Brief 8: Christmas Cards - Evaluation

1.  What skills have you developed through this project and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

Screenprinting

I haven't done any printmaking so far this year, so I wanted to get in the printroom while I had a spare few days before I went home for Christmas. Although I was in the middle of dissertation, I just wanted to create something fun and quick as a break from it. 

I've always liked screenprinting, and decided to push myself a bit for this by printing three colours as I usually only do two. It was quite hard actually, and I only got a few good prints but the good ones came out really well and it made a big difference. I definitely learnt from it and refreshed my memory on how to print since I hadn't done it in so long.

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

Screenprinting

The main element of the design production stage was screenprinting, and this informed my design development immensely. I needed a design that would work well with this kind of printing and I had to prep the illustrator file ready to print the 3 separate colours. This isn't something I usually do, and was good to refresh my memory on how to do it. I also knew that I could get different colours with screenprinting, so I kept in mind that I wanted to use metallic gold - something you cannot achieve with digital print - and worked my colour scheme around that.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

Illustration

Since it was my own project I didn't have to stick to any particular brief, my own illustration style came through strongly, and shows the kind that I like to produce. I think this is important for people to see what I am interested in, and doing this short brief reflects that. 

Hands on

I came on the course as a designer with a hands on approach, and I loved papercutting, lino cutting and hand rendered type. Throughout the course of the degree, I have shifted into a web designer and everyone knows me for doing that. However, I do still enjoy getting my hands dirty and not sat in front of a Mac, so doing this project shows that I can do printmaking, and it is one of my skills - I am not limited to one thing.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

Taking it Further

I feel I could have taken this brief further - I could have made envelopes, a box, and marketed it as a set of christmas cards to sell in a shop, online etc. I didn't because I only wanted to give them to family and friends, but it is definitely something I could have done to take the project further for Extended Practice. If I had more time, that is something I would go back and do.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

• Pick better stock - colour and gsm that would work well for standing up and making colours stand out
• Envelopes - create matching envelopes to create more of a set
• Photography - set up a better photography backdrop with festive props

Brief 8: Christmas Cards - Printed and Folded Cards

After the printing, I folded them with a bone folder.

Here are the final cards. I printed them on different stock so that I had a variety to choose from.

Brief 8: Christmas Cards - Screenprinting Development

I haven't done screenprinting in a while so I was a bit apprehensive about doing it due to being a bit rusty. I cleaned one screen, which I am going to put all three designs on. This means the process will take longer as I wash it and wait for it to dry with each colour I use, but it will be cheaper and less screens to wash/handle.

Coating

I coated the screen with emulsion after I had cleaned it, and let it dry for an hour. Then I exposed all three designs onto one screen.

Then I washed it and waited for it to dry again before I could print.

Mixing Paints
I actually found mixing the paints quite tricky as I wanted very particular colours.

To get the green, I added white to binder and then kept adding a mixture of green and blue to get the colour I wanted. For the purple, I mixed cobalt blue, crimson and burnt umber. For the gold I just added pale gold powder to binder.

Printing
I started printing the purple as I figured this is the darkest and most used colour on the design. To line it up, I printed once onto true grain and then used masking tape to create crop marks for the paper.

At first the purple was really weak and wishy washy. To make it bolder, I added more magenta, and pulled it twice, which worked a lot better.

When I did the second colour, green, I again printed onto true grain. But this time, I lined up each individual piece of stock to that rather than masking tape to get a more accurate print.

This is how it looks with two colours - just the gold to go now.

I then did the third colour, which was more tricky. It was a lot harder to line up than the first two

Here are a couple of examples that went wrong:

Brief 8: Christmas Cards - Preparing for Print

I needed to prepare the design for print so that I had three different designs to expose for each colour.

On Illustrator, I made sure the three colours that I were using were spot colours. Then on the print options I made sure to select the separations option so that it would print all three separately.

I bought a few variations of stock and cut them ready for when I screenprint so I know where to align the designs to.

Brief 8: Christmas Cards - Digital Development

I went onto Illustrator and started designing it on there, as I was doing flat vector illustration.

I followed my sketch so I knew what I was putting where. I tried to keep a mis shaped and imperfect style of illustration while keeping it clean and un textured. These are the colours that I would like to print with when screenprinting. They are festive, but not too obvious (no red), and gold always looks really vibrant when screenprinting.

I then printed out the design to see how it looked proportion wise. I was happy with it.

Brief 8: Christmas Cards - Sketches

I had written all of the things that I thought were festive, and now I needed to turn it into a design. Here are my sketches of how I got the outcome.

Once I knew the style I wanted to go for, I went for a more gridded layout so I knew how big to make things on screen. I drew them to scale so I knew how big things would look.

Brief 8: Christmas Cards - Mindmap

I made a mindmap of all things festive I could think of, and here they are:

• Holly
• Santa
• Stockings
• Cookies and milk
• Reindeer
• Sleigh
• Presents
• Christmas Dinner
• Snow
• Snowflakes
• Elves
• Fireplace
• Baubles
• Tree
• Decorations
• Angel
• Nativity
• Wreath
• Christmas Shopping
• Wrapping paper
• Family get togethers
• Drinking
• Mulled Wine
• Crackers
• Festivities
• Christmas songs
• Jumpers

Brief 8: Christmas Cards - Brief

I've decided to do a small brief for Christmas, and make a set of christmas cards.

