Day of the Dead-Social Networks

My poster has been used on Neon Cactus' Facebook and Twitter to promote
their upcoming event, nice to see my work out there in the real world.

To Do This Weekend

Transfer Paper

My transfer paper arrived but unfortunately too late to make my print
slot I had booked so I have re-scheduled it for monday which will give
me time to get  all my designs ready over the weekend.
The packaging for the paper is definitely very interesting....

More Pattern Illustrations

After my crit feedback some people said that the elephants weren't really
working with the rest of the pattern designs.
I decided to focus more on the patterns so after doing some contextual research
I drew up some more Indian inspired patterns to use on my stationary
designs. I have lived traced them all so they are ready to be made into
patterns for my designs.

Writing to David Shrigley

Last night at Creative Networks David Shrigley was the guest talker,
as Precious we are a fan of his work and decided we would write him
a letter to give to him asking if he would write the forward for our next event,
we thought we might as well, we had nothing to loose.
We thought we couldn't just give him a boring letter so we decided to make it
a bit more 'Precious'....

We didn't want to make it to formal and serious, his work always has a 
lighthearted theme and so do we as Precious,

This is the envelop we put it in, Pink to reflect Precious' branding and gold
foil on our name.
Hopefully he'll remember us and get in touch!

Creative Networks

Last night was the Creative Networks event at college, we had a 
stall there as inpress.
It was a great night, we met some new people and have a few new
opportunities lined up from it.
David Shrigley was the guest talker which was amazing because I love 
his work, we also go to meet him and gave him one of our business cards
and publications.

Crit Feedback

I got some really useful feedback from this mornings crit, I focused my
crit on the two briefs I have started the most work on, inpress and the stationary
brief.
We all got feedback for inpress so we can share the feedback and respond
as a group.
I have felt a bit lost the past few days and I feel like this crit has given me some direction, I have made a to do list in response to the feedback I got,

Pattern Colours Mock Ups

 Something I haven't considered yet with this brief is the colour scheme.
I want to look at colours that work with the patterns, I have looked at Indian
patterns and fabrics and have taken inspiration from them and applied that 
to my designs.

 I have started with using coloured stock behind my patterns printed onto acetate
and put on the ruler to get an idea of how it would look if it was all printed
and transfered onto the ruler properly.
The darker colours make it hard to see the numbers on the ruler which takes 
away from the rulers main function.
I am also going to look into colouring the pattern and leaving the background clear.

Rubber Mock Ups

I printed out the patterns that could potentially be used for the rubber
cases in the stationary set.
I wanted to see how the pattern worked when wrapped around and how
much of each pattern was lost.
Some worked better than others, the continuous, repeated patterns worked better
than the ones that made up an image as some of the image on those ones
got lost.
I now need to consider the colour scheme and stock.

Finished Publication and Business Cards

These are our finished publication and business cards ready for Creative
Networks tomorrow night.
I think we are all really pleased how they have turned out, we want to include
a fourth colour for our business cards but that is something we will return to 
at a later stage as it wasn't crucial for tomorrow.
We still have some business cards to put together but we are pretty much ready.

Putting together the Publication

This morning Niall, Kirsty and I bound all the publications, we decided 
to go for hand binding them as it gave a better finish and worked better
with our overall design.
We set up a production line so I only really took us just over an hour
to get them all done.

Pattern Variations

Printing and Mocking up Publication

Today we got all the insides of our publication printed down with James,
Niall and I had screen printed the front covers the other day, the fronts are made on recycled poo paper from The Exotic Paper company,

The publications are only made up from two sheets so we are wondering what is 
the quickest and best way to bind them. We thought about binding them with thread but are worried it will be time consuming, we have tried it out with staples here but it
dosen't give them same finish as hand bound. 
We are getting some binding thread from Vernon Street so we will try that out tomorrow and see how that goes.

Precious Pencils

As well as the bags and t-shirts I also thought about having personalised
Precious pencils to sell at the exhibition.
I also thought about badges, both could be sold and also act as a means
of promotion.
I have looked at a few different websites and I am waiting to hear back on some quotes.
I also thought about using the technique I am using for my surface pattern brief
and printing the logos and personalising them myself.

