SET UP DAY

Today we met up at Uni at 8 with all our things from SCRAP and our Aquarium. Unfortunately Sophie was un able to come today due to work. We were stressing a little bit about our transport there and back everyday but luckily Jessie drove back from Scotland yesterday so she can do all the driving, which is a life saver! 

All the setting up went pretty well; we were unsure about the positioning of our Aquarium, we really could've done with another table to put it on. We experimented with balancing it in the middle of the two tables and have left it like that for now. The seaweed looking material we got looks so great around the top of the tent in our section! Really sets off the under the sea look!! We have set up the two separate tables and made them quite clear which ones which. Jenny gave us some lovely table cloths to put onto our tables to make them look nice and protect the tables. Also, she showed us our worksheets that they got printed. The side of the sheet with the worksheet I create I was a little bit disappointed with because they for some reason made it smaller so there was white all around the edge. But its not a big deal. 

To get the ball rolling tomorrow for the kids to create their own creatures we made our own quick little sample ones and put them up in the Aquarium. 

Once we had set up our own tables we needed to help out setting up the other workshops as the artists weren't there to be able to set them up themselves. Particularly we spent a lot of time setting up the whole of the green house workshop. We put the green house and shelving up, then cut out all the plants and put them into pots with compost and dangled insects and plants from the roof. It all looks very pretty all set up and done! 

We did various other jobs for the other workshops, lots of cutting out and making everything look presentable. Also, we made the bunting to go around the festival and put it up around the Anorak event. 

Today has been a great start and pleased with how everything looks! I think in the morning we might have to experiment with where the Aquarium will go a little more, but will have a think about it some more tonight.

Also, note for tomorrow..wrap up warm! Today, despite it looking sunny it was freezing cold all day! 

Discarding the Wrapping Paper

I decided to get rid of the wrapping paper element of the brief. This is because I don't think that wrapping paper will work for all of the occasions. Also, I just want to put my full focus on completing the designs for the occasions and to a high standard. 

Tag Mocks

I have done some rough mock ups of what the tags will look like. I am pleased with them, I have simplified some of them a lot from the original card, but I don't think the tag needs to have a lot on it and kept simple.  

Birthday Wrapping Paper

New Baby Cards

These are all of my New Baby cards. I am not too happy with the door mat and the purrents cards. I think the door matt is quite dull and not very creative. And for the Purrents card, I was excited about the idea of it but it doesn't look quite right. I think maybe needs a change in colour? I am happy with the rest of them. I particularly like the twins cards, I researched into baby cards and there was nothing you could find for twins. I also, thought that the card could be adapted to triplets. 

Baby Card Drawings

I have done some drawings for my new baby range. I have found this one a little bit more difficult to do. I didn't want any of them to portray a particular gender and remain very open. 

Photographs of Sweatshirt

I think that it's important that I start taking better photos of my toys and products. Today I re took some photos of my sweatshirt that I sewed into. I'm pleased with how they came out (despite me awkwardly trying to model). I think as I start having more and more toys made ready for the final show I will photograph them all properly, as the quality of the images is so much higher than the photos I've been taking from home. I think that this will be great to put them onto my website, as clean and clear images.

Sailor Pattern

Last night I did some drawings with ephemera relating to a sailor theme. And then today I've scanned them in and played around with colours and patterns. 

I want this pattern to be aimed towards adult males so went for quite muted tones of blues which relate to the theme and nothing bright. 

I felt like this looked quite dull and plain and wasn't happy with the way it looked, so I experimented with putting in a bit of red to make it pop a bit. 

Tea-Search

As I was in Morrisons today I had a look at all the herbal teas that they have on display to get some inspiration on their packaging. I am most drawn to the Tea Pigs packaging. It has a more independent feel to them. 

Next Pattern

I want to create a pattern that would be suitable for adult males, as they said that they have a very limited range of designs for them. 

Its not really a demographic that I've ever really tried to go for, so I'm finding it quite a challenge. To begin with I was thinking of going for stereotypical 'manly' things like football, tools, metal but feel that thats I'm being too literal and stereotypical. 

I'm thinking of going down the route of either, fishing/sailor/boats or classic cars/campervans/camping? I feel like I could have fun with creating something with these elements too. 

I've added a few more patterns to my Pinterest board that have given me some inspiration. 

New Pattern

I have tidied up the hot air balloons colours and lines as it was all a bit rushed and messy. I much prefer this pattern that I have made. The design is a lot simpler and cleaner. I feel that this design, would be well suited to around 16+ and most likely for females. 

