Amber Cunningham Designs

A Bachelor of Visual Communication and Design student at UON. These are my Design Projects.

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WEEK 13 - A2 COMPLETE

The A2 assignment I finally complete! I had a great time doing this task as it allowed me to continue to develop my Illustrator skills. I really love how my designs look on the high-quality mockups.

WHAT DO I LIKE THE MOST: I really like my simple illustrations of the individual 21 flavours. I think they are so cute and are really effective. I've appreciated compliments from my fellow DESN1011 peers on them. I also really enjoy my colour scheme, it’s exactly how I imagined it.

WHAT WOULD I DO DIFFERENTLY: If I were to do this assignment again, I would have liked to have extended the brief more, possibly by making more mockups of the store that Soulful Co. now has. I would have done a design illustration of the inside of the store, different places the logo would have been displayed, store window, uniforms, coffee cups, coffee machines, etc. 

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STUDIO TASK #9/WEEK11

FEEDBACK:

This week I was given construction feedback on my current progress on my chocolate packing assignment. Crystian’s feedback was all positive with only mentioning that I consider the layout of my logo, flavor and net weight. Im really happy with how my packing looks ay the moment but im definetly going to experiment with Crystians feedback. 

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STUDIO TASK #8/WEEK10

The process of developing a pattern for this assignment was quite difficult. I was unsure how it would all come together. I took my main inspiration from the above image as it was very close to what I wanted to do.

In illustator, I came up with serval version of reoccurring leafy patterns trying to develop something that would be appealing to consumers. The singular image used in the pattern is a leaf that also slightly resembles the shape of a cocoa bean.

I really like how my pattern development is going. It’s pretty much what I visioned.

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STUDIO TASK #7/WEEK 9

LOGO DEVELOPMENT:

Developing the logo for my chocolate brand came easily as I had a clear idea of what I wanted from creating a mood board. The Soulful Co. packing has a lot of images on it so I knew that the logo needed to be simple and to the point. I developed a few different versions of my envisioned logo, testing out different fonts and layouts as well as dabbling in small image additions.

I ultimately ended upon the simplest of designs. The hand lettering cursive font I feel is perfect as it isn't so decorative that it overpowers the page but enough to recognize it as a logo and brand name. The subtitle font is reflective of classic chocolate font and is thin and spaced out in design to allow it not to once again overcrowd the whole design.

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A2 - CHOCOLATE PACKAGING

MOOD BOARD

For this assignment, I want to make organic chocolate that has a lot of different flavors. The packaging must convey the organic element so I came to the decision of the visual elements being botanical with earthy tones and perhaps a textured packaging. 

The mood board shows my visual influences, the main reoccurring element is the addition of illustrative images that convey the flavor of the chocolate. I’ve kept my colour pallet very minimal with few colours in an attempt to not overcrowd the packaging and allow in the be easily cohesive. The main colour is the muted earthy green which is a perfect colour to convey the organic nature of the chocolate brand. 

For the logo, I wanted to keep it fairly simple as there would be a lot of imaging on the packaging and if the logo were to contain an image in it would be very messy and overcrowded. I really like the style of a simple handwritten cursive type for the brand name and a sans-serif font for the subheading. I would like to design my own hand lettering for the name but we’ll see how I go for time. 

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MOODS + FIELD RESEARCH

Whenever I start a new assignment, the first thing I do is make a Pinterest board as a type of mood board. This is where all my ideas begin and the first step in visualizing the end product.

Whenever I start a new assignment, the first thing I do is make a Pinterest board as a type of mood board. This is where all my ideas begin and the first step in visualizing the end product.

To further my research into chocolate packaging, I went to my local Coles and looked at all the chocolates to see if I could identify any with reoccurring patterns and to see the size.

Patterns aren’t really a concern for chocolate brands as I could see. They seem to primarily focus on the type/logo for the design.

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A2 DESIGN BRIEF

Week 8 projects tute we were introduced to the next assignment. The Task is to create a brand identity for a chocolate company and design the packaging. This assignment isn't due to Week 13 so I'm starting early because I really want to do a lot with this task. I’ve always been interested in this kind of thing so I really want to expand the brief and go big. 

In the tutorial, we did an activity “Identity Questionnaire” to find out what kind of chocolate we are and to help develop ideas for the assignment.

Then to refine and brainstorm ideas:

I can't wait to get started.

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COMPLETED ASSIGNMENT

I have really enjoyed this assessment task. If I could go back the only thing I think I would change would be the back cover. I feel as though I could have experimented with the type a bit more. However, my front cover, I very much like. I love the colour and the radial centered images. 

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ALBUM DESIGN CONT. + VINYL MOCKUP

In the next stage of my album cover design, I’ve gone onto illustrate the entire image of Ariana Grande, I’m not the best illustrator in the world, but I was pretty happy with how this turned out. 

Now placing it onto the album cover; this is working a lot better for me as now all the images are either mine or copyright free ones sourced from the internet. I obviously still need to tweak several things such as moving the images directly in the center of the cover, fixing the fac shape, etc. 

The back cover of the vinyl cover is proving to be a little bit of a struggle. I’m still trying to figure out a way to make a tracklist visually interesting as well as having it cohesive to the front cover.

This is the current draft, it’s not really collage but I still have time to figure it out. This design has the same moon as the front cover, a san serif font and a kind of subtle ‘A’ for Ariana 

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PUTTING IT TOGETHER

This first image is the original draft for the new concept, after advice from my tutor, I decided to remove the low opacity organic stripe in the center of the design as I feel it doesn't really go with the collage theme.

This second image is the design without the stripe.

Concept: All the imagery within the album cover is in relation to the songs of ‘Sweetener’ and can be identified in the music videos. 

