Production for print

Open publication - Free publishing - More print

Good is...

I have finished my final designs for my client boards.

Open publication - Free publishing - More african

Good is...

I have printed my final poster, postcards and packaging. It was really hard to work out how to print my packaging, as it is double sided and quite a difficult net. It took three attempts but with the help of James in digital print we got there in the end. I need to remember for future reference that it needs to be flipped horizontally and vertically when being printed double sided as it goes back through the printer up side down.
I am really pleased with these prints and think the colour matching has come out well, especially considering all of the different layers and gradients I have been using in my designs. However I have found that the colours on my designs vary depending what screen I've been looking at. The matt screens in the digital dungeon of course were the most accurate.
I have filled in parts with gold pen, these are supposed to be foil stamped. I would have done it myself but  there were no screens left to buy.

Good is...

I have finished my design for my packaging. I chose to use the pyramid shaped net so that it can work as both packaging and a leaflet on the inside. I have kept the same basic design as the posters and banners.

Good is...

I have been finishing off my poster ready for print later today. I have adjusted the layout and images slightly, but have also considered the print settings.

I have decided that I will either want to foil or a spot colour where the dots are on the main image so I have created a separate spot swatch, as so far I have been using just CMYK.

Where PANTONE 111 U is either the gold spot or foiling will go.

I have also left room for a 3mm bleed.

I am a bit worried about the ink limit being too much in some areas so I thought I'd double check this on InDesign. We got shown this in one of our sessions, but I couldn't work out a way to do it on illustrator... so InDesign it is!

I am glad I checked this because it turned out that I have gone wrong somewhere. I've realised that for the black outlines I have used registration. Because of the earthy colours in my design I don't really need a rich black so I will edit the swatch to just using the black ink and hopefully it will be ok.

Problem solved!

Good is...

My tattoo paper came through the post today so I'm able to print them off. I have just printed off two types, outlines of my original illustrations and some that are coloured. I was going to do a variation with the rusty texture that I've been using but it too long for the printer to process and I only had five sheets of paper, so I didn't want to risk getting it wrong.

I then tested them out on Will and I am really pleased with how well they came out.

Good is...

Today we had our final crit in groups of six. I have found this really helpful and I feel good about progressing and finishing off my project. Some good points that I have taken into consideration are:

• Keep the colour consistent throughout product range.
• Add texture to the heads of large poster to keep consistency.
• The typeface used in package is a bit too modern, reconsider this.
• Maybe lighten colour of text in package to tie in with rest of design.
• Consider designing sticker to bind gift shop range.
• photograph an exhibition and mock up poster in context to add more content.
• Consider different stocks for packaging.
• Design a postcard range for gift shop including the information from the packaging.

All od the feedback I have received is going to help me a lot, it is al doable in the remaining time leading up to the module deadline. The postcards shouldn't take too long as I already have the basic designs down for it.

Good is...

I have carried on with my poster and designed some with the other illustrations, I definitely prefer the original and think i may just use that one on its own. I have also designed my banners which after some tweaking I will Photoshop onto the photographs I took on Sunday.

I am going to develop these banners more, but the idea is to do three maybe one in a slight different format.

Good is...

I have just ordered some printable tattoo paper. The idea is to design some temporary tattoos for the museum gift shop, which is fitting with the body modification theme. Although I could just mock them up on normal paper, I think my client boards would look great if I had an example of it actually tattooed.

Good is...

I have started working on some poster designs, as I think this is a good place to start to get a general theme going. This is how it looks so far, I am going to print onto a lightweight matt waterproof stock. This is because it would be outside to advertise the exhibition so would be have to be weather proof. I have also thought about foiling the logo in the bottom left corner to give it a subtle difference. I will see how this looks once I have printed it off. For the background I have used a mixture of textures and gradients, and then my logo with low opacity in the background. I have removed the shading from the image as I feel that keeping it simple looks far better and keeps within my theme much better.
Commercially I would digitally print these posters as they are to advertise a short running local exhibition. This means that many won't be needed so it would be unnecessary to litho print them.

Good is...

 I have started looking at some more natural looking textures as I think this will suit my designs better than the other ones that I have created. I have stuck mainly to earthy colours and textures to stick to my tribal theme. After I found the textures online I started to experiment with layering on Illustrator. I have started by decreasing the opacity on one of the textures I created a few days ago and layering it on top.

I have put my illustrations on top to see how it looks and also changed the opacity on them. I think the background at the moment looks too yellow in comparison to the pictures, although I do like them when they are less opaque and show some of the texture through.

I then started experimenting with layering some gradients to add more depth to the image.

I also tried adding a drop shadow and outer glow, both however just looked tacky in my opinion. It also made the file size massive, which would complicate things when going to print.

This is my favourite outcome, using a textured layer, then a gradient and then finally a texture created by myself with little opacity.

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Today I went out in search of some banners to photoshop my banner designs on to. I wanted to photograph these before I started my designs so that I know what format and size I am working to. I found some banners, they aren't exactly what I had in mind but they will demonstrate the general idea. I may include a drawing on my client boards to show how the banners will be displayed outside the museum.