Playing around with the pattern

I think that the pattern needs cleaning up a bit, some of the dots in the background are a bit warped and need re-doing. But nice to see it altogether as a repeat pattern. I have used a similar colour scheme to the flower pattern but added some orange into it. I am happy with the concept of having hot air balloons but I think I need to experiment a bit more with how the pattern should be. 

Pattern Two Idea

From the inspiration of the umbrella print,  I have drawn some hot air balloons that I could turn into a pattern. With these illustrations I could combine the colours from the flower print with the look of having patterns in the umbrella print. 

Second Orthotics Pattern Design

I feel like the first pattern that I did could be aimed at both genders but probably more for young children. So I feel for my second pattern it needs to be more sophisticated. Looking at the patterns on my Pinterest board I have liked quite a lot with a more muted beige background. I think that having more of a plain background could work well with being more suited to an adult, and be a little bit more sophisticated. 

I think that the next colour scheme I go for will follow a similar colour palette to this. In addition to the colour, I like how closely placed all the different flowers are.  

I really like the repetition of the umbrellas of this how they are all closely placed together like in the flowers above. And I like that theres a mixture of different patterns within them 

Space Design

Yesterday I made a pattern of the planets, but after looking at it today I felt like it needed neatening up up a lot. Also, I have slightly changed the positioning of it all. I feel much happier with it now that I've done this. It probably isn't hugely noticeable but I feel like it makes a difference. 

Orthotics designs

After researching patterns on Pinterest and realising that I wanted to create a pattern to do with space I did some quick drawings in my sketchbook and developed on them. 

Stickers

I slightly changed the arrangement of the eyes so that they were more spread out and easy to cut out. I'm pretty pleased with how they have come out; printed them onto the white sticker paper rather than see through as I thought that would work better. 

I have now just finished cutting them all out leaving a bit of an edge around them.  

Tortoise Birthday Card

I wasn't really sure which one I preferred so thought I'd make them both to see what I think. As much as I like the cake one I think that this one I already have the snake cake one so think I might go with the  balloon tortoise. What I do like about them both is that they could really be for someone of any age. I did make them with the intention of of being more suitable for someone older. The reason for this is because all of the other birthday cards that I have made all seem to be more for children or quite young people, so thought that I would provide something for older people too. 

Tortoise Sketches

Orthotics Pattern Ideas

To try and get some initial ideas for what patterns I could create I have made a Pinterest board of all the ones I have liked and found.I'm particularly drawn to creating a pattern with planets or elements to do with space. Also, I quite like the deep purple against the light blues/greens. 

<a data-pin-do="embedBoard" data-pin-board-width="400" data-pin-scale-height="240" data-pin-scale-width="80" href="https://uk.pinterest.com/RohhDear/patterns-for-orthotics/"></a>

Tutorial

My tutorial with Fred the other day went really well and has got me even more excited about my final project! Rather than just focusing on the theme of Good vs Bad I need to more look at it as opposites as it opens up everything to make the scope of this even broader as I do plan to continue this brief and keep it on going into the future.

However, for the final exhbition I plan to encompass around the theme of food and looking at the opposites within this. As well as making the toys for this range I now plan to create the packaging for it. Within the tutorial we talked about making big bags of marshmellows, from looking at the marshmellows that I had made before. Which then stemmed onto ideas like making big bags of mixed veg and egg cartons and lolly pops with the sticks. Since then I have thought of many more ideas and thought that it would be best to start to make lists of the different ideas, and then from there I can select the best.


Food                                 Packaging

- Pizza slices                  - Big pizza box
- Ice Lollies         - Wooden lolly sticks - potentially in a box 
- Lolly pops                                       - Plastic lolly stick 
- Chocolate Chip Cookies            - Big cookie jar 
- Marshmellows                      - Big plastic bag 
- Sweeties               - Sweet wrappers - big tin (like how you would get a tin of roses)
- Dolly mixture          - In a paper or plastic bag - A sweet jar
- Ice Creams             - Card box - Wrapper around the cone
- Cupcakes               - Cupcake cases
- Burger and Fries       - Fast food boxes - Tray 


- Strawberries 
- Carrots                - Farmers wooden box/pellet type box? could put bits of soil in?
- Bananas                - Stickers to put on them
- Apples                 - Stickers similar to the bananas
- Nuts                   - Plastic bag 
- Mixed peas and sweet corn           - Bag  
- Watermelon 
- Potatoes               - Big potato sack 
- Eggs                   - Giant egg carton
( I have looked into whether you can buy giant egg cartons but it doesnt seem to be possible, but I remember when I was making my resin cats in ceramics before Christmas and there were people in there making paper. So just a thought, it might be worth asking if it would be some how be possible to use the paper pulp to some how sculpt a big egg box?)

