New Academic Note

I have since found out today that I must only submit one design per criteria, although I am disappointed by this, I will follow this new piece of information, and select only one design per item, those items being the bottle label, and the two separate beer clips.

I was told the reason why this was, is because it would be unfair to the group, for me to submit more than one item when it came to the academic side of the module.
This means that I must now choose only one design per item, just for the academic side.

I like all of my designs, but there are a few that really do stand out to me.
I have placed them below, and I will talk a bit about each, and why I have decided to choose these particular designs.

'Bottle Label'.

'Font Clip'

'Cask Pump Clip'

Bottle label:

I do like all of my bottle labels, but I feel as if the 3rd final is the one that stands out to me the most, and visually looks the most professional.

I love the use of colour,  imagery of the lion, the botanical theme, as well as the font type, and assembly.
It is a wraparound label, so it would wraparound the glass bottle like a lot of other bottle types, for example similar in style to the photo below.

'Bottle Label'.

Font Clip:

Again, I love all of my font clips, as they both look good and well developed in my opinion.
I really like my illustration of the font clip, as I feel that it appears very visually Roman, and works very well with the design.

I love the colour palette that I have used, as well as the choice of font, and the merge of the themes included in the design.

'Font Clip' Final #1

Cask Pump Clip:
I think that the pump clip which can be seen above, is a very striking design that contains two visual themes, and works very well with all of the other designs that I have been developing.
It is to the correct dimensions, and at the correct DPI, like all of my other designs.

'Cask Pump Clip' Final #2

I am looking forward to finding out what Wylam makes of my well-developed designs.

Thomas.

Module Overview/Conclusion

This module has been one of the most challenging modules that I have encountered so far in my studies.

The Module has revolved around the topic of commercial illustration, and involved me selecting a brief to base my studies around.
I decided to choose the Wylam brewery brief, as it was the one that was the most appealing to me.

I believe that I made the right choice, as I have had a lot of fun, in a professional manner of course, developing and nourishing my ideas to come up with several designs for submission.

An sizeable extract of the brief can be found below.

Extract from the Wylam brief.

This brief is important to me not only in an academic setting, but also in a professional sense.
This is my first taste of a true commercial brief, and with it comes key things to learn, such as time management, professionalism, contracting, communication, competition and commitment, among many others.

For the brief I had to produce a lot of research into the product, the ethos of the product, the market, and other connecting topics, in order to get a good understanding of what needed to be done for the criteria.
I think that I have researched very efficiently, and extensively, and I have produced a good amount of blogs that all tie in to my development in some way.

For the module, I needed to produce the following, as part of my criteria to pass.

1. Bottle Label for 'Chara' brew.
2. 'Font beer clip'.
3. 'Cask pump clip'.
4. Professional Powerpoint on module.

I initially set upon developing the label for the beer, and it took a large amount of careful consideration, thinking, as well as development.

Label development.

My extensive development allowed for me in the end, to come up with 3 different design variants to submit to the company, and these designs can be seen below, in order.

1st variant of the wraparound label.

2nd variant of the wraparound label.

3rd variant of the wraparound label.

Overall I am very pleased with my final designs, as I feel that they not only look appealing to the eyes, but they also reflect the product's ethos well, with their links to the product, as well as the Roman background.

After developing the bottle labels for the product, I moved onto developing the beer clips, that would work alongside the label design.

Like the bottle, this also took a multitude of different steps to assemble.

Clip development.

This development led to the final clips being produced.
There are several different variants for each clip. This is to give Wylam a larger choice, which gives me a better chance of having my designs successfully used on the official brew.

I will showcase my final 'Beer Clips' immediately below, starting with the 'Font Clips'.

'Font Clip' Final #1

'Font Clip' Final #2

'Cask Pump Clip' Final #1

'Cask Pump Clip' Final #2

I am very happy with all of my clip finals, as I feel that they not only match the criteria of the product, but they also work well with the bottle label which is something that I wanted with all of the designs.

With the clips, and the label completed, I moved onto producing my powerpoint presentation, which is to be showcased to both Ben and Amy, discussing my thoughts on the module, explaining in detail what I did, how I did it, etc.

With the powerpoint completed, all my criteria had been met, meaning that I accomplished what I was set to do by Wylam.

Now all I need to do now is add the required bleeds to the photoshop designs, and digitally submit them ready for hand in, which is on the 15/1/15.










Thomas.

Final Presentation

Slide #1

Slide #2

Slide #3

Slide #4

Slide #5

Slide #6

Slide #7

Slide #8

Slide #9

Slide #10

Slide #11

Slide #12

Slide #13

Slide #14

Thomas.

Professional Delivery

With all of my designs now ready to be submitted to Wylam brewery, I want to go over the process of handing over files to the client, in a way that is both professional, and at industry standard.

All of my documents have a bleed fitted, ranging upward from 1mm. This is to allow a bit of lenience when cutting the image, to act as a buffer zone in case of cutting variances.

http://blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/1.gif < image reference at this link.

Also, my documents must be in the format of either RGB or CYMK, but i will be choosing CYMK as I have more experience with the colour format.

http://www.ashworthcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/colour-space-CMYK.jpg < image reference at this link.