Colours: Minimal colour pallet with most of the images of the collage in black and white then with accented pink shades. 

Type Choices: Ariana Grande uses serif fonts on her album art, however, I chose to use san serif fonts as there is a lot of different elements on the album already and I didn't want a distracting typeface, therefore ‘Beloved Sans, Regular’. 

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A1 IMAGES

Looking through all of the images on Ariana Grande, I liked these the most as they could be easy-ish to draw. There's basically no copyright free images of Ariana Grande so I've resorted to a digital drawing of her based off these images from a Reebok campaign photoshoot in 2017.

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MOOD BOARD & ANOTHER A1 UPDATE

Last week I decided that I wasn't happy with the foreseeable outcome of the project so I decided to scrap the whole idea and start fresh. I moved from The Beatle, Abbey Road to Ariana Grande, Sweetener. 

I feel ill do much better at this album cover because its more modern and has a lot more imagery to play around with. 

Sweetener By Ariana Grande

Concept: Modern collage practice with imagery relating to the album’s songs and music videos.

Main Song/Video Imagery: No Tears Left To Cry, God Is A Woman, Raindrops, Successful, Goodnight N Go

Album Info: Released 2018, 15 Tracks, 

Mood Board:

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A1 PROGRESS

This Collage Album Cover is going well at this point in time, I’ve re-done it several times as new ideas/aesthetics come to mind I just want to start over almost twice a week, which isn't good for my time management. 

These are the more completed versions:

I am now onto the next one as I'm not 100% satisfied with these ones. I’m trying to be more “collage-y” now. 

Elements: The well-known song by The Beatles, Octopus’s Garden, is on the Abbey Road album so I’ve done a little illustration of an octopus. I collaged my illustrations of the faces of the Beatles, onto a copyright free image of the Beatles that I sourced from one of the websites listed in the lecture. Correct me if I’m wrong but The Beatles primarily write love songs, so, therefore, the heart-shaped trees. I’m also adding the zebra’s in from the previous attempts cause I really liked that idea. 

Type Choice: I've been looking specifically at the type choices on the various album covers of the Beatles trying to decide on one to use myself. the Beatle use a mixture of ordinary sans serif, serif and bubbly decorative fonts on their album covers. I have so far decided to go with the typeface Strumpf Std contour and open as its a really interesting bubbly decorative font that i feel complements the cover well. 

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STUDIO PROJECT #03 ALTERED VINYL

STUDIO PROJECT: using the found record cover, re-design using Photoshop as practice for the A1 Experimental Collage Album Cover.

I'm going to start off this post with the exclaimer, I don't enjoy Photoshop, I know, I know, I'm a “fake” designer. After a VERY long time of trying to figure it out, I still can't seem to do it. So this weeks studio task was done primarily on Illustrator, a program I do know how to use. 

Heres the outcome of the task. I went for a more simplified design compared to the original. 

What worked: I really liked the back cover, its minimal and a slight representation of a more modern vinyl. I used the birds from the original cover and a snippet of the pattern on a low opacity, plus the track list. 

What didn't work: I don't like my front cover, I did it very rushed in class as I have a lot to do on the actual assignment and I didn't want to spend time on it out of the tute. The face I did is a little scary, I’d totally do that differently. 

I do kind of like the vintage feel of it and it was fun to play with the facial shapes. The continuation of the mirror motif is another thing I like. 

What would I do differently: I wish there was more time in the tutorial to carry out a really well-executed studio project. 

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WEEK 2 FIELD RESEARCH

No Lecture This Week!

Instead of a lecture this week, the task was to find somewhere that sold cheap vinyl records. After much deliberation and google searching, I found myself at a store called The Mosh Pit located in Cardiff.

I really struck gold with this store as out the front they had a collection of FREE records. WHAT A LITERAL SCORE! Now, these weren't exactly decent records, they were mainly very old Christmas ones and I couldn't even tell you who the rest of the artists were. I landed upon this record as the lady looked like Audrey Hepburn (who I am obsessed with) and I thought the hole hand mirror thing was cool and already slightly resembled a collage. 

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A1 PROGRESS

PROGRESS UPDATE: SAT 01/03

Now that I have the basic images of The Beatles made it’s time to move onto the background of the album cover. I'm going to do a mixture of analog and digital collage to maximise the diversity in this project. The analog as of this moment is the starry sky and the rest is digital. 

I've gotten images off a free image site:

 https://www.pexels.com/

I went for a slight comedic vibe with one aspect of this original cover. The Beatles are walking across a zebra crossing so I thought people viewing the project would have a good chuckle at how I've placed them on actual zebras. I had a good chuckle coming up with this. I got a magazine from my local Nextra because it had a lot of good patterns and images that I could use for this project such as the sky picture. 

This is still the first draft, but I want to get a lot done so I can get decent feedback in the tute and continue to perfect it over the next couple of weeks. Afterall I am aiming for really high marks this year. 

Concerns: I do have some concerns with the direction I've gone with this assignment. I feel like the brief said to stay in the time period/era which I definitely haven't done. Hopefully, it's not a necessary component in marking and that my tute lecturer likes it.

-Amber

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A1 PROGRESS

PROGRESS UPDATE: WED 27/02

George, Paul, Ringo and John, you all have such difficult faces. 

On Wednesday I started to create the faces of The Beatles on Adobe Illustrator. It turned out to be a lot harder to actually make them look like people than I thought. I spent about 5 hours doing Paul McCartney’s face. The rest didn't take as long as long as I just copied the first face structure and all I had to do was alter to resemble the other 3. 

Faces:

I’m relatively happy with how these first drafts ended up. I do think that Ringo looks like a BeeGee but I don’t really know how to fix that yet but fingers crossed. 

Body:

I tried to make their outfits close to what they were wearing on the original cover.