Oasis Development

Initial Ideas.
After our second session, Emily and I went through ideas that we had thought about. After organising our time in the session we had to then think about the specific things that we were going to do, we thought about our colour scheme and the typefaces that we were going to use. We also decided on the messages that we want to have for the brief itself. After deciding each of our roles in this brief we thought that we would have to agree on the type of branding we would be using throughout the brief so that we are both on the same page, also so that when we bring together our type and image they look right, go well together and communicate the same message.

We started by talking about what kind of effects we were both thinking. For this brief, both mine and Emily's initial thoughts were to use some sort of watercolour effect with a limited colour pallet. So we started looking through behance, typing in, 'watercolour' and 'illustrations' this is so that we could do some research.

Source

We found this and decided that this is the kind of illustrations we wanted to go for, simple geometric shapes to form the illustration of object that we are wanting. The design is very creative, we have decided that this is something that we want to consider when designing the illustrations, and something we would like to incorporate.

Illustrations.
When designing the illustrations, me and Emily thought of some initial shapes and icons that's we could use for each of the messages, for example the time message will have a clock on it.the ideas that we have got so far are;

• Too busy to wait around? Give us a time and we'll deliver it to you. Clock
• Got no cash? You can use PayPal in-store.
• Need help or advice? Talk to our personal stylists today. Character?
• Got an NUS card? You students get 15% off all year round. 15%
• Can't find your size? We will track it down and deliver it for free. Size Montage
• Want to see what else we have? Free wifi in store to check out our Oasis app. Wifi signal bars
• Stuck for ideas? Treat your friends to an Oasis gift card. Present
• Want to get more from your Oasis experience? Get yourself a loyalty card.
• Want to get more involved? Follow us online. Social Icons

These were just our initial thoughts for illustrations for the ad campaign, although if we think of anything else when we start designing we can easily change them.

When I started to look into designing the illustrations, or just how the illustrations would look, I decided to incorporate the idea of designing using simple shapes, and creating each of the shapes mostly using the same colour but a slightly different tone, rather than completely different colours, this is because we want to use a specific colour pallet.

Colour Pallet.

Experimenting.

I used the pen tool to draw all of these shapes, link them all together to make it look like they are all one large shape. Me and Emily have chosen a colour pallet therefor I am working from the colours we chose. I used all of the same colour only changed the tone to create lighter and darker examples. I started by using only one colour, but then thought that it may look effective if I tried to blend two colours together.

After attempting to blend two colours together, I thought that it might look better if I tried to blend three together, I went for these three colours over using the red because I think that they work better together, although I will experiment with red later when I start to produce the illustrations.

I think that this will work well if I were to create a shape and mask it over this pattern to produce the illustrations because it will give them a 3D effect. It also allows the illustration to have dimension without going into too much detail or using too many colours.

Using the three colour geometric shapes I created a 15% illustration. I have used the typeface that Emily and I chose to use for our brief called Budmo, although I created outlines for this, so that I could get rid of the circles in the type and would be able to mask the pattern so I could use it in the illustration.

When creating the present I decided to use green and purple as I think that they would create a good contrast effect to make the ribbon stand out on the cube. Creating the cube I thought would look more three dimensional if I made it as three sides, as if it were a cube, rather than the shape itself, as the geometric pattern may make it harder to define the sides. This is also why I thought I would add a bow onto it, not just because it is iconic to have on present, but it defines edges.

When designing the clock, I thought I would use the same technique and style as the present, creating simple shapes and then putting them together to create the illustration. I also decided to use two colours for the clock, purple an blue, I think that these colours work really well together.

I thought that I could keep it as simple as possible with minimal information on the illustration, whilst keeping it recognisable, although I think that I should see what it looks like with numbers on it.

I tried the illustration with numbers too which I think looks better, I decided to use white hands on the clock and white numbers as Emily and I decided that we would use white text as we found white text looks aesthetically pleasing with white text on the coloured backgrounds that we have chosen.

Looking at both of the clocks, I think that I prefer the illustrations with two different colours on them, as I think that if the text is white and we try a watercoloured background for the ad campaign, the illustrations and the text will all be too similar, and they may just blend together. Looking at it now I think that for the clock with the clock with the purple hands I should try the numbers in purple too.

Watercolour Effect.
Me and Emily decided that we were going to try and work with watercolour so I researched into how to try and create a watercolour effect digitally because it is something I don't know how to do. After going through tutorials online, I decided to apply this technique to all the different colours that we are using.

I started with blue, and found that I should not only create whites and lighter blue in the circle but I should also create a fade into the white on the circumference of the circle, this will allow the 'watercolour' to fade into the page more rather than just being so block.

I also decided that I would change the complexity of the wrinkle tool so that it would create a more wrinkled effect on the shape, but I think that it looks better and most like watercolour in the left shape, this shape has a complexity of 0 and I changed the settings so that the anchor points aren't effected by the wrinkle tool which limited the movement, and is why I think the left shape works better.

I also did the same thing with the rest of the colours so that I could see whether it looked better to have less complexity with just the green or with all of the colours. I think that when there is too much going on it is very distracting, therefor I think that as this is just going to be for the background it shouldn't be too distracting.

The colour red I think works really well using this effect, especially when it is on its own, although I don't know if it works well with the other three colours, this may be something that me and Emily need to look further into, as I think that many of the colours work well with the red, but not all four of them together, I don't know whether it's necessary to have four colours.

Each of the watercolour effects works well with all of the colours we are using, I have found that using minimal complexity with the wrinkle tool is more effective and works better when looking at the shapes and colours as if they were watercolour.