For week eight I was tasked with using adobe Illustrator to create a graphic design piece using typography, guidelines, and coloured shapes. I approached this task using travel posters for inspiration as they often feature very bold shapely designs. When I was a child I used to be obsessed with the stars in the night sky, and I wanted to invoke this childish wonder in my piece.

I began by creating my child silhouette. I found a reference image which I used and edited to create my more fantasy styled design (alsongel, 2017) A couple of changes were made to my design over the original, both of which in an attempt to make the young boys silhouette into a young girls silhouette.

Firstly, I altered the line of the boy’s shorts to turn it into a skirt, this was to portray the figure as a girl clearly. The Big change however is the extended ponytail. I wanted the figure to add to the designs fantasy style and feel like the unnatural ponytail adds to this. Almost like rings surrounding a planet the figures ponytail frames them and when placed into the final design Leeds the eye toward the title.

Once I had my child silhouette the rest of the design consisted of basic shapes and solid colours. I added a large bold frame to give the design the same poster feel that I find in the references I used. I used the same colour as the border for the stars so as to give the design a uniformity which again is prevalent throughout all retro style travel posters.

I placed my child figure on a moon shape which I felt paired itself well to the pose the character is in and used an black outer glow to add depth. I used the drop shadow on both the text and the stars also as I felt this gave the piece more interest than if I had left it flat.

For the shooting star I used a basic polygon and then added streak lines using the pen tool. I coloured this shape a bright yellow to make it stand out from the cool colours surrounding it. I also added a white outer glow to the shape to help it pop out from the design.

Next, for the text I used a font found on Dafont (K_IN Studio, 2020) for the title of the piece. I felt like the white highlights spread throughout the text would help with the space theme of the design. I deliberately used a lower case ‘A’ in the sentence as I felt using the capital dominated the space more than I would have liked. I also spread the words of the title throughout in order to fill the space left in the centre of the page by the rest of the design.

Finally, I used a gradient originating from the little girls corner and spreading up to where the shooting star is placed. This was to add depth, make the title more legible and help draw attention to the shooting star.

Overall, I feel like my design is good however there are some definite places to improve. I feel like the shooting star could have done with a redesign, perhaps using repeating star shapes which gradually shrink and reduce in opacity instead. Also, I feel that the font used does somewhat get lost in the design, not helped by the choice of black to white in the gradient. I could change the text or change the colour the gradient fades to.

The moon could have also benefitted from having some details put into it such as adding crevices. Also, as Robert pointed out when he looked at my work I perhaps used a the drop shadow tool a little too much.

Id say my redesign was more of a refinement this time. I changed the shooting star to incorporate my thoughts after the first design and feel like I got a much better result. I also removed the drop shadows from the blue stars as when looking at my reference posters none of them actually use the stylize effects found in Illustrator. I brought the child silhouette and the title over from my previous design. However, I coloured the child’s shoes a bright red here so as to add contrast. While I didn’t add much detail to the moon, I do feel that even with one simple line it gives the shape more detail, I also added a line to help frame the child.

The more muted colour pallet used also helps draw attention to the brightly coloured shoes and star. I placed the title so that it would lead onto the child’s ponytail which in turn based on where the child is looking draws the eye to the shooting star. Id say this design is nicer than the original. It manipulates the eye more and as a result is more eye catching than previously.

References:

alsongel (2017) Shutterstock, Available at: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/boy-sitting-body-silhouette-vector-1187942017 [11/12/2020]

George Oliver (Product) Available at: https://www.wayfair.co.uk/home-decor/pdp/george-oliver-zoo-advertisement-print-on-paper-hvo69675.html?piid=27481948%2C27789858 [Accessed 11/12/2020]

K_IN Studio, 2020. Font. Dafont, Available at:https://www.dafont.com/holla-rolla.font [Accessed 11/12/2020]

World Menagerie (Product) Available at:https://www.wayfair.co.uk/World-Menagerie–Japan-Japanese-Government-Railways-Poster-Graphic-Art-V112133868-L1318-K~NDAM1935.html?refid=GX466018728220-NDAM1935_42722083_42985556&device=c&ptid=899493555073&targetid=pla-899493555073&network=g&ireid=90583074&PiID%5B%5D=42985556&PiID%5B%5D=42722083&device=c&gclid=Cj0KCQiAqdP9BRDVARIsAGSZ8AnO39iNBZxmy00kqcQMgKFwrfCB_QWKNG4dhn9GPpGoAF95FMqvXRAaAoRvEALw_wcB [Accessed 11/12/2020]