Fuzzy hamster redesign

Well, "redesign" might be the wrong word, it's more of an upgrade! 

I've been following a lot of design blogs and such on my facebook, one of them being www.creativebloq.com (which is my bible and god right now. I have so many pages from its website bookmarked!). It recently featured an article about what makes a good cute/kawaii character design. I read it, looked at my own design and saw what could be improved upon. 

So what's changed? 

• The shape is more "organic" as the article put it. It now matches what my original drawing looked like, rather than being a perfectly round circle.
• I experimented with different faces but in the end, I only made the original mouth smaller. All other faces looked odd to me!
• The mouth and nose have both been moved up a little bit
• Fur added to the belly
• Minor fur alterations to make it a bit more in-line with the body

I now think he looks much cuter! :) But you can judge for yourself.

Mangagirl Photography

A friend of mine asked if I would do a logo and business card for her cosplay photography, so course I said yes! She wanted a logo featuring a camera with wings (although in the end, the wings didn't make it into the final design) in a cute, chibi/kawaii style. Also requested was the colour blue.

After lots of research, 5 pages of drawings, computer editing and input from Harriett: This was the final outcome. Bright, bold and full of fun, you'll most likely find her and her camera at a convention near you!

(Business card images coming when she gets them in the post!)

Typography and me

I have a weird relationship with typography. It looks so simple, yet it's probably one of the hardest parts to get right in design!

I personally love sans-serif typefaces the best. They're a good all-rounder, jack-of-all trades font. In particular I love rounded at the ends sans serif types like "Hero" and "Quicksand" as I think they reflect how I would like to appear: friendly and non-threatening. They're easy on the eyes and very readable at small sizes, unlike serif's.

Speaking of serif's. I'm not too keen on them. Not because I don't like how they look, some of them are very sexy! It's because I find them very... smart and high-class. And you know what? I'm not a smart person, therefore I find them hard to get right. I feel that they HAVE to be used in the right situation, otherwise you end up giving the wrong impression.

But I guess that's what typefaces are all about. Finding that ONE type that encompasses the impression you want to give off, your personality, your likes and dis-likes, your target audience etc. I could go on and on! But once you find that magical type, it's one of the best feelings in the world! :D When I'm walking up into town, I've now gotten into the habit of analyzing what typefaces the shops use as their logos. What sort of impression are they giving me? What are they saying about themselves? Do I like it? Would I have used something different?

I've probably rambled on enough. I do like to find great new typefaces though, but since I'm a cheapskate, they have to be free! So here's some great sites I regularly use to get my type-fix! 

http://www.dafont.com/

http://www.fontsquirrel.com/ - Always the first place I visit if I'm looking for something new. There's always great quality stuff on there :)

http://freetypography.com/

http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/

http://jovanny.ru/eng-free-fonts.html

http://fontfabric.com/

http://losttype.com/browse/

The Print Handbook

I brought a wonderful little book the other day (which arrived today) called "The Print Handbook". It's got alot of useful references about how type will look when printed in different colours and sizes, stuff about foil blocking, image resolutions, paper types and all sorts of other things! 

I really recommend it and it'll certainly help me make better decisions about printing! It's only £5 so you really can't go wrong with it :)

http://www.printhandbook.com/

Persona 4 minimalism posters

Anyone who knows me well will know that my favourite game of all time is Persona 4. I started these before the Okami ones, but they've taken longer since right now, I've based them purely on the characters (rather than a representation of the whole game). Some of these were REALLY hard to do as some characters as alot more distinctive and detailed than others in their design. So it was hard to minimalise them, yet keep them recognisable as to who they were meant to be. If you're looking at this and aren't familiar with Persona 4, here's a link to a website with great references! creativeuncut.com

Also referred to as "The Protagonist"

Okami minimalism posters

So. I had sudden burst of inspiration recently after seeing some minimalism posters! What fun they are to make! So far, I've been basing them off my favourite games. This first set is from "Okami" and it's sequel "Okamiden". Admittedly, there is already one very similar to the first Okami one already out there. However. I didn't think the red markings were accurate nor did I like the typeface they had used. So that one is kind of my version of it, as such!

I had a look around at some other posters like this and liked one that I saw with a quote attached. So I've put a quote from the game above the main title that I thought represented the heart of the game. Except for the one featuring "Shiranui", as that's just a character poster rather than being a separate game!

The Show

This has to be one of the most embarrassing things I've ever done. Having people walk around and look at my work? It was terrifying! I stood well away from my work, but so that I still had a view of it so I could see who exactly was looking at my stuff. So I was pretty much in ninja mode all evening! Although I did get some nice comments, so maybe I need not have been so shy about it all! 

Setting up the show itself took FOREVER. The whole process killed my legs by the time Saturday came and I could barely walk! All of my recent work made it in, apart from one of my Advertising posters, but that was only because it had a big black ink blotch when it came out of the printer (which was a shame really, I would have liked all four to have been there). I hope for those that came though, that you liked what you saw :) 

All photos were taken by others in my class at the show! It took place in Bristol at the CentreSpace Gallery.

