Coasters

Since I couldn't send my designs off to be made, I had to use grey board and sticky back plastic. This has made for some really rough looking coasters, but I suppose they work for demonstration purposes. I've never really used sticky back plastic before, but I'm pleased that I was able to make these with minimal bubbles and scoffs.
They're functional as coasters, even if they're not the most well produced ones in the world.

 Action shot

Making the promo pack

I looked through this Issuu of nets for things to make my promo pack out of. I tried to assemble one box roughly, but didn't really like the way it looked. 

I decided to just design my own net, and so I went for a folder design, rather than a box:

Ordering coasters

https://www.thirstys.co.uk/

I found this website which offers relatively cheap prices for printing out beer mats. I sent off a request for a sample pack to see whether they were good enough for what I wanted out of my products, but unfortunately they never got back to me. Having waited so long, I'll just have to come up with a way to make the beer mats myself with whatever materials I can get my hands on.

Beer label

In the last PPP session, John said I should try and play up the fact that I like beer and see how it can influence what goes in my pack. A good idea would be to make a beer label that I apply to a real beer bottle and leave behind as a little reminder of who I am in a more creative way.

I looked at several typical beer labels, particularly old-fashioned ones or ones for really old brands since I like the elegance their label design tends to have. The main  I was also really keen on having a round element to the design in order to make the shape more interesting:

I've been trying to keep a sense of consistency between all my products in terms of design and colour. I've designed this label mostly using the same shade of grey as on my other products, but I feel that perhaps for this a splash of colour may be necessary, as if it was a real beer label it would obviously have to stand out on the shelf.

I decided to use it as a mini creative CV by including my areas of creative interest and a list of software that I'm confident in using.

Creative CV initial idea

Really like the idea of a multi page CV, or rather just double sided. I made these as potential front covers. I think they're pretty punchy

Creative CV

I have been looking at Creative CVs and found this site in general to have the best compilation of them that I've found: http://designrfix.com/inspiration/50-great-examples-creative-resumes

In the above presentation I've picked out the ones which have resonated with me the most. I want to try and avoid textual clutter as much as possible. While researching Creative CVs, I've been incredibly put off by the ones which are just stacks of text (and there are a lot of them). I'm intrigued by the one that folds into a box and the one disguised as a medical kit (though that's more of a whole promo pack, which makes for good research in that area anyway).

Sticker designs

I'm really into all this circular design that I'm starting to incorporate in my promotional material. Of these stickers, I think perhaps the 3 less colourful ones are more striking than the coloured one, but on the whole I'd be happy to print these stickers and distribute them as I see fit.

Stickers

I think stickers would be a nice thing to include in the promo pack as they are some of the most effective kinds of ephemera that you can distribute. I want to unify the designs I've been making so I'm using the same grey colour and portrait as the business card, except simplifying it to a b/w image.

I did the general design on Illustrator and now have this template to make variations with:

Coaster idea

When I went to Drew Millward's exhibition "Dust" at Colours May Vary, I picked up one of his business card-like coasters and thought it was absolute genius. This has inspired me to make my own coasters.

My idea is to make a series containing facts about beer since I like to drink beer.

 

Final business card/visual identity logo?

Here's a proposed final idea for a two-sided business card. I've been struggling with this a lot since I realized that the vector portrait I did of myself wouldn't be appropriate to use as a brand image since I hardly do vector artwork. 

I understand that any imagery on the business card should sum up my practice, so this led to me re-designing the portrait as above and also going with a pattern I've been using recently for the backside of the card. I'm having great difficulty summing up my practice recently as I feel that I'm failing to develop a tone of voice, but my work is very line-based so I think this is an acceptable route to go for now. 

I'm still unsure about whether to have a border on the info side of the card as well. Also I'm getting a haircut tomorrow so that portrait will be outdated but oh well. I like this self-portrait as a sort of visual logo. It can accompany my written name on various products.

Bill Bragg

I e-mailed Bill Bragg asking a couple questions that would help with my 505 module work. He hasn't replied yet but hopefully he will at some point.

Me

I did a picture of myself which I want to use as a sort of brand image - it could go on various items on my promo pack or my business card!

Tumblr updated - Visual Identity

Turns out there are some really nice themes on this website: http://theme-cloud.co/browse/free/

So I took one and fiddled with the HTML a bit to get things just right and now my tumblr looks like this:

Which I would say is definitely a step in the right direction.

I think in terms of a visual identity, I want to maintain this handwritten "emanuel santos", and use of the font "Bebas" and"Bebas Neue" 

Tumblr blog

I've had a tumblr for a couple years now which I use to post work up. I never really took it seriously or thought of it as a portfolio blog, more just a place to share artwork because it can be fun to see your work online (and if people 'like' it, it's nice to know that other people around the world find your work interesting).

Recently however, I've become interested in professionalizing my tumblr as I want to build a stronger online presence. Although there's a lot of scribbles and not so professional looking work on my blog, 

John suggested I simply keep it and become a bit more selective about what I post in future.

I think the first order of business is to pick a better theme as I just use the default one with the custom background and header. Finding a suitable tumblr theme is really hard though, as there are a lot of really bad ones out there. I've got myself a bit more in the mood to go searching by updating my blogger layouts though - just tweaking the headers and adding gray to the background.

I also should probably put some information about myself as "Hello" doesn't quite suffice.

