Visual Communication

For Visual Communication, the project was to create a poster for an exhibition. Because my items were based on Lolita fashion I decided that would be the basis of my exhibition, and looked at popular Lolita artist Imai Kira and their work for Lolita brand 'Angelic Pretty'.

Postcard illustrations by Imai Kira for Angelic Pretty

I attempted to work to make my style clearly influenced by her work from the pastel colour palette to the proportions of bodies and matching backgrounds.

The beginnings of my digital work inspired my Imai Kira

 As the work was to be an exhibition I used my knowledge of pre-existing Lolita events and found images of posters and advertisement for these events, such as

Austen and the Abbey

Frock On

And even Angelic Pretty's official Tea Party posters in San Fransisco



From these I also experimented with typography on my exploration sheet, as well as traditional media in the style of my artist, although my final pieces were done digitally, including digital art work done directly onto paint tool SAI with the aid of a graphics tablet, as the work of Imai Kira is, and I also felt it gave a far more professional finish to the look of an event poster.

After looking at the fonts and branding for Angelic Pretty I settled with the name Sweet Harajuku, attempting to bastardise the Angelic Pretty font but with my own spin on it. I enjoyed the loopy feeling and the integration of hearts which were the parts I tried to carry through.

Typographical work on the final poster that I created for this project

As well as this there were extension tasks to create merchandise for the event, which I did quick drafts of designs for a tote bag and a t shirt, as well as an invitation. I felt the clothing and accessories route fit well with the theme of Lolita, and the 'cutsew' (a t shirt with more cute aspects) and tote could be worn with the fashion.

Invitation. I intergrated the location logo as I also did on the poster. I also carried through the pastel pink colour scheme which was a main constant, as well as the bow motif and typography.

A tote bag from Angelic Pretty with their signature brand font.

For the tote bag and t shirt designs I decided they would contain the same picture to link them together, with the colour scheme tying them into the other pieces.

Design for tote bag and t shirt.

I even quickly looked into a 3D aspect and a little paper engineering by making the bag design stand out from the page and including a handle



The basic template for creating the small pop out bag

The paper craft bag I created on my final work sheet.

Along with this I decided instead of simply the drawing design for my t shirt, to apply it to a mock up shirt template

T shirt template found online for an example to create my own from. I used the line tool in SAI to create my own version which I added the design to.

My Final T-shirt design

Final Poster

Evaluation:

I enjoyed this aspect of the rolling programme and found my outcome successful, although I missed vital information from my final poster and did not have chance to edit it as all the layers I worked with had compressed therefore there was no way to move the pre-existing text to fit the missing information in (the event time). The illustration worked and I was personally pleased with the positioning and readability of the poster. With the usage of a character to carry through to the merchandise designs as well as the flowing colour scheme and the use of stripes, I feel all the final pieces also tied together well. This area, to me, was the closest to Illustration on the rolling programme and allowed me to work very much in the style that I am used to and most comfortable with, and therefore allowed me to produce what I feel is by far the best work I did on the rolling programme.