PPP2 self promotional Material: Initial designs.

PP2.

SELF PROMOTION. 

INITIAL DESIGNS. 

Today I started playing around with ideas for my logo, I chose to brand myself as Sarah Lucy as I don't want to come across too formal to any possible employers. I want to appear approachable and friendly whilst still with holding some kind of professional appearance. I felt that my first name by itself was too informal, whilst my full name was the extreme of the opposite direction.

To begin with I typed up my name in one of my favourite typefaces 'Buttermilk', designed by one of my favourite graphic designers Jessica Hische, whom focuses heavily on illustrated work. I felt that this was very reflective of my practice, as I am very much illustration based. 

Jessica Hische work and typeface:

Once I had typed this up, I printed it out and taking a pencil, began to work on some illustrative line work surrounding my name. It is important for me to emphasise illustration in my self branding as it is not only where my strengths lie, but where I want my interests to take me. 

After much rubbing out and reconstructing, below is the design I have come up with, although I am not 100% happy with the outcome, more so the line work, this can be corrected when taken into illustrator. Notice that I added two simple heart motifs into the logo design, as a visual extension of the love and passion I have for design and the work I am involved in. I scanned the sketch in, and worked with it in illustrator, tidying up any lines and making the overall design smoother and cleaner. 

Below is the vector version of my logo:

Now that I had the shape complete, I had to think about colour schemes. As my design is seemingly very feminine, I didn't want to pigeon hole myself by choosing a very feminine connotated colour. This could portray the idea that I can only complete a certain array of projects. And so I chose a colour that is very gender neutral in this day and age, mint.

Below I have played with the colour mint against my piece of type. 

Although I liked the type against the two shades of mint, I felt that I wanted more depth, and so to do this, I created a gradient with the two colours and overlayed the text ontop. 

I prefer this combination much more, and think that It will work well with white typography. I also think that the logo by itself would be striking and memorable on the front of a business card. 

I changed the colur of the type to white, this seemed a much more appropriate colour to be paired with mint, and gave off a friendly and approachable attitude. 

I then increased the size of the logo and placed it into a business card template, I liked the way in which the logo overlapped the edges, taking up almost the full surface of the business card like a strong statement. 

As the front of the business card is very detailed, I wanted the back to support this with a simple minimalist design. To contrast the mint gradient on the front of the card, the back of the card is white, allowing the detailed design on the reverse to stand out. Once this has hooked someones attention, I wanted the details on the back to be transparent, so that information could be easily recieved. 

I tried to include a nod to my logo on the bac of the card, however I felt that the combination of my initials made the design look too twee, which is what I am trying to stay away from. It had a connotation to designs such as wedding invites etc. 

I tried a simpler design on the back where I deleted my initials from the centre of the card, and instead solely used the heart. The heart is an ongoing symbol for my passion and love for design. 

I liked this design much more than the previous as I felt it was more supportive of the front of the business card. When turned over the eye is instantly drawn to the list of information, rather than a further logo/emblem linked to myself. This is a much more efficient design, allowing users of the card to receive and process the information they are looking for at a quicker speed. 

I had also talked about creating a little something extra in terms of giving the possible employer a little piece of design which they could keep. I thought about what different products designers could use. Calenders, bookmarks, keyrings?

However the one idea which I liked the most was printed coasters. Designers are known to drink a lot of tea or even coffee, and this is something that they could keep on their desk which will constantly be in there vision. 

In terms of the design, I am very much about traditional printing and textures and trying to make my designs tactile. Although I do not have the time to screen print all of my work, It could be nice to screen print a couple of items to communicate this. 

Therefore I think it would be a good idea to create my coasters out of wood to reflect the tactile element I like to produce for my designs, and screen print onto the surface of them.

Whilst brainstorming this idea I came up with two design possibilities for my coasters. I decided to keep the designs typography based and consistent with the branding I have already produced above. 

The two typographical sayings I have come up with for the coasters are relative to myself and then to other designers. 

The first is a play on words reading 'Brewed in Yorkshire' giving some slight information of where I live and have been brought up, referring to the idea of brewing tea. 

The second links to the idea of meeting up with employers and talking about work, my own and projects that they may also be working on by reading 'Lets talk over tea' Initiating a meeting between myself and a possible employer. 

In terms of aesthetics I want the coasters to be very similar to my own branding, so that when people see the coasters they link the visual with my brand. The designs use exactly the same fonts and colours as my branding, in two different combinations.