will leave an impression, and to achieve this, she had each of her cards have a different print on the back – like a miniature painting. I feel like this is a great selling point, and it has inspired me to imagine myself as the audience in this situation as I would definitely keep it.

Notes from this video

Simple & clean
Text should be legible
Social media contacts are essential
Unique artwork/design will attract more attention

Design Tips

This video went more in-depth into the do’s/don’ts of making a business card, which was quite informative for someone who has never made one before. Below, I have detailed the most important advice from this source.

Notes

Must have bleeds for effective cuts – Indesign and adobe illustrator are heavily recommended
Negative space is needed, allows design to breathe
Do not create clutter
UK business cards are standardly 88x55mm
Providing a call for action will curate more engagement for the viewer. (e.g. a discount, link to website or a kind word/phrase)

Colour theory application

As I really enjoyed the previous video, I looked into more of Satori’s videos and found one that intrigued me a lot and this was an in-depth study of colour theory. This has further made me appreciate the effectiveness of a colour scheme. Before this video, I had never known about how brightness and saturation can cause a physical, or emotional reaction. This is something I will take into consideration for my design work, as I do not want to overwhelm my audience. This video has ultimately helped me a lot with my knowledge of colour theory and has allowed me to create more impactful concepts as a whole.

Notes

Colour can cause a physical/emotional reaction
Brightness & low saturation → soft feeling, therefore more calming
Dimness & high saturation → strong feeling, therefore more mental stimulation
Saturation/contrast/brightness should be important elements for the chosen target audience.

Hierarchy in poster design

With this video, I primarily used the knowledge that I had learned about colour contrast and hierarchy to inform my creative decisions for my poster. I personally found this lesson to be quite interesting, especially with how contrast not only relates to colour, but other factors too. For example, contrast can be achieved through elements such as layers, scale, space and direction, rather than just colour. As someone who isn’t all that familiar with poster deesign, this was exceptionally handy to learn about, and aided me a bunch through my process.

Notes

The more clear & legible/bright & dark an element is will determine the area of focus.
Using only two colours in a poster is an easy way to create colour contrast. The fewer the colours = the more impact, legibility and clarity.
The more colours in a poster, the harder it is to create contrast. This ends up with a more smooth/subtle contrast level.
Skill and care are important factors when managing multiple colours in a design.
Poor hierarchy = confusing/difficult to read.

The things I learned in this video were used towards all of my concepts in this module. I found the video quite straightforward and easy to understand, whilst also being relatively informative.

Notes

Focal point is important. Makes it more interesting if compositional techniques are used – e.g. rule of thirds
White space allows good balance and provides more attention to the most important aspect of a design. Great for navigation.
Hierarchy is essential. This includes headlines being more distinguishable than the body of text.
If there isn’t a focal point/hierarchy, the design will be confusing and less interesting.

CV Tips and Notes

Cater my showreel & CV to the job role desired. Look at the requirements of the job first!
Use Word/InDesign as Photoshop ‘bakes’ the text into the image. This prevents some studios to search for the desired terminology.
If you cannot highlight the words in your PDF, it will not pop up in the automated search.
Don’t use icons exclusively for software experience for this same reason.
Previous experience/current experience is important to include as it shows the employer you have and still work in the field.

Artbook-related videos

These three videos go through the processes of creating, printing and publishing an art book. I found this helpful whilst still in my early stages of planning, and they were honestly quite comforting and motivating to watch.

Website Links and notes

Design Composition – 15 Things You Can’t Afford NOT to Know (graphicmama.com)

This website was exceptionally helpful in giving me tips about composition. It inspired me to create black/white and/or grayscale in some of my designs. Not only to identify contrast, but to aid the composition of my work. I specifically applied these techniques towards my poster design and CV layout. Ultimately, I learned from this article that a design (especially posters) should stray away from using borders as this can make the design crowded, and distracting.

Color Meaning and Psychology – graf1x.com

I decided to remind myself of colour and the importance of how it can affect/convey different moods. I found this helpful with all of my design work during this module, however, it mostly inspired me to use darker colours in my poster design. This turned out to be extremely effective for the final choices, and I will definitely continue to research this in future.

7 Elements of a Great Movie Poster Design | Webdesigner Depot

From this website, I gathered a lot of insightful tips to put towards making my poster. One that stood out to me was the acronym, AIDA. This translated into, ‘The four-step formula – attention, interest, desire, and action’. This is a handy acronym to remember for effective design, especially in regard to making the poster intriguing to an unsuspecting viewer.

Color Theory for Designers, Part 1: The Meaning of Color — Smashing Magazine

I mostly used this website as a physical reference for colour. It details many examples of different colours, their meanings and outcomes in a design. It made it more clear to me that colour theory is more than just a wheel, it can provoke emotions, thoughts, and memories.