Luke Halstead – THE BIG DESIGN BLOG

April 22, 2016Luke Halstead No Comments

Reflection: Corporate Identity

This project was one that I had a lot of fun with; it was something I had never done before and something that just like the children’s book, included elements that I have never really covered before.

My strongest part was probably the brand guideline part; formatting the pages in an consistent manner was a lot more pleasurable for my that I assumed it would be. As someone who has a small film making brand, this whole project was extremely helpful to me to expand my knowledge of brand identity and creating a strong, consistent design.

My weakest area was probably the product label designs – due to the way I had designed the website and brochure, I struggled to create a good label with easily legible text that didn’t look too squashed together. Although the designs I did end up coming up with were decent, they did not match the brand identity very well and often just looked plain awkward (especially the fragrance box). I kept trying to correct it and it eventually got to the point where I had no time to finish some of the designs (such as the fragrance bottle labels). If I had more time, I would probably have continued to experiment and hopefully get it sorted in time.

In conclusion, despite the downs, I still felt I was able to pull together a strong brand identity for Le Barbe Magnifique. I also learned a lot of new techniques which I intend on employing more of in the future (such as PSD mockups). This may have not been my strongest project over the pas year, but it is certainly one I will gladly show with pride.

April 22, 2016Luke Halstead No Comments

Reflection: Children’s Book

Overall, I would say this was a very strong project for me; although I struggled to think of what to do for and initial idea, I managed to bounce back with a complex but simple original design for a children’s book.

The aim of the book was to teach the children my book is aimed at (aged 5-8) about the ups and downs of drug use in a fun and friendly manner. While drugs can make you feel happy and god like, there can also be a downside to it and you must be responsible around drugs.

My strongest part I would easily say are the panels for the good part of the trip. my original intention was to produce an accurate depiction of a trip, however, I decided that it would be more fun and allow more creative freedom if I just based it off the idea of 60s hippie culture art, which did pay off in the end.

The weakest part of the book would probably be the part of the trip when it goes bad. I was not able to achieve quite what I wanted. I wanted to make the patterns hard to look for a period of time. Although I did somewhat achieve that, I feel that the deliberately messy aesthetic that I went for with the patterns may have hindered the effect a bit and if I had more time, I would probably experiment a bit more with these pages so I could get the exact effect I wanted.

In conclusion, this project has probably been my strongest this year; not only was I able to flex my artistic muscles but I was also able to combine it with one of my other passions; storytelling. Even though it was a basic story, I still had fun creating the story. This is one project I may come back to again in the future in my spare time.

April 22, 2016Luke Halstead No Comments

Children’s book: The trips

After looking at my mood boards, I decided not to go with designs that were accurate to real trips – I decided that those were too boring and uninspiring for me. I decided to look at some 60s hippie culture to get inspired – I felt that I could go a lot further with my imagination if I did not limit myself to the real life accuracy. It also meant that I could make the designs more colourful and fun, so that the children reading it did not get as scared or freaked out.

Below are a few examples of the artwork I did for the book:

I made the backgrounds bright and happy to show the emotions that Ollie Owl is feeling, while also making sure the colours were a bit grainy so it kept with the overall aesthetic. I discovered the red lines by accident when I highlighted the background and found it added a nice effect on top of Ollie – making him seem more “god-like” and powerful. I decided to make it a part of the art as a result.

For when the trip goes bad, I deliberately made the background wonky and weird; I used a slight rectangle instead of a square and varied the thickness of each line. This was so I could make the background weird for people to look at and possibly hurt their eyes a little, so they can feel what Ollie Owl is feeling when his trip goes bad.

April 22, 2016Luke Halstead No Comments

Products and Stationary

Here are some products that I designed for the corporate identity. I struggled a bit with these, as the design I had come up with did not translate onto the products as well as I had hoped; the background image made it hard to work with some of the designs and I had a lot of trouble with the aftershave box (the purple one). If I had more time, I would change the house style a bit to better suit the product label designs. Here are some PSD mockups I made of some of the labels:

The stationary was a lot easier as a lot of it was very similar to the website and brochure designs before. If I had more time, I would probably alter the letter head a bit more, as the large blue bar at the top seems a little out of place when compared with other products. Here is a PSD mockup I made of some of the stationary.

April 22, 2016Luke Halstead No Comments

Brochures

These are the brochures I designed for Le Barbe Magnifique. I designed these so that they kept consistent design wise with the website. The each background image on the pages to touch at the centre (e.g. Pages on the right have the image extend to the left and pages to the left will have the background extend to the right).

I also kept the design of the transparent boxes for text from the website too so that there was less confusion from the potential customers when they went online looking for the site. The images in the background are temporary and would be replaced with pictures of the actual shops if this barber shop were real.