OUGD401 PRACTICAL OUTCOME DEVELOPMENT & RESEARCH

After compiling my research into inspirational women and the amazing things they have said, I started coming up with potential designs for the backs of paying cards. I wasn't sure what to include on the back, as I wanted quotes of women to be on there, but I still wanted them to have some sort of pattern as this is what traditional playing cards look like. I thought not to include photographs or illustrations of these inspirational women, as I want them to stand out for and be remembered by the things they have said rather than what they look like. I don't what what they have said be affected by what they look like, as I think women can be judged on what they say by their appearance, and I don't want this to be the case.

3D illustration research

This illustration by Pablo & Co was a major inspiration for me for some of my initial type designs as I thought the mix of bright but neutral and also kind of pastelly colours was really effective combined with the clean, vector illustrations, as the soft colours made the illustrations appear less harsh, so it looks more friendly. There is so much pattern going on in the background of the lettering which compliments and highlights the letters themselves, making each one person as they all have individual designs and illustrations relevant to each letter. I really like how the letters appear to be moving through the sky due to their 3D appearance, making them look a little like tunnels as well, especially with the "D" with a train coming through the counter. This is reflective of London and it's impressive Underground train network. This also adds a much more dynamic appearance to it, rather than it just being a flat image, which is something I want for my playing cards so that they look more like an illustration or a pattern than just type on the back of a card. I want it to be more like a piece of artwork, which I think might be quite hard on a small scale when I have a lot of words to include. The pattern on the letters of this design are all different as well, yet are all quite geometric too, which I think is interesting, such as the waterfall type pattern running down the stems of the second "N", which again makes this look like a scene rather than just an illustration.

Playing card research

I thought these playing cards were really interesting because they still had the traditional playing card appearance with the intricate pattern on the backs, however using a handwritten style typeface each one has a loving message on them, which is what I want to do only have inspirational quotes on them instead. I think what works with these cards is that the messages are quite short, there's nothing really lengthy included so the type size can be consistent and quite large, which I think works best on a larger scale as the text doesn't look dense which I think it could do if there was a lot of it. 

My original idea was just to design the backs of the cards, however I came across these playing cards created by Karina Eibatova and LUX Cards with exceptional bird illustrations in royal purple shades that are delicate and intricate, making the cards seem of a lot higher quality than standard playing cards. It might be quite nice to illustrate the King, Queen and Jack figures for each suit if I have enough time, not necessarily using the traditional images of these cards but maybe stylised cartoon or continuous line drawings of the women on the cards perhaps.

Here you can see the back pattern for these playing cards, which is in the same style as the illustrations only it is a pattern of a collection of different feathers, which suits the theme of the cards nicely. It is a very complex pattern and fills the whole of the card, and is symmetrical too, another common feature of playing cards.

These are some examples of traditional playing card designs, and as you can see they are all blue and black coloured and very complex and detailed, and often symmetrical as well. Although this is the traditional playing card design, I don't necessarily want my designs to look anything like this, I want them to be much more contemporary to reflect society and our changing world at the moment. I think if I tried to produce them in this style this would defeat the object of my outcome, as this would be sticking with the past, not moving forward, and sticking with the traditional pin-up image instead of allowing it to evolve and develop and accepting it's new shape.

Developing my ideas

I started drawing different styles of letterforms for my drop caps letter, to see which works best, and which I can produce a wide amount of variations on, so each card can have a specific designed letterform so each is personal. I tried complicated designs and then much more geometric, simple ones which may work better with the simplistic, contemporary design I think I might have for my card designs. I also tried having the woman's initials in the centre of the card on the numbers side as a illustration which I have seen in some of my research. I don't think I will go down this route though as this is making extra work for myself which isn't necessary. 

Initial digital designs

I started off trying to produce the basic shape for one of the letters from my initial designs, simple by Alt dragging the "I" on Illustrator and then Command + D so that it repeatedly copies itself over in the same direction, so I know I have an accurate shape that isn't slightly wonky.

Using the base shape from above I created a much more aesthetically appealing shape, and also created a pattern for it as well, inspired by my researched London illustrated poster. I chose any colour and made the appropriate sides different shades of that colour to make it look more accurately 3D and to show a light source. I think the colours are a bit harsh, especially with the black, although these would be changed anyway, however if I was to use this because the design is quite harsh I'd have to use softer colours so it doesn't look too angular and rigid.

I tried doing the same with a different letter, however the "B" proved to be a lot more complicated and confusing because the letter itself is much more complicated with counters and rounded parts, rather than just one line. I couldn't figure out how it was supposed to look compared to my drawing, whether the counters should be showing through the counter as it extends down or not , and whether the rounded parts of the "B" should be the same dimensions and shape as the original "B" or extorted down to flow with the general downward extension. 

