Sticker Labels

Time continues to get shorter and shorter.

In an idealistic world my stickers would be printed by someone else onto nice waterproof paper and I can just peel off the stickers and place them where ever I wish. However, as I have to consider the cost of stickers, as right now i have found a few sites online that will print stickers, everything is what I'd like but they want minimum orders of £30 or more pounds which means I could potentially have thousands of stickers when I only really need a maximum of 30 individual stickers. This now means I have to print and cut out the stickers myself... last time i tried to cut our a circle it wasn't smooth enough and the edges were rough... but hopefully a bit more patience will work. (fingers crossed) Below are screenshots of the different label ideas that I made on the computer.

Using Moo.com I designed some scent stickers with their online templates, however, as the images used are not my own so I cannot use them for my labels. I have however managed to sort out what colour backgrounds I want and which fonts work. I chose to stick with the fonts that I used on moo.com as there was a small selection, making it easier for me to stop being indecisive and forcing me to just choose ones which worked together. This worked well, I then had to find the fonts online and hope they didn't have any limitations if they could be used online or commercially (it was all fine anyway).

Research - Other Illustrators and Their Style

As I wasnt sure were to begin I decided research would be needed to help me come up with some sticker scent images. I knew I wouldn't be able to use photography as I don't have access to a lavender field and my lemon and oranges would look out of place if lavender wasn't photographed too.

Paul Oakley

Looking at his work he has created images that use a select few colours, often three, and then he applies darker shades to one of the colours to give his work more detail. His work reminds me a lot of paper cutting as the figures and shapes have been simplified, turned into silhouettes almost, which immediately appeal to me more as I have a slight fascination with silhouettes (and yet I still have to look up how to spell silhouettes) I think if I try and limit my colour palette then that will help me further to create images that stand out and work with the logo.

Jessie Ford

She has a handmade style to her work which I find adds a certain unique attractiveness to her work. The fact that it is all digital appeals to me even more as I want to have ago creating a purely digital drawing using the wacom tablet on the computer or my laptop.

I like this image the most by Jessie Ford as there is a lemon and an orange slice made up of delicate overlapping shapes that are duplicated over the top of on another. The use of textures works well and in an idealistic world I would try and recreate the faded areas that you might get when printing. I am not entirely sure how I will go about his but if I have the time then I will of course try. WOSAT is however very close now and I need to get my stickers designed in time.

Harriet Taylor Seed

      

I had a quick look at Harriet Taylor Seed's work but I do not like it very much as it is too busy, with too much going on at once. I prefer the image on the left as it has more simple shapes and everything is bigger where as the image on the right is very busy. I cant make sense of what is going on in the image as it is too jumbled together with too many colours merging together. I did notice that in her work she has managed to create the faded affect that would normally be seen with prints, which is also appealing to see as Jessie Ford also recreated this effect too.

Paul Wearing

The top left section and the bottom right sections are visually the most attractive to me as the lower right image is made using purple colors which I enjoy the most. The top left gets my attention because I am looking for lemons to give me ideas for the image to go on my labels. The use of different textures in his work adds even more detail which helps to limit the colour palette as well which allows the viewer to become overwhelmed with the colours used.

Drawing my Images

I chose to use the wacom tablet to digitally draw my images as I have never used the tablet before but I decided not to let that stop me. I tried to use it on the double monitor screens that we have on the desktop computer but I ended up using my own laptop because I was struggling to get used to the different scales in size, I also wasn't sure how to make to the tablet stick to only photoshop but I managed eventually to sort it all out.

I began with a lemon. I decided that I didn't want to use a lemon slice as the shape of the lemon can be symmetrical and is smooth and curving. With the orange I will create this as a slice because oranges are generally just round and this isn't visually very appealing to me. It also means it stands out from the lemon image too. The lavender image I haven't yet decided how I will make it look, but I think I will have a bunch of lavender tied together.

Above are the digital drawings that I made using the wacom tablet and photoshop. I originally saved them as a PNG file as it made it easier to alter the background colours and if I wanted to apply the images to moo.com templates then the moo background colours would fill in the empty spaces. These designs were intended for square stickers that moo.com create but when I decided that I would be the one to print my own stickers I chose to make both square and taller rectangle stickers instead as I could easily compare them and see which would look better.