Precious Bags

I haven't given much thought to the Precious brief yet as on my timetable it 
dosen't start until next week. However I have been thinking of possible ideas
whilst working on my other projects. The t-shirts we had at our last event where 
a hit and everyone wanted one, so this time I thought we could sell the t-shirts
and also sell some tote bags.
I have had a look around and clever bagger seem to be a good company to
get them from, they are cheap and can be bought in small and larger quantities.

Back to Vernon Street

We went back to Vernon Street print rooms today to get our finished embossing plate and start putting together our business cards.
Our plate came out fine this time so we tested it out on news print to 
see how well it embossed, it came our great so it was all ready to go.
We want our business cards to be different colours on the front so we had to screen print the colours onto the stock before we could emboss it.
We are going to do 4 colours in total but as time is tight we are only doing two for the creative networks night.
We also needed to letterpress all the backs, we decided not to go for individual names and just have Inpress Design name written on the back.
We started embossing all the cards after we had measured and cut the paper down to size.
The letter press wasn't dry yet so we couldn't stick them together so 
that will be a job for tomorrow.

Final Neon Cactus Poster

This is the final poster I sent off to Neon Cactus for them to print,
they wanted more vibrant colours so I changed some of the original
colours to make them stand out more, I wasn't so keen on this but 
it was what the client wanted. They also wanted the skull to look a bit
crazier so I also made changes to that as well.
I didn't want the black box around the Neon logo but I couldn't get then
to send me one without a box so it had to stay like that.

I think this brief has taught me a lot about dealing with clients on live
briefs, you sometimes have to do work you don't always like but 
its what the client wants.

Meeting With Dan at Neon Cactus

I took down the poster to Neon Cactus today to show them what I had done
so far and what they wanted to add and change.
Dan the manager really liked the whole concept but wanted the colours
to be more vibrant to reflect Neon Cactus more and also gave me details to add on .
The changes they wanted were...

-Change the date to Thursday the 1st of November
-Twitter and Facebook links added
-UV drinks changed to "Eerie Glowing Cocktails'
-DJs changed to 'Scarily Good DJs'
 Also for the Neon Logo and El Jimador logo to be added on.

Stock for Precious Business Cards

I've been given a deadline for the business card part of the Precious
branding, they want them done by the 10th of November for an
event they will be attending.
I am going to work on the logo in the next week which is just a
tweaking of the original logo.They want to keep the pink and gold theme
so I am propose the logo be embossed gold onto pink card or mount board
and then info printed on the reverse side.
I need to find a stock that will work with the embossing and the gold
foiling, I found this pink mount board from the London Graphics center

This is one option, another is to get a thick paper that will emboss, about
300gsm and then screen print the pink colour we want onto it then emboss
and foil it.

Experimenting with Letter Press

We made set our type yesterday so today we put it in the press
and started to experiment with stocks and padding to see which
worked the best.
The technician told us the smoother the stock the better the 
print we would get.
We took notes as we were going along so we wouldn't forget what 
we had tried and what had worked best.
The stock that worked best was the 300gsm stock we had also
used for the embossing. We mocked up a business card with 
the letter press side and the embossing and it had a really nice finish
and feel, the weight was right and it worked well together.
We are going to head back on monday to print some more ready
for creative networks!

Embossing

So we came back today to see how our etching turned out, unfortunately
it had about half an hour too long in the solution and it went all the
way through the copper and made holes in places on the plate.
The technican had already started making us a new one so there will 
hopefully be a plate we can use ready for monday.
We thought we would try out the plate anyway to get an idea
of how it would emboss onto certain stocks and so we could
make a mock up version.
Despite the holes which made slight imperfections the embossing
came out really well. We tried it on mount board and a 300gsm stock
both worked nicely. 

Tutorial with Amber

I had my one on one tutorial with Amber today, 
this is the feedback she
gave me on how I was progressing so far.
We discussed the project I am working on now 
which is the surface pattern brief, I showed my
 mocks up and we discussed how it can be brought
 forward and possible printing methods.
Also that I can combine this brief with Inpress, using 
the work I do for the surface pattern brief and selling 
it at the Inpress event, that way not overloading myself with work.
We have crits next week and Amber stressed to have
as much physical work as I can for then as it will be
 he best way to get as much informative feedback as I can.