Mejirushi

Brushes and texture

http://mejirushi.tumblr.com/

Patrick Leger

Really great vintage style linework with texture to along with it

Making a business card

Here are some initial business card ideas scribbled on some paper - most of them use artwork that I've previously created, but I've also got an idea for an original one that uses an image of a hand with my details scribbled on there like taking notes on your hand.

Here are the made business cards - I once wrote my name in brush pen and really liked how it looked so it's something that I want to have on my business card for my name. I also like the hand business card but I wonder if it looks too much like an angry fist and also if it will be a pain to cut out or not.

Life drawing society

This year I volunteered to help run the life drawing society at the College. I did this because life drawing is something that I am really passionate about and to be a part of the team that helped run it would be very rewarding to me.

At first I applied for the role of 'treasurer' as I thought it would be a relatively relaxed job and that I would probably be quite good at it since I'm fairly organised. Unfortunately, due to general disorganisation within the team, we dropped formal roles and everyone ended up doing a bit of everything. I also designed the above poster and distributed it around the College

When the first session finally happened, I was asked to deliver it - i.e. introducing the session, greeting the class and being in charge of the pose times. I was uncomfortable doing this as I felt an unfair responsibility was being dumped on me (and I'm also really bad at talking to groups of people, especially if I don't know them), and the same thing happened again next week until the president of the society left without saying anything.

After this happened I pretty much took over all contact between the society and the Students' Union and continued to deliver the sessions. Although I initially disliked having to deliver sessions, I was proud of myself for doing something out of my comfort zone and eventually got a bit better at it.

Although this isn't strictly illustration related, I think this has been a development of my professional communication skills via email, organisational skills in a group and, to a certain extent, public speaking skills.

Jacob van Loon

  

Crazy precise use of watercolour to make really odd compositions with strong perspective

Kim Roselier process

http://kimroselier.tumblr.com/post/110436078616/illustration-du-dimanche-kimroselier

I used this process for my Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit brief in Responsive. I think it's a great way to get nice clean gouache paintings.

Vincent Tsui

http://pstk-way.tumblr.com/post/91916758785
Really really nice life drawing by Vincent Tsui

Kevin Whipple

http://kevinwhippleillustration.tumblr.com/post/86337229700/another-set-of-spreads-from-my-thesis-project-the

Shape and line and limited colour palettes yum

Same Rowe

http://samrowedraws.tumblr.com/post/98077369965/a-simple-four-page-story-made-for-an-anthology-as

Really good use of PS brushes to create a handmade aesthetic. Limited colour palette too.

Colours May Vary exhibition

I worked as part of the Promo Team for our exhibition "Off the Page" in February. I found this to be a very interesting and fun experience.
Some mistakes were made during the process which contributed to some good learning - the need for the unification of promotional material (we initially proposed to have 8 or 9 different poster designs), what kind of information that should be included/excluded on the poster (no free drinks) and some pointers in graphic design as me and Joe spent quite a lot of time designing the layout for the final poster (even though Matt came in at the end and pushed the quality even further).
Line breaks look really good on posters.

Packaging the prints that I wanted to sell was stressful as I did it the night before they had to be given in, but when I finally had my prints packaged in newsprint, signed and editioned, they looked incredibly professional and I almost didn't want to give them away to sell. It also made me feel a lot better about the work I had produced for the OUIL504 module.

On the actual opening night, the turnout was great which meant that the promotion had worked, which is always nice to know - I realised that you can never be sure that what you're doing is working until the actual event comes along.

Studio Brief 3 - CREATIVE PRESENCE

1.What should your identity convey about you?

It should convey who you are creatively, professionally and personally. 

Without divulging too deep into your personal life, you should be able to give potential clients an idea of what kind of work you make in a non-visual way - what you are interested in, how your experiences have shaped what you do and what you may have the potential for.

Creatively, you should be able to show clients what makes your work special - whether that's through your aesthetic, tone of voice, or process. They should understand where your work exists in the world - am I a poster artist? Am I a book illustrator? Am I a screen printer? These are things that I am interested in and should ideally communicate to potential clients.

2. Is it actually important to have an identity as an illustrator?

For the freelance illustrator, I think identity is very important. Not only is it a great way to make clients remember you (for personality/pseudonym/aesthetic), I feel like it makes you a lot more marketable. If you can identify your niche in the market, then building an identity around it will mean people will be a lot more likely to go to you for jobs you like to do.

If you have greatly varying areas of illustration that you enjoy working in, making identities (blogs/websites/names) for each genre can be beneficial as it means you will be able to present relevant work to clients without them getting lost in the work you do that they're not interested in hiring you for.

3. What could be included in your pack and why?

Fun stuff which I noted down that could be included in a promo pack:

-Cards

-Coasters

-Place mats

-Mouse pads

-T-shirts

-Postcards

-Stationary

-Calendar

I think there is a lot of potential for functional ephemera - things like coasters and stationary which people keep as they are useful, even if they don't look at them that much. Putting more luxurious items such as a bottle of wine with a label you have designed yourself is also something I noted down. This would also be a reflection of myself as I happen to really like red wine.

4.What are you wanting to achieve by producing promotional items?

I think that by making a promo pack I will not only help other people understand who I am, but will begin to get an understanding of that myself. Creating a unified set of products will show me what my identity looks like - choosing what pieces of work I place on the products (existing or specially designed) will show me what my work is about. Picking a few pieces of work to represent who I am as an illustrator will be incredibly difficult however.