After my first attempts at designing my sheet i decided to take it in a different direction using text instead of imagery, inspired by my birthday cards. For these designs i created them on a 50x 70cm template as this is the standard size in shops. Although this did mean i could accurately tell the size and spacing of my designs it did mean the file size was rather large, which made illustrator run exceptionally slowly.
First i experimented with a linear structure. Overall i really like how the hues within each letter create striped lines of colour across the sheet. Despite this there is the concern that once the present is wrapped the words happy birthday will not be clear and only feature part of the text. I decided to create my sheet wrap vertically as all those i saw in my market research are in a vertical direction, most proably so they can be displayed clearly.
As i have used every hue from my colour pallet within the text i decided to use a black background. Despite making the overall design appear awfully dark it really helps the colour to pop out the page. I have experimented with a white background within one of my designs; however, i feel the black does make more of an impact. If i have time before the formative assessment i would like to experiment with the letters having a white outline instead of black. I believe this will make them stand out from the page and create a bigger contrast particularly between the purple and black. Hopefully i will have time to do this before the formative assessment; however, i want to get at least one design for each product finished first.
At this stage i decided to print off the design to scale to see how big the letters were. Unfortunately, i can only print onto A4 at home; however, by keeping the design to scale i can still get an idea of how big each row/ letter will be. Once analysing this i decided to make the text only slightly bigger. This is just so i know the letters will really stand out against the background.
For my next experiment i decided to create a diagonal repeat. Overall i feel this does make the design look more interesting; however, i do miss the linear stripes of colour within my first design. I feel this style of repeat looks a lot more detailed because of the slight movement between each line; however, is still structured in its formation. From here i want to try a back and forth method to see if i can create a balance between an interesting repeat and having the hues in a more linear fashion rather than diagonal across the page.
For my third composition i experimented with this back and forth layout. To do this i created two lines which were slightly offset against each other and then repeated them down the page. Overall this is my favourite design and most likely the one i will be submit for the formative assessment.
As this is my favourite design so far i have also chosen to display it in white. Overall against the white background the colours do stand out a lot more with the help of the black outline. Despite this, i do feel white is slightly boring for my demographic. This experiment has made me realise i do need to experiment with a white outline against the black background to see if it really does help the letters to stand out. Once i have experimented with this i will make an informed decision to whether the black or white background will be best at this assessment point.
As all my designs have been so linear up to this point i decided to experiment with a more sporadic layout which only features the words happy birthday once. Overall i really like this design as it has a much more fun layout; however, is most probably not appropriate for a gift sheet. As the text is only on the design once and at such a large scale when wrapping the gift only certain letters may be featured so the overall statement will not be clear.
Although this design is not appropriate for my gift sheet i think it would make a great birthday card so will use it for this product instead. As the birthday card will not be wrapped about anything and the whole page be visible all together this design is a lot more appropriate for this product. Following the formative assessment point i want to be more experimental with the positioning of each letter within my first 3 designs to make it seem more interesting for my target market. I want to be able to combine this more fun layout with still easily readable text so the message is clear.
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