SCRAP

Today as a group we all took a trip over to SCRAP in Pudsey. I really really liked Scrap, I thought it was a great place, I will definitely be taking a trip back there again, they have so many different materials which have given me inspiration for other projects. 

We ended up getting lots and lots of different types of materials, e.g. big long tubes, shiny papers, lolly pop sticks, buttons, netting. All things that we could see relating to our underwater theme. I also took some photos of things that people have made and put up in there out of the recycled materials. 

These two recycled creatures in particular looked fun and interesting. Seeing them triggered a few ideas of what to buy and gave me some inspiration for our work shop. 

Next meet up plan

The next step for us is to head to scrap - so the plan is to meet on Thursday at the train station to go there and talk to them there and hopefully get stuff sorted! 

I think that we should give them a call tomorrow to make sure that its okay for us to go on Thursday but for now I have had a look at trains so we can get a rough idea on what sort of price it will be to get there and back. All of us have railcards which make it cheaper too. 

Not really sure what time it is were planning on getting there for. Probably have an idea once we have rang and spoke to them. But overall they're all generally going to be £1.70! Super cheap!! 

BUBBLES

Quickly made a few bubbles that we can use to put the prompts and questions in and dot around our place!

Meet up today!

We've all had a meet up to day to have a talk about everything because we've been emailed asking about the aquarium and how we plan to build it. 

PLAN A - Jessie has a big box at home that came with her bike when she bought it so we were thinking we could use that to cut out and paint. But we're going to wait for her to send us a photo so we can get an idea of the scale. 

PLAN B - Use ply wood and laser cut the aquarium. 

PLAN C - We would find a bigger box and use wire and pegs the clip things up and we can paint the box and add other elements like seaweed for example. 

We have written a list of everything that we need to buy and do within the next week. We have split off into two groups - me and Sophie are doing the task of sorting out the worksheets and making the sticker sheets with the eyes on. And then Jessie and Orlaith are going on the YPO website and buying items online.

SCAN                                 FINAL 

We've had a talk about the worksheets as we've had feedback saying that they will print the worksheets  - which is great, but now they need to be A4 sized rather than A3 that we planned so theres not really going to be the room for the prompts that we wanted to have on the sheets. We had a think about it and I suggested that we have the prompts in bubbles around our space, just stuck up and around to help prompt some inspiration. So now this allows there to be more room on the sheets for drawing and opens up a lot more space - also will make our table space look more interesting! 

They also suggested to us that our theme should not just be sea creatures but should be more open to a whole under the sea world so that the children can make whatever it is that they like! For instance, they can make cars underwater and they're own cities or whatever they can imagine! 

Taking that on board we have had the idea of using a double sided sheet - one side being the sea creature that they can draw and then the other side will be the under water world that they can create. 

I have designed the worksheet that will have the under water world. I just re worked onto the old worksheet that I had made as we all agreed that it worked the best for displaying the under water world rather than the others as the other work sheets were more like fish tank designs. 

                  

Sophie is going to make the other side of the sheet that will be for making the sea creature. She's done some really nice text so we will use the same font for my side of the sheet too. Also, they want us to incorporate their logo onto the sheets so need to work on fitting that into it next. 

Commission

I have been approached by a lady setting up her own business selling herbal and fruity teas. She needs a logo for her business that can go across all platforms, both print and web. She wants the logo to be quite feminine and clear what it is she's selling. 

I've started to make a few roughs of ideas. Recently I have been working with watercolours so I wanted to continue with that for these logos as could get a watery tea effect. I feel like all the logos will need re drawing and playing about with, but I quite like the general ideas and concepts so far. 

Emailsss

We've a reply from Jenny asking about how we plan to go about our aquarium, just so they have an idea of what it is that we are doing. In the link that she sent was something very much on the same sort of lines as of what we were thinking of! 

This is an image thats on the link that really shows what it is that we were thinking: 

Packaging Ideas

I was just looking on Pinterest for some general inspiration and I came across this very sweet little illustration. It game me an idea that I could make little plush toy simple sweets like this little white character and make sweet like wrappers to put around it. Could be quite a cute and interesting way of packaging.