Studio Brief 02 OUGD405 7x5 Frame Filler design Development

The image below is what I started out with because after talking to someone who fits the John Lewis target market profile I concluded that this mix of Audrey Hepburn and winged sunglasses really communicated the concept of the 40s to the target audience.

I started by drawing over the picture in tracing paper with pen, the result of which is shown below in the form of a scan.

Once I had the two parts of the design I reduced the opacity of the scan to get it exactly to the right size and position and then started to remove the photograph with a very large soft brush. I had a bit of trouble with creating a seem between the grey area at the top of the photo and the white paper of the drawing. Eventually I solved this by using the smudge tool to create the effect of a water colour wash fading out and then softened it with a blur. A possible improvement on this might be to actually produce a sample water colour wash and use it as the base for the fade from one image to the other.

There were several different solutions I came up with as to where to put the text which are shown above and below. I am uncertain that I have found the perfect placement yet but by far my favourite is the one right below because of the way it draws the eye towards the drawing. However, I may have to change these on all frame designs to try and create the impression of continuity throughout the designs.

I have also produced a John Lewis like logo. A quick look on what the font told me that the brands font is a slightly changed version of gill sans so in illustrator I used create outlines to produce the distinctive tapered ascenders and descenders of the John Lewis logo and placed it within my designs. I have also checked in my analysis of the current John Lewis frame fillers that the frames themselves have labels with the bar codes ect. on them so they do not have to be included in my designs.

During the next photoshop work shop I will ask about how to improve on the blending from one image to the next because this is something that I am not entirely happy with.