'MIRAGE' Textiles Pattern (2 part series) - NOW AVAILABLE!

Woo, I'm excited about this pattern!
Lovely, simple pattern to make and looks great!

I've named the pattern 'Mirage' and it's part of a 2 part series.
The other half, you can find on Society6 also!

To see the rest of the collection of this design, follow this link:
http://society6.com/Elmerchant/MIRAGE-02_Print?show=promoters#user_list

AND THERE'S FREE SHIPPING UNTIL SUNDAY!!!

Promote, and share with all your friends! :) 

NEW PROJECT: Company Branding / Logo Design (Initial ideas)

FINALLY! I have a new project to work on at my internship and it's a branding one involving everything you can think of... logo, posters, website, shop graphics... the lot!

I've done all the preliminary research about industry competition and started putting a client presentation together so when the project is finished (I don't think i'll be here long enough to finish everything) - bits can be dropped in easily as there's already a template available. 

Today is the first day I've begun making some logos for the new company, who are calling themselves 'Coral'. I think the first obvious steps of designing the logo would be to do what I've done and go straight to working with coral shells and sea coral. 

With the first shell I think I am going to try to figure out a way to use this as a 'C' for the start of the company name 'Coral'.

-A Closeup of two of the shells-

-A closeup of two pieces of sea coral-

I have also tried to use a kind of hibiscus flower native to the company's startup country - Jamaica. I'm not too sure how I feel about these yet though...

- Close up of flower-

This is just the start. More to come soon...

Moroccan Patterning: Repeat Pattern/Texture (Final Option)

The final option I created for the Moroccan food van I was asked to design for (at my internship) was a repeat pattern I made using a pattern I found and a texture that I created. This actually turned out to be my favourite result of them all, and annoyingly it only took me about 1 minute to create as I was messing around with some Photoshop effects for some ideas, and this happened! 

Yet again, it's another case of a happy accident when it comes to me creating patterns!

I kinda hope the client picks this pattern to cover his van!

It's definitely the best, in my opinion!

Moroccan Patterning: Continued

As a continuation of my post from yesterday, here are some examples of colour schemes I began playing around with after deciding on my pattern. Moroccan colours are generally quite earthy and golden, but their flag also has green in it. I tried to consider this when choosing my colours.

1. Red and Gold (simple but effective)

2. Green and Gold.

I developed the flowers a little further here by adding in some detail to their centres

3. Red, Green and Gold.

My favourite of the three. Bold, rich and lively.

I also played around with some other shapes and textures to try to create a mosaic/tiled effect.

Below is an example of what I mean.

I also tried creating a simple texture in Photoshop, which I'm aware the boss doesn't favour using (and which I'll post soon), but to be honest is my favourite design of them all... We'll soon see what the client thinks when he takes my mock-ups to him to view.

Animation: Storyboarding

Once again, something I anticipated that would take me less than half a day has consumed almost the entirety of it! Today I've been working on finishing everything to do with my animation, which includes a story board and character sheets (still on my to do list before the night is through) and I've pretty much had to re-draw the entire thing, but in a simpler form. I definitely couldn't have done a storyboard with as much detail as the actual animation and to be honest, it's not necessary.

I'm fairly happy with how this is looking so far. Still some finishing touches to add before I get on those character sheets though. ROLL ON 9TH MAY! Summer has been well and truly earned by everyone on my course this year.

Making Texture: Another Happy Accident

Yesterday I was attempting to make a textured background for one of my magazine pages using an image I found of a bit of rust. With some twisting and turning of the image I managed to create this FREAKIN' AWESOME pattern in the texture!

Sadly, it was too detailed to use as a background but it'd be perfect for using as a tiled image somewhere else! I like these happy accidents I have! :)

Creating a brand identity: Poster Promotion

These three screen shots are the three final ideas I had for promotional posters for a graphics project. The whole logo and theme of the brand is based around the old, retro play buttons on cassettes and personal stereos - but with a modern twist. Logically, I called the range 'Play' and Goji is the brand that I am designing for. 

The posters are just an accompaniment to a pattern and a packaging based project, but I thought it'd be nice to try to tie in a poster with it for additional content.

This first one for me makes no sense to the actual theme of the range that I've already created, but it does look nice! 

This for me is one of my favourite designs but it also doesn't fit the existing theme of the range, as it's very minimal texture with lots of white space and is meant to resemble a spray paint type effect with the gold. This is just very decorative. 

