Greetings card brief gift wrap designs

The actual YCN brief just asks for a set of greetings cards with a theme but I have thought about extending the brief into making a range of products that can be sold together. One idea was gift wrap, it would be good if I had a matching gift wrap for each card so that people could coordinate their gifts.

I have used the animal and made a pattern from it which also includes the text. The pattern is repeated and will be of A2 format.

Some of the designs are more complex than others but you can always see what the animal is and obviously still read the text.

The penguin for some reason was the biggest challenge when trying to make some kind of pattern with it, I think this was down to the shape of the penguin. I have done two different designs for the penguin to try and decide which one is best.

I think that I prefer this one where the penguin is placed diagonally across the page. It just seems a bit more exciting.

My favourite three designs are the owl, the chicken and the blue tit. This is because of the shape of the bird it was easier to create more interesting patterns. They look quite pretty compared to the others.

Greetings card brief final card designs

This is how the cards are going to be set out for print. Everything will be central to the page and they will be blank inside for someones own personal message.

The size of the cards is going to be A6. I didnt want them to be much bigger otherwise the style of the animal didnt seem to work as well at a larger scale.

The balance between the type and the illustration works well, there is no hierarchy as such which means the whole design compliments itself.

Greetings card brief final critters and logo

These are the final animal illustrations and the second logo idea.

This is the final final set of animal illustrations and the final logo. I love how everything just works together. There is such a charm about it all.

Greetings card brief logo development

I wanted the logo to be very simple so that it fitted with the whole concept. Black and white was as simple as I could get and it works very well. Now to think of a name that reflects on the personality of my greetings card designs.

At first I thought of little creatures, which seemed appropriate, but there was just something about the word creatures which seemed a tad too boring for my cards. So I changed the name to little critters which sounds more fun.

After then thinking about the name I decided to call my collection of cards natures little critters, the reason the third name change was so that the theme of nature was very obvious.

I also found that the logo worked best inside a circle which held it all together. I think this looks better because of the typeface.

Greetings cards brief typeface

I wanted the typeface for the greetings cards to be in a similar style to the drawings, so what I have done is free hand them using the pencil tool in Illustrator. They have come out very well and work well with the animals. I could have probably found a typeface online somewhere like DaFont. But I felt that if everything was hand drawn then the cards would feel more personal.

I used the typeface for the logo and the little puns on the front of the cards.

It works well with everything as it all works together as a concept. I have been making the words by copying the letters and then placing them together. If I had more time I would of made it in Fontographer which would have made it a lot easier to type out the words.

Each animal has its own little message with it which links to them. I have tried to keep the cards light hearted and humorous which fits with the charm of the animal illustrations.

The puns are quite simple but have a huge effect on the personality of the card. 

This concept could be used for so many different animals, as long as you can think of something to play on words that links with the animals.

I have put 2 kisses after each greeting because again it feels personal and quite sweet.

Greetings card initial ideas

I started off by drawing out some illustrations based around the theme of animals. I chose to focus on animals as they are something I am interested in and I wanted to do something different from what is already out there. I would also say that type isnt my strong point so I am not going to sit here and try and create a card that uses amazing type. Thats not what I am about.

The illustrations have been drawn by hand which I am going to scan in and trace over in Illustrator. I have drawn them all in the same style which is minimalist and they have that hand drawn feel to them. I want them to feel very organic and natural.

The choice of animals was completely random, although they are almost all birds.

I found pictures online of the different animals then drew them from eye myself.

I like how the illustrations look as though a child has drawn them, I didnt want them to look perfect in he sense of them looking realistic as such.

The animals have quite a charm about them which will work well on a greetings card. I think my favourite has to be the tortoise just because he looks so innocent.

Greetings card brief character development

In one of the crits I was told to try and experiement with some colour on the animals just to see what it would look like. I dont think I will be adding colour as it distracts away from the drawing style and charm of the animals.

Most if the birds came out okay because I could colour in the feet, but due to some working and some not I feel its best to not put colour on any.

I didnt want to colour the whole animal in from the start so I tried to pick parts of the animal that could be coloured and make the animal more recognisable.

It just doesnt work very well with the blue tit, the coloured areas look too random.

Also because I had decided not to colour in the whole animal in, the bits that I had didnt make much of a difference to it anyway.

And as you can see it doesnt do anything for the tortoise at all.