Brief
To design and screen print a festive christmas card. An envelope should also be made to package the card. It should have  a blank space inside the card for a message.

Background
A festive theme should be prominent on the card design, and should work well for screenprinting. A flat design over gradients should be used that uses a minimal colour scheme.

Considerations

• How many colours is appropriate to do a screenprint
• What gsm/colour stock would be most appropriate?
• How long is printing going to take?
• What colour inks will make the most of screenprinting?

Target Audience

• People who celebrate Christmas
• People who send Christmas cards
• People conscious of the design on the cards they send

Mandatory Requirements

• A5 format
• Screen printed
• Portrait

Deliverables

• Card
• Envelope

Brief 1: Lowknight Album Artwork - Evaluation

1.  What skills have you developed through this project and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

Photoshop

Before Summer I was not good at using Photoshop at all, and since working at 26 I was able to implement the skills I learned there on it for this project. I was a lot more confident using it, and was able to produce the kind of abstract effect the client wanted by using Photoshop. I was also able to create the designs quickly which I wouldn't have been able to do prior to learning the software.

Working to a client's concept

The client had a strong concept in mind that he wanted to be implemented in the design, and although it was a bit confusing at first I was able to incorporate it into three different designs with an explanation of my design decisions regarding the concept for each. I think this allowed the client to make sense of it and be happy with it because it was so true to his idea.

One Day Deadline

I actually produced the three different concepts in one day which was great because it shows how much more productive I have become since having a placement over Summer where I was always working on short deadlines. There were all to a high standard as well and I was able to put them onto boards and send them to the client which was great.

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

Communicating with the Client

Before I started the project, I wanted all the information I could get from the client so that I knew exactly what I was doing. I got him write a brief for me, giving me all the mandatory requirements, background of his music and vision for the album. Getting all of the info I needed made my job easier so that I knew what he had in mind and could create something he would be happy with.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

Being Efficient

I feel like asking for the client to write a brief was the start in an efficient brief because once I nailed all of that, I could quickly move onto the design stage. I produced the designs within a day, and produced the boards quickly too which made this a very efficient start to the year. This is something that I hope to continue throughout 3rd yr!

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

Not asking for money

I am way too generous with my friends when it comes to them asking me to do work for them. I always say I will do it for free because that is what they expect, and I know I shouldn't because my work is definitely worth being paid.

With this project, I didn't pay because the previous year I did some album artwork for the client and he loved it and I did it for free then so didn't feel I could charge this time round. Also, the client gave me creative freedom and always loves whatever work I do so I felt like it would be fun.

However, what was frustrating is that the client wanted it doing ASAP, which I did because I can't say no to people, and he didn't even need it that quickly! He hadn't even got his track list together or anything so I couldn't design the back of it, and wasn't ready to be produced. That annoyed me since he expected great work, for free, quickly. And he still hasn't got his music ready, so I just feel that was a bit rude to expect everything.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

• Charge Client - its my time and practice, I produced everything the client wanted with 3 concepts, I should have charged because I deserved it
• Work on my terms - the client had his own 'deadlines'; but he didn't need the work he just wanted it doing ASAP when I had my own actual deadline to be working with. Since I was doing it for free I should have said I will do it when I'm free
• Make sure they use it - I don't even know where/if the work is being used so I should have made sure they used it/got their album ready so it could be used since I put the work in. I am not one for confrontation, but I would like to tell them they have been quite rude!

Brief 2: An Illustration a Day - 17

17

I decided to keep it festive and create santa's grotto

Brief 2: An Illustration a Day - 16

Brief 2: An Illustration a Day - 15

Brief 2: An Illustration a Day - 14

I decided to do a seasonal illustration today and create a bauble pattern

Brief 5: DR ME - Boards

Here are my boards for DR ME.

Brief 1: Lowknight Album Artwork - Boards

Here are my boards for the Lowknight Album Artwork.

Brief 3: Adopt an Animal - Boards

Here are my final boards for Brief 3.

Brief 7: Design Something More - Boards

Here are my boards for Design Something More.

Brief 6: Leeds Student Deals - Boards

Here are my boards for hand in.

Brief 2: An Illustration a Day - Boards

Here are my boards for this project so far.

Brief 7: Design Something More - Animation

I had some time before submission so I decided to make an animation of the walkthrough part of the app. It was actually pretty simple and didn't take me long to do. I did it on After Effects.



Waterhub Walkthrough from Danielle Harrison on Vimeo.

Brief 7 + 3: Behance

Behance
I have put the projects for The Primate Project and Design Something More on Behance. I wanted to show more focussed work on there, as I have a bit of everything from previous years visible right now. I want to show a lot more web based projects. So far, I feel that these two are my strongest projects, therefore are the only ones I have published. They both show a video as well as shots from the website/app.

Intern Magazine Workshop

Alec from Intern magazine came in and gave a presentation on how he came into the industry, and talked about independent magazines.

In groups we had to come up with a concept to our own magazine and create a cover, masthead and presentation for it.

I was in a group with

• Sarah H
• Laura B
• Ellen
• Dan

We created a mindmap of ideas, and decided to go with the concept of a day in the life of...

We wanted the magazine to feature stories of people who have very different careers, in a real and honest format.

We started thinking of careers that could be included:

• Lifeguard
• Mortuary beautician
• Chauffer
• Firefighter

When thinking of names we came up with

• A day in the life
• Day
• A Day
• Memoirs
• Real World

Here are the magazine designs Dan did:

Here is the presentation that I did: