Belle Leonard

Hi there! This page is for documenting weekly tutorials and assessment progress. ENJOY :)

[belleleonard]

Flat Mag Progress #5 (final)

The flat mag is DONE!

Unfortunately, we thought we were finished but our tutor told us that none of the images and vectors made in illustrator and photoshop had been linked in and everything was in RGB no CMYK colour ughhhhhhh!.

This took an extra day to fix but we’re glad she told us or else the images would’ve been blurry and the colour would’ve been wrong. Thank you for the help Amanda!!!

Anyway, this big boy if FINALLY done and everyone in the group did a fantastic job!

The PDF below (I’m not sure if the link will work)

file:///C:/Users/Jacob%20Leonard/Desktop/Belle's%20uni%20stuff/SEMESTER%202/projects/Flat%20mag%20Assessment/latest%20mags/Final_Wandering_Eye%2030.10.19.pdf

[belleleonard]

The final weekly exercise and this time it’s my turn for a logo.

Last time, we had to design a logo for a fellow classmate but this time we get to design one for ourselves.

I wanted to design a logo for my theoretical design studio that clearly Australian owned and run and what’s more iconic than a kangaroo? The kangaroo had to be minimal and artsy to show that it’s clearly a logo for a design studio.

I actually prefer the black and white versions of the logo over the coloured ones simplicity of the artwork leaves plenty of room for experimentation with colour.

[belleleonard]

Flat Mag Progress #4

It’s starting to come together!

Our articles have been added and some of the images as well.

[belleleonard]

logo time!

This week we had to test our communication skills and interview a fellow classmate about what creative professional they’d like to be. With the help of provided questions we had to design a black and white logo for our classmate.

I interviewed Kasey and these were her answers:

BUSINESS NAME Streamline.

CLIENT DETAILS Teenagers and young adults who appreciate fashion

OVERVIEW AND AUDIENCE To be a brand/store that most teens will visit. To compete with stores like Universal.

VISION AND OBJECTIVES ???

TONE OF VOICE Casual, realxed, inviting, minimal, beachy

DESIGN SCOPE ???

BUDGET on average shirts will cost $50, dresses $60, shoes $80

TIMELINE ???

The direction seemed simple. Kasey wants a casual/relaxed/minimal fashion label that is aimed at teenagers and young adults who have a love of fashion. The brand will fit within stores like Universal.

I added the thin wavy “streamlines” and instead of using a thinner version of the Futura font I chose the “Heavy” version to contrast the more delicate linework. The contrast is also reflective of current teen fashion where soft ‘cute’ items are paired with heavy, industrial and goth items. There’s a strange balance in teen fashion and I aimed to emulate that.

[belleleonard]

Flat Mag Progress #3

Vector designs and image treatment

We each shared our designs that would be included into the flat-mag before setting them to the correct colour theme.

I made the title’s for everyone's’ articles . Jess was writing about Scotland/Europe, Kasey was writing about tropical getaways, and I was writing about Australia as I’ve never traveled overseas and only had images from Australia.

Some other images I made for the flat-mag

I also worked on making everyone’s images fit into the two-tone rule and match the rest of the flat-mag. This was done in Photoshop and below are just a few of the images.

The first iteration of the flat-mag has also been made

[belleleonard]

*cha ching*...

Inspired by Kyle Tezak, this week we were given the task of designing a set of four icons in Adobe Illustrator that spoke true to the plot of any movie of choice. The movie I chose was controversial ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ which is based off the true story of broker Jordan Belfort and his navigation through money, sex, and lots of drugs.

I began by noting some key scenes and objects in the film. The ones I narrowed down to in order of appearance in the film were:

1 - A pen to tie to the “sell me this pen” scene that begins Jordan’s journey

2 - Margot Robbie’s loooong legs. An iconic moment from the movie

3 - Quaalude’s. A popular drug among Belfort’s clique that ultimately leads to the questionable piloting of a helicopter and white Lamborghini

4 - A yellow note in forensic bag. This note signifies a turning point in Jordan’s life.

This task was to help practice our vector making skills and I found it to be a fun little exercise that pushed me to stick with a “less is more” attitude.

[belleleonard]

Flat Mag Progress #2

The main logo

Jess drew a great sketch of what our travel-themed flat-mag logo should be with an eye shaped earth with latitude and longitude lines. We all instantly agreed that that would be the logo for our flat-mag. 