This one however DOES fit the style I've been working with and I've also tried to make it look like a paint drip to tie in with the look of the pattern. This is the one I will be developing a little more to make my final poster. All it will need is some added information about the brand and it's good to go!

My "Happy Mistake"

Last night I was trying to make a metallic-looking texture to use as a colour scheme for one of my projects. I'd made some spray paint patterns with gold spray but when I'd scanned them in they lost their shine and their glittery appearance so I looked online for a simple metallic background that I could use alongside the sprayed patterns and combine them somehow to create more texture.

I started off with two separate images:

The first the metallic surface I'd found and the second the spray paint texture I made. I tweaked the levels and using the blending mode 'Divide' on Photoshop my main tile was made.

This was the end result of that process. 

As I was using this to cover an A4 sized pattern, or at least part of it, I copied the layer a few times and rotated it, flipped it etc. So that it all blended in nicely together and so that when overlaid onto my pattern, there wouldn't be any harsh lines showing where a few images had been used and stuck next to each other to cover the entire page.

What I didn't realise however until long after I'd finished, is that the pattern I eventually made by piecing a few of these images together was something even nicer than what I had intended! 

This final result reminds me of a kaleidoscope effect, or even some sort of jewellery like amber or rose gold. I guess sometimes the coolest things do happen when you don't intend for them to! Or as my teacher once called things like this... "Happy Mistakes". (But that sounds a bit dodgy to me)

Making Texture With Spray Paint

Today I've been trying to make a sort of abstract pattern using spray paint. The purpose for it is to act as a colour scheme / texture scheme for a project I am working on involving creating an identity.

I tried spraying onto paper and then taking some of the paint back off with crumpled up magazine pages, which worked fine but the best effect I was able to create was made by spraying onto acetate and then extracting. 

This first image is done using white paper, but the magazine paper I used to pick select bits off the page couldn't take as much of the paint off the page as I wanted it to, to reveal more white underneath. 

This second image is much more successful and was created using acetate. Because it is transparent, when I scanned it in - the gaps became even more white due to the light scanning it. Double win! 

This is the image I'll be using for my final colour/texture scheme in project.

These two final images are just the paper I used to cover my floor so I didn't get paint on the carpet! The different layers of paper and acetate that were laid on them made a pretty cool pattern though! 

Bookmaking: Another Finished Project

THANK F**K FOR THAT!

Another project I can cross off my To Do list! 

It's taken me a while but I've finally gotten there, and documented the whole process on video too!

For an idea that started out fairly un-refined and not really sure of where I was going with it,  I'm actually pretty damn happy with how it's turned out. Changing slightly from my original mock-up I think it's come out better at the other side. 

The books are completely different sizes and scales but you can see the initial ideas are the same, but the placement of the spinning wheel and the refinement of the layers have come a long way and a good job too. I think I'd be pretty unhappy if it still looked like that! However, no matter how much I slate the original design, without it I wouldn't have the final piece that I have today! So cheers to you shit mock-up.... You served me well!

I will also be uploading onto here a simple step-by-step video of the process which I recorded as something a bit different to hand in other than a sketch book for when assessment time comes. 

Animation: Preview Clip

The past two days I've been trying to refine and perfect the scenes in my Animation sequence ready for next weekend when I am hoping to add in my sound effects and Narrative. I've finally gotten around to adding in a small black dot to represent a small fly that my frog looks up to eat. 

This clip is just a small section of the scene. 

Check it out!

Animation Preview: Clip Still Under Construction

I thought I'd take a quick screen recording of one of my animation scenes to show you. 

I haven't yet finished the scene - I still need to add a bounce into the leaves when the frog jumps on each one and some sound, as well as play around with the graph editor to make the jumps look a little more weighted and lifelike! 

What's going on here has taken me a good few hours to make considering it's only a 12 second clip, but thats due to the fact that there's so many layers involved. Typical of me to make things more difficult than they need to be! Ah well. Hopefully it'll turn out good in the end! 

Animation Development: New Background Design

Today I've been continuing with some animation work and I've started making up the components of my next scenes background! I love adding texture to things like this, it gives it so much more character and life, and I even messed about with the blending options just for a bit of fun!

Original Image with black outline

Original Image, No outline

Altered Image - Looks tropical! 

Final Image - White Outline

This is what I'll be using in my animation for the background. 

It fits with the style I've created so far and looks pretty cool too! I'm happy.