Business Cards
When researching business card inspiration I knew that I wanted something that would be eye-catching, have a clean layout and to clearly display what I want to specialise in whether it be through an illustration/ screenshot from my final project or written on the card.
—Business Card References—
After researching other people’s business cards, I have found myself drawn to the colourful ones with an illustration or patterns on the front with the creator’s information on the back. I love the clean look of the illustrations on the front and the simple, clear layout on the back. When making my own designs I really want to make designs with a pattern or character on the front and the back as I find that it draws both sides of the business cards together and unifies them.
—Business Card Rough Designs—
-Front-
-Back-
I want to promote myself as a 2D animator/ concept artist, these are the areas that I enjoy the most within the animation industry so I want to ensure that these aspects are clearly shown on my business card. I know that I want to base my business card around my major project so I searched through my files to find some place holders for elements of my business card designs that I put together on Canva to create the rough designs. After receiving some feedback in a one to one session with the tutors I now know to make some of the elements bigger like the QR code and text, the order of my contacts should be arranged from most likely way of contact (my email) to the least likely (my phone number) and print out the finished design to see if it looks the way you thought it would it real life.
Out of all the rough designs so far I like the front with the full body of the character but I’m unsure of whether it should be landscape or portrait so I’ll need to explore the design further. I also really like the back design with the render of the background for our major project as it shows that in addition to being a 2D concept artist and animator I also have a general knowledge of 3D too but the design could also use adjustments.
These business card designs are not finalised, I like a lot of the elements present in the designs but I would need to create a few more iterations and try a few more designs before picking which one to finalise.
Posters
The main themes of our major project are a rivalry between new and old and working together so I looked into posters with the same sort of themes or story to gain some inspiration and see what the best way to show a rivalry between characters.
—Poster References—
After looking into some posters I found that the best way to show a rivalry between characters seems to be to have them with their arms crossed and back to back so this is certainly something I will be trying when creating my own posters. In addition, some other recurring elements in the posters include bright colours and large, clearly placed titles of the films. The characters of our major project are the main focus within our animation so when creating my poster designs I want the characters to be promant and their silhouettes to be clear and readable as I want the viewer to be able to look at the poster and be able to know who the characters are and their relationship to each other.
—Posters Rough Designs—
-Initial Designs-
For the initial rough designs I took the elements that I liked from my poster research and made them into some quick sketches, I focused on creating as many as I could think of as I wanted to have a large variety of ideas that I could cut down to a few that weren’t too generic and that I liked.
-Colour and Tonal Test-
After picking out the more interesting designs I coloured them using the same colours that will be used in the final animation as well as the backgrounds but after putting them into Photoshop and adding a perceived brightness black and white filter on them I discovered that they lack contrast. After talking to tutors and getting feedback I decided to lean into the poster designs with the cake as it is a main feature of the animation and the colours are fine to be different from the final animation so they will be adjusted.
-Composition Adjustments-
When adjusting the composition of my poster designs I put more emphasis on the cake and the characters staring at each other angrily to help tell a viewer that they are enemies and are fighting over the cake which is a main part of our animation and I like that these concepts portray that. I liked the composition of poster one the best as the cake is large enough to be noticed and it allows the animation’s title and who created it to fit nicely all while still having plenty of room for the main characters to have clear silhouettes and interesting expressions.
-Tonal and Colour Adjustments-
This time when colouring I created the tonal studies first to ensure that the poster would have good contrast with the characters and the cake before applying the colours as an overlay layer. I like the way aspects of each poster turned out but I think I need to mix and match some of the tones and explore the contrast of the poster a bit more as well as asking for feedback from tutors before settling on a final tone and colour scheme.
C.V. Designs
While researching CVs I found I was drawn to the more colourful ones with an icon, logo or image of the person who created the CV so I will be including it when creating my new CV in the future.
—CV References—
I really want to carry over the more colourful look from the reference CVs but maybe in pastel colours so it isn’t too loud or hard to read. One main issue I am noticing about the examples I chose is that the text is quite small and hard to read at a distance so I will avoid this when creating my CV.
—Old CV—
When creating a new CV, I want to try theming it more around my major project and try new colour schemes and layouts. I will also need to update the information on my CV like my experiences as I have had a few new ones since the old CV was made.
Design Deck
For my design deck I want to incorporate the character design process that we went through to create the main characters and backgrounds for our animation, some of the storyboards alongside a few finished renders of the final animation as concept art and animation is the area I want to work in so I want to really showcase it in my design deck. I want this design deck to clearly show what I have achieved within this project as well as what I want to specialise in when finding a job after university.
—Concept Art—
—Storyboards—
—Character Sheets—
—Backgrounds—
—Animation Renders—
*I haven’t got a final render of a part of the animation I have made yet so here is a example from the secondary animation phase.*
EOYS Promotional Strategies
Our major project is heavily themed around a birthday party in an arcade so we will be going for a colourful and fun theme for our end of year show display with bunting, a colourful table cloth and streamers made of tickets to draw back in the arcade setting that the final animation takes place in. We also had the idea of making a fake birthday cake out of a wooden box and using caulking to create the frosting to look like the cake in the final animation as well as purchasing one of those small gumball machines as a bit of set dressing. Furthermore we plan on creating button pins of the two characters for viewers to bring home with them as a keepsake alongside our business cards.
—EOYS Inspiration—
Conclusion
To conclude, I am happy with what I have achieved so far but I will need to finalise the poster design as well as adjust my business card designs. I like some of the aspects of my business cards but I need to adjust some pieces of the designs and replace the placeholder elements with the real assets. Moreover, I need to adjust my old CV and redesign it as I am unhappy with the way it looks and I feel it doesn’t represent me currently so I will need to create a few rough designs in Canva or photoshop before creating a final design. In addition, I will need to sketch a few layouts for the end of year show tables and boards to see what direction we want to go and how we want it to look in the end. Finally, I will need to create a social media for my work as well as an email and website so that it will be easier to find and view my work and what I specialise in.