We then had to develop the sketch on Adobe Illustrator and shared what we made to decide which was best. The One we decided on was my design and we also agreed that the colour theme I used would work well for the two-tone rule.

Jess’ developed versions of the logo

My developed version of the logo

We also developed narrowed down our target audience, concept, and articles for the upcoming presentations. A rough layout plan was also decide upon.

[belleleonard]

This week we have t-shirt appropriation!

For this week’s exercise we had to design a t-shirt artwork using appropriation and a choice between two themes. The two themes were “Analog” or “I put a spell on you”. I was instantly inspired by the spookier theme!

When I think “spooky”, my mind jumps straight to the iconic Addams Family and at the time of designing this, a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future by the name of Greta Thunberg was driving the world into discussion. She was everywhere online so of course I had to jump in with the memes. Hence, with the help of Adobe Illustrator, Wednesday Thunberg was created.

I adapted the attitude of Wednesday Addams with Greta’s iconic “How dare you” in aggressive text (using brush tool) to make an appropriation that someone who is always wearing black and loves a joke can appreciate.

[belleleonard]

Flat Mag Progress #1

Group assignments yayyyyyy! 

The flat mag assignment has us put into groups where we will design a huge flat magazine inspired by http://www.chaseandgalley.com/?/magazines-journals/is-not-magazine/. The rules for creating the magazine are simple:

It has to be called “The Wandering Eye” and inspired from the name.

The colour scheme has to be two-toned only (including images)

All images have to be original and taken by members of the team

At least 50% of the magazine have to be text and the other 50% are images/illustrations/vector art.

The lovely people in my group are Kasey and Jess. 

Below is a mind-map of what we want to include in the mag

Mood Board with inspiration from other travel magazines, potential colours schemes, and passport stamps.

[belleleonard]

Wandering Eye Poster

This week we were tasked with designing a promotional poster for “The Wandering Eye”. The poster couldn’t reflect the style for the group project under the same name. We were told to “Be creative. Or silly. Be brave.” with the design of this poster so I went with a silly pirate chasing after his wandering eye. I also couldn’t help myself from chucking in “RRRRRR You Ready?”.

I will admit that it isn’t a very developed image and the wobbly shapes of the legs and arms definitely need work. I was creating this poster under in too much of a rush but the end result is just acceptable.

[belleleonard]

Calendar Progress #5 (final)

So, was laser cutting successful or did I bite off more than I could chew...?

The calendar was printed on a thick matte paper at Officeworks so that the thinner parts of the map wouldn’t be too flimsy and break. The matte finish was chosen because it seemed like the more professional option (and because the guy at Officeworks recommended it)

Luckily my old Industrial Tech teacher from high school was more than happy to let me use the laser cutter so I took in my Adobe Illustrator file of the calendar pages and set the stroke of each page to a RGB red and width to 0.001 so that the laser cutter program knew exactly where to cut.

colour settings in adobe illustrator for the laser cutter ^^

The laser cutter program with vector lines highlighted in red ^^

A few more settings had to be adjusted in the cutter program before starting to cut including what material was being cut, the speed of which it was cut, and how powerful the laser was so that it would set the paper on fire or cut roughly.

The cutting went much better than i expected for such unusual lines. The cut wasn’t exact on all pages with the slightest bit of white seen on some edges. This was only because human error when trying to sit the pages in the exact spot in the machine; no big deal.

Page in position in the laser cutter ^^

Page after being cut ^^

After successfully cutting the pages (phew), I had the tedious task of binding the calendar pages. Since the edge I wanted to be bound was A3 and the way they overlapped was odd, I had had to personally hole punch each page and insert a binding spiral into the pages from an old calendar. This task took way longer than I would have liked and the positioning of the holes aren’t perfect but I’m very happy with the result.

Finally, the calendar was ready for pin-up!

Finished calendar and rationale pin-up ^^

[belleleonard]

Calendar Progress #4

The calendar design is finished!

The tables, dates, public holidays and typography are all in the calendar.

The tables of the calendar were pretty simple to make in Adobe InDesign. The tables for each month match the colour of the month they are in with the fill being a lighter tone to the main colour and the stroke being the original tone. This was done to make the tables clearly stand out without clashing with the elaborate map design.

