Summary of my work – semester 1

Here you can see summary of the final versions of my work in semester 1 –

Presentation of my logo:

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Business card:

Letterhead:

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CD/CD case:

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Creative part of my brand identity – CD case/CD

For creative part of my brand identity, I decided to create a portfolio CD with a CD case.

A little research about designs on the internet gave me ideas on what I want to do. I typed into Google ‘CD case templates’ and found these two pictures that I really liked and wanted to do use them for my design:

This gave me an idea how I want my CD case to fold.

After a little discussion with my lecturer about designing ideas, we came up with a better idea how to fold a CD case.

Screenshot of the layout (working screen – Illustrator CS6):

Theory of artwork

Before I start to talk about the theory behind the artwork, here is the final version of it –

For the front page of my CD case I decided to use exactly the same design as I used for back of my letterhead (for more information read article below).
The back of my CD case is a continuation of circles but without the grey line through full page as I didn’t think it was necessary to use it there again as it creates a nice flow of the design. The circle space I used for my contact details (the exact font is used that I used for my logo).
On the top, you can see a lot of different words with different sizes and colours. The reason for it is that I decided to fill inside of the case with words that are appropriate for the industry I will work in and also for my personality so when you open the case, it will tell you a little bit more information about me but still not enough as main information will be on CD and little booklet of my work put inside.
The text on top is in a different font, it’s more bulky that gives the connotation of not being scared to try and experiment with different things within the industry. Different sizes of font are used because I wanted to highlight important words that stand out from others. Using different colours are used for the same reason as the different size of font.

Final version of the case:

CD design

For my CD design, I downloaded from Google this picture as I needed to create my own template for designing:

I uploaded it into Illustrator CS6 and created a circle on the second line and also in the middle circle for the hole and covered it with my design that I used for back of my letter head.

Screen shot of working screen:

Then I right clicked the mouse and chose ‘Arrange’ and ‘Send to back’.

At the end I hid the background CD template and the final version was done:

Letterhead – designing process

When the design of my business card was all done, I started to create the letterhead for my branding. The reason for it was that I found out in my research that brand identity has to have the same design; it has to be linked together. The design that gave me an idea how the layout of my letterhead is going to look like was this:

(the picture found on Google)

I opened Illustrator CS6 template that we designed in one of graphic lectures.

As you can see on the picture, I used ‘Bleed’ (set up to 5mm). Bleed is not a designed part of artwork and allows you to run artwork to the edge so we ensure that the ink is printed to the edges and not cut off.

This is the final version of my letterhead design.

Back side of the letterhead

My lecturer gave me an idea to design back of my letterhead.

Theory behind it/color scheme:

The reason why I’ve decided to use a green background is that it is the main and brightest color in my logo design so when you fold a letter in to the envelope, the first thing you will get after opening the envelope will be a nice bright color (something unusual). The grey line across the full back symbolize wrapping – again, it creates ‘wow’ moment after opening envelope as it gives a nice contrast with the green colour. The reason for the grey colour is that I used it in my logo as a second colour. The logo itself is in white because it wasn’t readable after using it on the green background as the colours are the same. The circles that you see on the design are there because of the theory of dots in my logo so I felt the need to include them in design of every part of my brand identity (symbolisation of my business and people coming to me for designs, attracting people to my company).

Final design of back of my letterhead:

Changes I made to my business card design – final version

This is the final version of my business card design after changes that I was intend to do —>

Changes I’m going to make to my business card design

After feedback from my lecturer about my business card design, I’m going to make a few changes to the design.

These will be the changes that I intend to make:

Text:

big space between contact details – put it together little bit more
line up my contact details

Graphic:

get rid of borders – keep it simple
get rid of borders on QR code
use simple border green/grey line on QR code – grey line on left/green line on right side of QR code

Designing process/changing ideas

After my research was done and I knew what I wanted to design, it was time to start designing process. However, while trying to design my first draft, I realized that it will not work well as textured design that I was planning on using with my logo on front side of business card will take over back part and my contact details won’t be readable.

That’s why I came up with idea to design my business card as folding. I opened InDesign CS6 and set up document to 88mm/55mm as it was the right size for business cards that I found on internet while doing research.

This is what I designed:

What inspired me to use green/gray line above contact details:

In my previous post about the research on business cards and letter head, I uploaded this picture:

I really liked the blue line underneath logo so I thought I’ll use something similar in my design; I split full line into two parts as my logo consists of green and gray colors.

After creating folding card design, I didn’t think it was very good idea as I would have unused space on it. I decided to stick to my first original idea but change it a little bit.

Instead of having my logo on full front side and contact details on back side, I put logo and contact details on front side.

Result designed in InDesign CS6:

Explanation of borders:

In my first attempt of design, I used green/grey line so that’s why I decided to use it again but as border.

Research about paper

After lecturer showed us samples of paper, I decided to do research about it as a part of my research. I really liked textured paper sample so I read more about it. I found this website www.castleprint.co.uk where it said that textured cards were popular few years back but it is still widely used today. To be honest I don’t really mind as I do like the design of it. This textured design is mostly used for architects and legal professions but I can imagine it looking great on my business card.

Another thing that assured me to go for this design is that on the site www.tinyprints.com said that textured design will make business card stand out more and people will be tempted to give it another touch. This means that people will want to look at my business card more as it will grab their attention and this way they will not just put it away and never look at it again.

Few pictures of textured design (downloaded from Google)

Research about business card and letter head

Once I created brand identity for myself, my next task is to create business card, letter head and creative part of my brand identity which I decided to create CD portfolio and CD case (I’m going to be talking about it more in another post).

Before I went into InDesign and Illustrator, I did little research about it.
I typed into Google business cards and it came up with a lot of different designs. I found a few pictures that I really liked:

Having a look at different designs of business cards on Google gave me some ideas about what my business card might look like. Second picture inspired me with lines that I could use for my design.

Letter head

Again, I typed into Google letter head and it came up with a lot of designs. The website that I found very useful was www.youthedesigner.com By looking at this site I realized that letter head and business cards have always same design.

–> This example of full package gave me an idea how my layout of business card and letter head is going to look like.

Also, I found few good designs on Google images:

—-> I absolutely love this design, it has similar layout like the picture above.

Photoshop – Working with layers/masks

On today’s lesson we were working in Photoshop. It was different to what we used to do before as we worked only with Illustrator. It was working with a lot of layers and masks, it was interesting lesson.

This is what I created:

Way of working:

Presentation of the logo – Part 3 – Final part

I created presentation about my personal logo. You can find there different versions of my logo with RGB/CMYK/HEX codes of colors that I used.
In my last post, I mentioned I’ve chosen blue color while talking about color schemes. The reason why is that I decided to create another color version of my logo and it’s in blue. Again, the book that helped me to choose the right color was ‘CSS3 Visual quickstart guide by Jason Cranford Teague’ (page 185).