Stray Thread

For our final project at uni, we were allowed to do ANYTHING we wanted. Me being the indecisive person that I am, it took me awhile to decide! I eventually decided that since I love sewing, I would make a set of sewing kits (packaging) that was aimed towards people of my age range (Young adult. About 16-25 ish) that would contain all the things you would need to sew. There would be three in the set, each representing a different stage: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. So hopefully, if you brought the beginner you would then advance up the sewing learning curve and get the other two kits!

Coming up with the brand name for these kits took forever. All the good names are taken! I must have gone through at least 20 different names before I settled on "Stray Thread". The logo itself is pretty simple and very colourful so that it appealed to my target audience! I really wanted to avoid the obvious sewing reference but I was convinced by my friends that this was impossible. I still like the final result though, so it's not all that bad.

As for the packaging, they are triangular in shape, inspired by Tailors Chalk! (I couldn't cope without it!) They also have REAL (Yes, REAL) fabric sewn onto them. I mean, why have a rubbishy looking texture put on them when you could put the real thing on it? You can interact with the packaging then and the whole thing becomes a lot more interesting.

Admittedly, this was actually my second choice for my project as my teacher didn't seem to be all that keen on my first choice. For some reason that I still don't reeeeally understand. But never mind! I still enjoyed this project :)

 

 

My Business card

I thought long and hard about what sort of impression I wanted to give off with my own personal business card. Did I wanna look REALLY professional? Sexy? Funny? Friendly? Approachable? Etc?

Originally, I wanted a funny card, but then I found out: I'm not that funny.At least not in card form!

So a change of plan: Cute card! I'd like to think that I'm friendly and approachable, yet I could design it so that it looked good. I loved some of the cute business cards I saw when I was looking around online for inspiration, so I went off and designed my own little fuzzy hamster!

I spent awhile on that little hamster, I drew many hamsters before I came up with a design that I liked. Which I then drew up on Illustrator and finalised him. I got the colour scheme from Kuler (best website ever), which was very bright and bold! I put it all together and many alterations later and... it was done!

"Fuzzy Hamster Design"?

Now, why did I choose Fuzzy Hamster as my "designer" name? Well... it was between that and "Black Dragon". I love hamsters and I also love dragons.

So how was this epic battle of choice decided? By asking on Facebook of course! My friends believes that Fuzzy Hamster suited me better, so that's what I went for.

Who is the fuzzy hamster in my life? Her name is Zelda and is the cutest little hamster there ever was! She likes cheese and making people feel guilty by staring at them... but hates plastic wrapper noises! They scare her, the silly little thing.

Information Design

Well, this was certainly.... interesting. We were asked to create an infographic based on an article from a newspaper. I chose one based on the Cheltenham horse deaths and thus based my infographic on horse racing in general.

I took all of my information from Animal Aid's horsedeathwatch.com website. I did ask horse racing authorities for data, but it seems that they don't give this out, despite claiming that they do. Hm...

Corporate Identity

So for this brief we were asked to create an Identity for a new sports initiative for young people called "Talent Hubs". This included a logo, poster, pop-up banner, t-shirt, water bottle, e-mailer and web banner. 

I rather enjoyed this brief and for probably the first time, I made a logo I truly loved and believed in! Allow me to bore you with the meanings behind the logo: 

The logo consists of a graphic element along with a clean, young typeface that will appeal to the target audience. The graphic encompasses everything Talent Hubs is. The central circle is the “hub” of Talent Hubs and each of the circles surrounding it represents an individual, whether this is the teenager joining the initiative or members of the Wesport team running it is up to the person interpreting it. The orange circle highlights this aspect of the logo, but this is also the spot where you insert yourself into the Talent Hubs initiative. Although the individual is important, these circles come together to form a TEAM, a very important aspect in sports, and makes up the bigger picture. The graphic has a sense of movement, which is important in pretty much all sports. It is also: note that the logo is moving to the right (forwards), as you want teenagers progressing forward towards their goals and not moving away from them. It may not be so noticeable, but the graphic is triangular in shape. Triangles are one of the strongest shapes and so serves as a symbol of strength and among other meanings it is a focus point for energy.

More images to come when I figure why I can't convert them into jpegs!!

Advertising

I didn't think I'd enjoy this, but it turned out alright in the end! The brief was to design an integrated advertising campaign for the upper market clothing chain Ted Baker. We had to chose between one of their different ranges that they sell and I chose watches. My designs are typography based and are based on quotes and symbols of eternity.

Branding and Packaging

I really enjoyed this module! We had a brief to brand and package something to do with BBQ. I chose BBQ tools and very early on decided to go with a cave man/cave painting theme. It's where the BBQ really began surely??

The typeface was hand drawn by myself. The tool belt was also sewn by myself on my sewing machine, thankfully the artist canvas didn't break any of my needles!