Letter Press

As well as making and etching plate for the embossing of our business cards
we also needed to think about the reverse of the cards.
We wanted to have our details in the reverse and thought letter press would be a
good way to go about it and also reflect our work with traditional printing methods.
We looked at the typefaces they had at Vernon Street and decided to go with Times in 10pt as after comparing with other business cards it seemed the right size and was very legible still at such a small point size.
We set the type today so it was all ready today when we come back tomorrow to start printing and testing it out on different stocks.

Etching

 After our attempts at making an embossing plate in the lazer cutter 
we tried a new approach, making an etching plate.
Niall and I went down to the Vernon Street print rooms and inquired
about making an etching plate for embossing. The technicians there 
were so helpful and we got started right away.
We went through all the stages of photo etching to produce a
plate that would have our logo on it and would have a clean 
cut edge for embossing.
It had to stay in the chemicals over night to get a deep enough outline
so it would leave a good impression.
We will go back tomorrow to see how it turns out!

Stationary Mock Ups

I wanted to try mocking up some of the stationary I got with my illustrations.
I had an idea to try screen print onto sticky back plastic so 
I could apply it to the stationary quickly to see how it would
work.
I wasn't sure if it was going to work as I didn't know if the ink
would dry on the plastic but it did and it worked well.
It is an effect way to see how it would work, however screen print
is so busy at the moment so I have had trouble getting back in there to do more.
I did some research and found this paper you can print on and apply
it to ceramics,plastics, metals etc.
I went down to james and he said he can print on it so I have ordered some to print my designs on to apply to my stationary.

Lazer Cutting Take Two

After the mistake that was made yesterday with the lazer cutting we
went back for a second attempt.
We tried a few different cuts, the first we did too fine and it warped
the acrylic, the second was also a bit too thin and got caught when 
cutting out. 
We finally got one that cut out fine and didn't warp, however the edges around the lettering were a bit fluffy and weren't very clean cut.
We went to try it out anyway and see what happened when we used it 
to emboss. 
We have a few attempts in the press and they did emboss but the pressure
was hard to get even in the presses and the emboss wasn't even across the
letters.
We then thought we would try putting it thorough the rolling press......
that was a mistake, it just cracked our acrylic and it was useless!
We went back and made one more template which was working but it just wasn't as clean cut as we hoped so we went back to the drawing board.....

Poster Devlopment

I have made some developments to the poster, making the spilled bottle

of tequila clear as the would be nothing in it if it has spilled, also adding more

of the details in, I am going for a meeting with Neon Cactus this week so 

I can update any details after I have seen them.

I have also added some more texture onto the table.

After the meeting I will make the final changes.

Stationary Patterns

I measured up my stationary items so I could mock up some 
designs that could be printed onto them.
I used my drawings and put them into Illustrator and 
laid them out to work with the different parts of the stationary
range.
I am going to try a few different printing methods, and just 
do the printing in black and white first for experimentation.
When I find a printing method that works I will then look more
at colour.

Dock Street Market

We took a trip down to Dock Street Market today, its the space
that we are going to have our next exhibition in and Kirsty and I
were yet to see it so we thought we'd have a look.
The space is great and is in a good location just out of town 
along the canal.
We'll be able to have it for the whole weekend, having the opening night
with bands and then open to everyone for the rest of the weekend.

Lazer Cutting

We had a lazer cutting slot booked this morning to create a 3D version of
our logo that we could use to emboss onto our business cards.
We were going to use wood but we found some acrylic which we thought
would work better and not get damaged by water whilst we were embossing.
It took a few attempts but we got the right size we wanted.

Kirsty and Niall then got the cut out letters and stuck them onto another
piece of acrylic to create the stamp for embossing.
The first tried wetting the front of the mount baord, in order to give a better impression and put it in the press. However, this wasn't very successful, when they removed the card from the press, some of the paper stuck to the face of the lettering and also removed a few from the stamp.

