JESSIE ROSE'S DIGITAL DESIGN: November 2009

To begin with I sketched some ideas in my sketchbook, chose a final image and turned it into a black outline drawing. Quite a rough drawing but that's kind of how I want it to look on my finished design...

I then scanned my drawing in, opened it in illustrator and drew over it using the pen and brush tools. I used a rough brush stroke for this to get my desired affect. I turned this into a symbol. By this time I had found the typeface I wanted to use for the product name, so I added this in too...

I then decided to incorporate my brand (Jessie-Rose) this is just using a simple script font. I researched this in my sketchbook...

I then started to play around with some other type...

Once I finished the pin up, I decided I wanted a gradient background of pinks and creams. I did this by using the blend tool. I drew a rectangle at the top which I coloured the desired pink and a smaller rectangle at the bottom which I coloured cream and blended them together....

I wanted to make the product name typeface look like it was in lights (kind of like lightbulbs around a dressing table mirror) To do this I blew the text right up, drew a circle to fit inside one of the circles in the typeface, I coloured this a bright yellow, I then drew another one slightly smaller inside and coloured this white. I then blended these together so it looked like a light shining. I copied this 'lightbulb' into all the circles and then turned it all into a symbol together so I had it for other parts of the packaging...

I then started to use colour in the pin up drawing.. For this I had to go into my symbol and add the colour there, doing it this way I can use my symbol exactly the same somewhere else on the box. I used the pen tool to go round areas I wanted to fill with colour, I made sure I was drawing the lines directly onto the brush stroke outlines and then filled with desired colour and 'moved to back' so I couldn't see the sharp edges...

For the left and right sides of my box I wanted to keep it simple. So one side I put the product name and the other the brand name, I also carried the gradient background around all 4 sides and then used a block colour for top and bottom. On the back I have included the product name logo again along with a description of the product, some information on other 'Jessie-Rose' products which I created another logo for and a promotion of collecting packaging for a free lipstick, which I created another logo for! I had a bit of trouble with all the information on the back.. Originally I had the ingredients on the back also, but I decided to move this to the bottom of the box so I could add some information above the pin up line of girls...

I really wanted to use the pin up girl on the back of the box as well, but thought it looked to boring just on its own again, so I decided to repeat them, overlapping along the box, I really like the effect! and can now have the girls holding a word up on there newspapers... Originally I put the word 'flawless' on the papers and left it but I came to the conclusion that this didn't really make sense... Is 'seamless' flawless, are 'Jessie-Rose' products flawless? This is when I moved the ingredients to the bottom and put a little line above 'flawless' Jessie-Rose products leave you looking....
I'm really pleased with the effect and the ingredients are now nice and hidden on the bottom!

I then started on my bar code, I made this by drawing a simple rectangle which I filled with white, I then drew simple lines which I made different thickness, I cut off the bottom of most lines and added numbers in using the font Helvetica. As I was drawing my bar code I was checking an image of a bar code I got off the internet so I could get it as similar as possible....

I then needed to turn my box into 3d, I did this by using extrude and bevel and uploading my sides as symbols. I now have 3 sides of my box looking 3d.... THIS TOOK SIX HOURS! But eventually it worked and looks good apart from some faint grey lines on the joins.
I am really pleased with my final design, I love the fonts I have used and the colours seem to work really well together. Before this project I had never used Illustrator before...I have learned so much and am proud to have my final design and say I have done it having never used the program before!

I have decided to base my design on cosmetic brands such as 'Benefit' and 'Soap and Glory', In my sketchbook I have collected many 1950s images and adverts, here I will follow this on with images found online rather than books... I product is going to be a sort of body balm/cream for legs, so thats why most of the images will show a lot of leg!

I really want to draw some kind of pin up posing on my box... This would look pretty cool in a sort of 1950s tattoo style.... I'm going to have a look at different tattoo styles and maybe some ideas for in a logo too....