Box brief- development.

I finally managed to refine my idea development. I went for an pop-art inspired picture, that create a background for the text that I`m going to put in the center of my design. 

I decided to imitate the style because I find it bold, distinctive and down-to-earth. I think the style reflects the tone of voice of the company.

Evaluation:

I wanted the design to be outstanding, witty, original and catchy. I wanted to avoid a popular masculine pathos. I think that such as down-to-earth, everyday product as underwear should be presented in a witty way to stand out against other products of this kind.

With the ready sketch of my final design in  my hand I started thinking  of the way I`m going to finalize my design. I decided to use the AI to develop my design. I decided to use the program, because it was the best way of creating vector shapes that my design is based on.

Box brief development

For  the last few days I was trying to develop a design for the Box brief.

I came up with the idea of placing a colloquial expression like : “you nailed it” or “you`re the man” in the centre of my design.

I think this expression would reflect my idea of a witty and catchy design. It would be straightforward and down-to-earth and could build a bond with a customer.

The boxes could be personalized by writing a name of the customer on the box.

I was I was trying to incorporate the this text into my design. I was experimenting with different design styles for the Box brief.  I was looking for inspiration in different sources from a war posters to pop-art design.

Box brief development

For  the last few days I was trying to develop a design for the Box brief.

I came up with the idea of placing a colloquial expression like : “you nailed it” or “you`re the man” in the centre of my design.

I think this expression would reflect my idea of a witty and catchy design. It would be straightforward and down-to-earth and could build a bond with a customer.

The boxes could be personalized by writing a name of the customer on the box.

I was I was trying to incorporate the this text into my design. I was experimenting with different design styles for the Box brief.  I was looking for inspiration in different sources from a war posters to pop-art design.

The appearance panel

I had the opportunity to have a closer look to the appearance panel while I was doing my digital skills exercises last semester. I used it then to stylize some text.
Thanks to the "Veerle Duoh" tutorials I had a chance to rediscover the numerous possibilities that the appearance panel give.Using the appearance panel we are able to create some spectacular images by simply changing the colors and transparency of the strokes.
In a very quick, few steps that I followed to do some exercise I managed to create interesting pictures with only one path.

The appearance panel shows different attributes of a path or object. Fills and strokes applied to a path can create interesting shapes.With just a simple path we can easily create some really interesting compositions. 

By stacking multiple white and black strokes of different weight on the top of  another I managed to create the look of a railway. 

On the same way - using black and white strokes of different weight and applying a dash option -I managed to create the look of a road. 

Even though the picture below seems to look far more elaborated it was created on exactly the same way that the previous ones- with one path. This time I was experimenting with different colors, patterns, blending modes and with the transparency options. 

Packiging net.

Today in the college we were introduced to the idea of building a packaging net. We were presented with different sorts of packaging nets and were shown how to make a net using AI.  

Thanks to some help from my tutor I was able to build a net for the box that I designed for the BOX brief.

Evaluation:

The ability to build the net helped me to speed up my workflow. I didn`t have to rely on any outside sources. Creating a net gave me the possibility to manufacture a prototype of my packaging. 

The net helped me a lot in creating the layout of my design- it made the job much easier. Thanks to it I would be able to put the elements of my design on a 2d surface. This way of presentation will gave me the chance to get across my ideas easily.

As a prospective graphic designer I would probably come across packaging design briefs. The knowledge and ability to build a packaging net (and then packaging prototypes) would contribute to the quality of customer presentation.

Experience in using CAD is one of the basics requirements that are stated in numerous job offers.

http://veerle.duoh.com/

Among numerous graphic design blogs that I found on the Internet the "Veerle`s blog" ( http://veerle.duoh.com//) attracted my special attention. Not only was the appealing and eye-catching graphic and layout of the website worth a second look but also interesting and useful tutorials that was posted on this website.

Creating a color palette.

For one of the on-line tutorials that I have been doing recently I needed a specific color palette which would consist of  36 color swatches going from bright yellow, to orange, red, purple, blue, green. This gave me a chance to learn how to create a new color pattern in the swatches panel. Because I`ve never done this before I started looking up on the Internet to find a tutorial on how to build up a new color pattern.
I came across this you tube film http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSnR9l897t8, which explains step by step how to save a new color group in the swatches panel in the Illustrator.

I wanted the transition between the colors to be as smooth and delicate as possible, that`s why I was trying to blend colors of similar shade.
I started from drawing two objects and filling them with two colors: bright yellow and red. I selected the two objects and went to Object- Blend- Make. This option allows to make a smooth transition between objects as well as create a blends of colors.

By going to the blend options you can establish the amount of steps that the transition will make.

I was blending different colors to the point when I got the amount of shades that I wanted.

When I was satisfied with the color transition I went to the swatches panel it the upper right corner of the swatches window and opened "New color group" in the fly-out menu. I named the new color group that I was about to create. 

A new folder opened in the swatches window. I selected the eyedropper and clicked on the first square the color of the square appeared as the fill color. I went to the fill icon and simply drag it across to the new color group folder. Step by step I created the color palette that I wanted. 

I found this new skill very useful and handy. Creating new color palette certainly can add to the creativity and speed up the work flow as well.