Friday 22 July 2011

DAD ROCKS!


(I urge you to take a listen! ^^)

A few days ago, I was approached by fellow graphic design classmate, Luke O' Brien with a design proposition. Originally a commision Luke took on for himself, he decided the illustrative project wasn't quite for him, and fortunately for me, very suitable to my style.

Dad Rocks! Is the solo project of Mimas band member, Snævar Njáll Albertsson. Althouhg I had never heard Snævar's music as a solo musician, I had heard some of the Mimas tracks. Luke played me some of his music, and I was genuinely very impressed- very my taste. Acoustic, insturmental, unique lyrics and a sort of anti-folk vibe. 

The project, as later explain to me by Luke and Snævar himself (via e-mail) was to create a kids t-shirt in time for Father's day. He originally sent me this image to work from: 


Though he said I could elaborate (it is, after all, a pretty simple image).

I started by researching exisiting images of dinosaurs for inspiration, these are examples of the styles I would like to replicate and work from:










Some of the styles are a little too simple, or over-complicated- I need to find the balance just right. Important points to consider are: keeping the design simple enough for a child, and a young audience. Making the images clear, and the communication strong (possibly drawing a "father and son" dinosaur- showing the 'DAD ROCKS!' message, aswell as writing this below), and with minimal colours (i'd say no more than 2/3- if the t-shirt will be screenprinted, as quite posible, it would be good to keep the costs low).
I started a few initial sketches, to develop an understanding of the direction the work could lead. I decided to stick to the Brachiosaurus ("long neck") dinosaur- as herbivores, they are often depicted as gentle and caring in cartoons and film animation, and felt this would be the most appropriate message to send out.


After a few intial doodles and sketches, I came up with this. Snævar and I had discussed several elements we would like featured, and I tried to make the design as simple as possible to be both appropriate for children and the expense of the printing proces.



I create vector designs of the prints, again, keeping them very simple, and applied them to t-shirt backgrounds. After a week of "tweaking" and further discussions with Snævar we came up with the designs on the bottom row t-shirts- something FAR simpler than I would ever do, and using just two colours which really pushed the design in terms of visual communicaiton.
Snævar was very positive about the design and through the week and a half I was working on the project was consistently happy with developments, and was in discussions with his Record Company about production of the tees. Unfortunately, around a week after last correspondance Snævar failed to reply- whether this was a brush off, I don't know but I felt a little dissapointed. Although I hadn't spent a great deal of time on the design, admittedly it would have been good to recieve feedback, had it of been negative or positive. 
However, it has given me some much-needed experience in working with a client- hopefully things will run a little more smoothly in the future!

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