The files must also be in the formats of TIFF, and PDF, as these are high quality file formats which will allow for a good resolution image.

http://cheetahcourier.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/package-delivery-300x250.jpg < image reference at this link.

It is very important to transfer the finished criteria to the client in a professional manner, and this very often requires the usage of digital tools and programs.

One would think of such tools as DropBox, however there are more secure solutions, that are specially tailored to moving files across industry.
I touched on this subject with one of my existing blogs within professional studies, and when discussing the topic of delivery to Ben, he brought up the digital service called WeTransfer.

https://www.wetransfer.com < image reference at this link.

WeTransfer has some big improvements over other internet transfer services, as it offers much larger file sizes, which in the case of an illustrator, means that once can transfer much more detailed files, at a high resolution.

I have had experience with using digital platforms in the past with a lot of my other modules, and these have all required the use of Dropbox, a format which had to be used according to the module requirements, although they were used to allow the lecturers to gain access to my work easily.

https://www.dropbox.com < image reference at this link.

What is different this time, is that I am working with an active client, so this time I will be using WeTransfer as a more professional approach to submission.
I will still use Dropbox to submit on the academic side, but WeTransfer for the commercial side, as it is much more of a specialised industry standard platform used my a large amount of illustrators, and people in business.











Thomas.

Communicating with the client

Now that my proposed designs are completed, I thought that it would be a good idea to contact the brewery, to see what they think of my designs.

Earlier on last month, I was given contact information to get in touch with Chris, a man who I met early in into the brief.

It is very important to have professional communications between yourself as an illustrator, and a client, who is basically the boss.

I briefly went over the topic of communication earlier on in a different blog in the module, and highlighted his importance.

http://stuartjallen.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/communication.png < image reference at this link.

I have established communications with other people/companies in the past, in relation to my practises, however this would be the first time establishing communications with a 'client'.

Below you can see my transcript that I have sent to the address above, and of course I will update the blog when I receive a reply.

Thomas.

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is an advanced software program.
It is a sold by Adobe, and the latest version is Photoshop CC, the CC stands for creative cloud, which is the primary version that I have been using for my commercial illustration module.

It is very commonly used in industry by many professionals ranging between artists, illustrators, and graphic designers.
As well as Photoshop, such other packages as Adobe Illustrator, Autodesk CAD, and Sketchbook Pro are used, sometimes in conjunction with Photoshop, as there is no one definitive package that offers all features.

It is a very powerful piece of software that allows the user to manipulate many different aspects of images, from basic things like cropping, sketching, and layering, to more advanced things, like editing colour via CYMK/RGB settings, and creating/printing 3d content.

I have been using Adobe Photoshop for a while now, and I have found my skill improving due continual use, especially over the past few modules.

Over the course of this module, I have been working a lot with Adobe photoshop, as I have done over a lot of my other studio modules.

Building a concept for the 'Font Clip'.

Adobe photoshop is a very useful tool for me as an illustrator, as it can enhance my designs.
All of my designs for this module have been created using Adobe Photoshop CC, which allows me to make industry standard designs at the correct dimensions as specified by Wylam.










Thomas.

Summary of Designs (see updated message)

This module has been one of my favourite modules to date, as I feel as if it has really challenged me and my illustrative skill/voice, whilst giving me a taste of what it is like to develop something within the commercial space, as well as the academic space, which the latter I am very much used to.

For the Wylam brief, I was tasked to come up with the design for 3 different items, those being a bottle label, and two separate beer clips.

The first one that I set upon developing, was the beer bottle label, and in the end I came up with 3 finals to submit to Wylam.

http://www.lemontopcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Worsthorne_beer_bottles-1210x960.jpg < image reference at this link.

My final bottle designs can be seen below.

1st variant of the wraparound label.

2nd variant of the wraparound label.

3rd variant of the wraparound label.

I then moved onto developing the the 'beer clips', in which there was two different clips to develop.
Those being a 'clip' for the font, and a clip for the cask pump, to which examples can be found below in respectable order.

http://beerlens.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/IMG_5488-990.jpg < image reference at this link.

http://ebid.s3.amazonaws.com/upload_big/5/7/7/1400832657-3439-120.jpg < image reference at this link.

I wanted both of the clips to work together, as well as working with the bottle label.

I looked at my bottle labels, and thought about what I could do for the design of my clips.

After going through various stages of development, which I highlighted and recapped in the final clip development blog, I came up with the following two final designs, starting with the 'Font clips'.

Final #1

Final #2

Moving onto the 'cask pump clips' now, and my two finals can be found below.

Final #1

Final #2

With the final designs now ready for submission, they need to be digitally submitted at an industry standard.
I will be producing a blog all about the submission process soon, as it contains very important information.

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Update:

I have recently found out that I can only submit one design per criteria, so that it remains fair to the other people participating in the same brief as me.
Because of this, I have selected 3 designs that I will be submitting to Wylam for the academic side.
When the time comes to submit commercially sometime later in the year, I will go ahead and submit the multiple choice designs that I originally intended to submit.

Final bottle label with bleed.

Final Cask Pump Clip with bleed.

Final Font Clip with bleed.

Note: The bleed is hard to see due to my black border, and adding guidelines would mean that it could be incorporated into the design.
The border is 1mm thicker to allow for cutting lenience.

Thomas.