This is my finished "B" with the shading correct and the test line taken off to make it look as complete as possible. I still don't think this looks right with the bowls of the "B" that have been extended still being in the same angle as the original "B", especially with the join of the two, which I put on in a single line, it just look plonked on and at a really weird angle put next tot he two "B"'s, even though it is exactly the right angle. I don't know what exactly I've done wrong but I know this isn't what I was my letters to look like.

After trying to produce these letters digitally using the pen tool and an existing typeface as my starting point, I thought this really wasn't working, so I drew them by hand using the pencil tool instead. Which I think produced a much more personal outcome. I added one of the quotes to a playing card as well to see how it would fit in, both in uppercase and lowercase, and it does take up the majority of the card, which means I may have to overlap my drop caps letter and the rest of the quote for space reasons.

I then tried putting one of my letters in with it's respective quotes, to see how the text would fit around it. "I" is quite a small letterform and doesn't take up much room, sot his was a relatively easy letter to start with. I tried having the quote so it started at the bottom of the "I", from the top and from mid way as well, to see which looks the most comfortable and relaxed. I think I prefer the mid way one, as this still highlights the drop caps importance with it standing above the rest of the quote, however it makes the most use of the space as well, as some of the quotes are quite lengthy, so I would need the most space.

I tried this with another quote, this time the drop caps being "B", to see how it would look with a different letter being drop caps. I used the same LFT Etica Display typeface to start with, and also added drawn quotation marks at the start as well, adding to the hand drawn effect. I played around with positioning briefly, how far down the "B" the text should be for it to look natural, and decided on a slightly lower position so that a minimal amount of text overlapped with the drop caps letter. I changed the typeface to Futura as I thought LFT Etica display was too delicate with it's thin weight, I wanted a more sturdy typeface to reflect the strength of these women, and I thought Futura would be both contemporary and strong with it's heavier weighting and clean lines. I tried using uppercase lettering for my quote as well, to see which worked best, upper or lower case, however I think lowercase looks less like I'm being shouted at from the quote, and is also easier to read. I tried having the outlines of the drop caps letter showing as well as I thought this could help give it more shape, however I think it just looks a little messy, and to give it more shape I should try drawing my letters more accurately and neatly, so that they are easier to fill as well.

I took my original drawn letters as a base and produced these three variations. The first was using the original letterforms as a guide, and using guides to make sure they're all the same x-height, I drew them using the pencil tool, so I still achieved the same hand drawn appearance. Still using my original alphabet as a base I drew over the again only using the pen tool on Illustrator so that the lines were a lot cleaner and everything was even more straight and precise. I thought thin looked a little too precise and clinical however, because of how perfect it was. Using this new pen tool drawn alphabet, I used these as a base to draw the final variation, which has the same structure as the pen tool drawn alphabet, but the hand drawn style of the rest as I used the pencil tool to draw it. I thin this is my preferred design as it is a combination of the two.

I chose more calming and neutral colours for my letters, and using the pen tool and pencil drawn accurate alphabets I experimented with these colour ways, to determine exactly which one I would use. I think I prefer the pencil tool drawn alphabet still, as there isn't much difference between the two, except the pencil tool alphabet seems more accurate as it was harder the get the angle of the bowls right using the pen tool as you have to be a lot more precise.

I then went on to produce the whole alphabet in this method, is both grey, blue and green colours:

I applied this new alphabet and colour ways to some more of my quotes, and played around with the composition and layout again, whether the text should stay indented or go back to the left edge of the card once it is past the drop caps letter. I also tried the text in an opposing colour, such as the grey drop caps "B" has got a green body text and quotation mark, which I think produced an effective effect as it combines two colours together. I think this does make it harder to read though, and I imagine with the grey as body text you would really struggle to read it. I also included the quotes source name, who has said that quote, and played around with positioning of that as well,whether it should be central at the bottom, right at the bottom of the body text, or slightly lower as well. I think it works better when it is closer to the body text as otherwise is looks a bit like it's floating. I think the text would also work better when there's a large amount of it for it to go back to being in line with the edge of the card rather than indented, as I think this makes the best use of the space.

I tried this with even more quotes and letters and also the blue letters too, to see how this layout works with more variations. Looking at the colours now I think the green stands out a bit too much as being too bright in comparison to the blue and grey, which are quite mellow. I don't necessarily need three colours as well, so this isn't too much of a problem. 

I then applied this layout with the appropriate colours to all of my quotes, which I selected from the ones I had found from my research. I alternated between grey and blue so that there was an equal amount of each character.