They then went for a different attempt and went back to lazer cut, they spoke to 
the technician and he told them to create a jpeg black and white image (with the type in white and background black) then rasterized this on the laser cutter it should work. 
This worked a lot better and they went back to the print room and tried to emboss  the logo again.
However we had forgot to reverse the type so when we embossed it the text was the wrong way round!

We are going back to lazer cut tomorrow and do it again, at least we know
what to do this time.

Stationary Designs

I moved away from the geometric patterns and went back to some designs
I had done over the summer but hadn't applied them to anything.
The elephants are the initial designs I then did the other smaller
Indian style patterns to incorporate into my designs.

Proposal Form-2nd Draft

 This is the 2nd draft of my proposal form, after my tutorial I decided to change a few things.

Printing onto Stationary

I have a progress tutorial on Thursday and I want to have some of
my products mocked up to show Amber.
I have got some products to print on to see what kind of 
materials work best with which types of processes.
I am going to try printing onto these tomorrow.

Spur Poster Printing

Sadie and Kirsty have been doing the printing this morning and this is the outcome,
we are working with gradients as our new branding is focused on colours so we wanted
to bring that through on our posters to link it all together.
As well as having free pull out posters in the magazine we are going to print more to 
sell at the creative network events.

Spur Magazine

Spur magazine are having a feature on us in their first issue,
we had an interview with them the other day and they have asked
us to do a fold out poster to give away with each issue.
Sadie and I decided to work on image whilst Niall and Kirsty worked
on the type as thats where our strengths lie within the group.

I had been drawing some pattern designs for my surface pattern brief
and they linked into the ideas we were coming up with for the poster
so we decided to use my designs and Niall and Kirsty could work
with the type over the top.

Poster-First Draft

This is the first initial draft of the poster, putting the images together

and starting to look at layout and colour.

I think the background is something I like and I am going to keep,

as well as the skull. The Tequila bottles need some work but I am going

to arrange with the manager of Neon Cactus so I can go down and 

show them what I have so far and what they want to change/keep.

Textures

I don't just want to have a solid colour background to the posters
so I am going to use a texture.
I thought an orange background would be most appropriate for two reasons,
one being that Neon Cactus' logo and branding is orange and also orange
is the prominent colour of flowers that people use to decorate their shrines on Day of the
Dead. These are two background that I found that I am going to try working with
on my poster...

Sugar Skulls

As it a Day of the Dead poster I thought there had to be some sugar

skulls on there somewhere, they are the iconic symbol of Day of the Dead.

I started by drawing this one at the top just straight on, but then did consider the 

layout of the poster and thought as I will be having the bottles and other

items about it would be good to have a side on, more 3D drawing.

This drawing might be more useful because I am considering having the poster set out with 
a table and having the tequila bottles on the table along with the skull so this
skull would fit better with the layout of the poster.

Day of The Dead Poster Imagery

 Neon Cactus is a Tequila bar so I wanted to reflect that in the poster
and use Tequila bottles in the poster, also using the label of the bottles
to display some of the information on the poster.
I also tried to find a type face that matched that of the Tequila
bottles I was looking at.
I looked at Jose Cuervo Tequila and found a type face that matched
theres quite closely called Iglesia which I based my type on.

I have tried to draw a few different Tequila bottles and also 
one lay down with the liquid spilling out which I thought could work
some where on the poster.
I am going to put these images into Illustrator and work on them there.

Pattern Design Ideas

To start off the idea generation for the patterns for my surface pattern
brief I started with the basics and looked at geometric patterns and shapes.
These are some of the initial sketches, I need to think how they can fit together
and work on the stationary.

Design Direction

For our tutorial tomorrow we need to show some design direction
for each of our briefs. I haven't yet started designing for any of my briefs
so I have made up some boards that show the type of work I want
to produce for each brief.

Day of the Dead Posters-Type

These are the initial design ideas for the type for the day of the dead
poster for Neon Cactus. I have looked at Mexican imagery and iconic
images from the Day of the Dead festivals. Orange flowers are
a major part of the decoration of the festival so I have included them 
in the text. I need to see how it works with the rest of the content 
of the poster, that will depend of if the flowers will stay or go.