The public holidays are done with simple banners in the box with white size 8 text so there is enough space to write in each box. The Australian holidays in put in my calendar were chosen from the ones that are in the calendar app in my phone.

The font I chose for the titles is Aller Display and the font for public holidays is Consolas. For the cover page I wanted to keep it it simple with large titles and coral colour to go with the rest of the calendar. 

The next challenge is printing and cutting the odd edges of the calendar. Luckily my old high school has a laser cutter and I know how to use it so I’ll have to ask for a quick favour. Next post will be about that. fingers crossed it goes well

[belleleonard]

Calendar Progress #3

A lot of progress has happened since I last posted. 

All layers of the calendar are finished. Saying that drawing the lines of the of the topographical map was tedious is an understatement but I’m glad I stuck with it as it all the layers together look pretty cool.

The way shape of the map fits within the A3 page leaves an awkward blank square at the bottom so I decided to fill it with a handy to do list which adds some more functionality to the calendar.

The colours seem to be effective  as they resemble the depth on a topographical map and are also fun. 

Next step is to work on the actual calendar squares...

[belleleonard]

Week three woohoo! 

This week is *drum roll*... licence plates.

How exciting! lol

This seemingly boring exercise turned out to be pretty fun (in my opinion). 

For this week, we had to create two licence plate designs with self-made, mono type text, and imagery. I decided to make my plates ‘Newcastle’ themed; each featuring a local monument.

Before jumping into the images, the mono type had to be made. I started by searching images of standard Australian licence plates (seen below) and comparing letters to choose characteristics that I liked and how I would differ similar shaped letters.  After this, I formed the letters and numbers with the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator within guide lines to ensure consistent height and character width.

This was quite fiddly and time consuming but it was satisfying when a character was completed and looked like one from a real plate.

Next step was to make some images of novocastrian landmarks. For this, I chose to do the beloved and very sensible Queens Wharf Tower  and the lighthouse. 

Its was relatively simple to do the Queens Wharf Tower with it’s round top and straight stair-well. The lighthouse was definitely trickier as I had to recreate the natural shapes of the cliff face and hill but with a few tweaks I’m happy with the result.

With a few final touches including adding “Newcastle’, and “NSW”, the licence plates were done! 

[belleleonard]

Calendar Progress #2

I said in my last progress post (that you should definitely read) I said that my first ideas were likely to change; i wasn’t wrong...

My new, and final idea is a topographical map calendar. The map isn’t of just anything, it’s a topographical map of Newcastle and its’ surrounds. Each month, a layer would would be revealed.

I was greatly inspired by the following images while researching for this assessment:

I had to dig pretty deep to find a legitimate typographical map of Newcastle and the best one I found is this one:

After opening the image of the map in Illustrator, I have continued to follow the lines of the map. It’s slow and time consuming but I’m sure the outcome will be worth it (fingers crossed).

what I’ve done so far:

[belleleonard]

Calendar Progress #1

soooooooo... thinking of ideas for a Nature themed calendar without making it cliche as HECK is far more difficult than I thought.

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one in my class to think “THe SeAsOnS wOUld bE NiCe”, followed by instant self shame. I asked my mum for some advice but her ideas were far cornier.

After some tough thinking I’ve come up with some “not so cliche” ideas:

- sunsets

- life, growth, death of plants

- scientific botanical illustrations

- repeating/ tessellating patterns

more ideas to come...

[belleleonard]

Week two’s tutorial exercise focused on planning column placement within a text (such as a magazine). 

This exercise was to be completed using Adobe InDesign with coloured boxes, each representing body text, headings, or images. This method of column planning was to be done in landscape, portrait, and square orientation and one design needed to be developed into a finished text. 

To begin with, I struggled to plan the columns without clutter, as seen in my final portrait orientation. The square orientation was also difficult because it’s unusual to a typical magazine-like text so I couldn’t pull anything from my memory and had to do a bit more research by searching images online for inspiration.

I then tried to allow for some negative space in my landscape orientation to create a better reading path and relaxed layout for the reader. I found that negative space made the images reach out more which pulls readers in. I also experimented with the rule of threes and added the three similar images in columns beside the text that was also in three columns. I personally think it worked quite well and it’s by far my favourite design.

This exercise really made me consider how much planning and iteration goes into creating an aesthetic and effective piece of text and how important it is to experiment before finalising my ideas.