The Anxious Alligator, Typography Research.

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I have passed my design around and decided to focus a lot more on the Anxious Alligator story. So I felt I should research and practise into some other fonts that would compliment the look on the front cover of my picture book and also keep the theme of simplicity and cartoon like. I went onto dafont.com for all of my fonts as I have previously seen some really good fonts that will compliment against my designs, I am including the “Ice Age” font as a consideration however my analysis of that isn’t in this post as its in the previous one.

The first font I downloaded was “Cute Cartoon”. This font stood out to me as its very different, without using too much detail. However, compared to my alligator design, I feel as if it doesn’t match the style of my book. I also feel like each letter is quite narrow and it doesn’t fill out the front cover as much as I want it too. However I do like the coloured outline and keeping a transparent/ white fill on the each letters.

 

Anxious Alligator Front Covers

 

I really like this typeface. Its called “Orange Juice” and I really like how its fit on the page. I feel it compliments the design of the alligator and it stands out a lot without complicating the text. It also keeps the element of the white fill and letting the outlines stand out. To improve I think I need to make each letter have a bit more space between each other, to avoid any overlapping of the letter. I think if I was to choose this font I will have to look into another font for the writing inside the book depending on how much I plan on writing in the story as its very bold.

Anxious Alligator Front Covers2

 

This font is called “Dimbo”, I downloaded it originally as I thought it was very bold and it would go well with my design. As I think it would be suitable for the cover and the inside of the book. I really like the shape of each letter and how its slightly crooked, I feel that this font would be very practical for my demographic and it doesn’t out stand the design.

Anxious Alligator Front Covers3

 

This typeface is actually called “The Childrens Book”. I really do like this font in terms of style and the space it takes up on the page. However I feel as if I should go for something a little more unique and different as when looking at this design I do feel like I have seen it before. I also think the outline is too thin, and when its next to the animation its actually quite hard to read as there is a lot of white space.

Anxious Alligator Front Covers4

 

 

Animal Designs.

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I have spent the last few days animating different animals on illustrator in the same style as the chick. I first made a dog and a caterpillar just to try out the technique out more and also experiment with shapes and colours.

Dog

I then went onto relating it to the theme of the story. As I was going along the lines of “loneliness” or “anxiety” I chose to create animals that started with an L or an A, as alliteration is quite traditional and common in children’s books. So the four animals I animated was a Lion, Lemur, Alligator and Antelope. I then downloaded a bold and simple font which was called “Ice Age” (from the Ice Age films)

Picture Book Front Covers Picture Book Front Covers2 Picture Book Front Covers3

Picture Book Front Covers44

 

What I am really enjoying about this style is the different textures, colours and tones. I am still undecided on which animal out of the four to chose from and I still have a bit of work to do on the antelope illustration, despite the fact I am leaning towards The anxious alligator design and the lonely lion. I am thinking of still using these other animal designs as supporting character designs, despite which one I pick. I also like the idea of having a complete white background. I may however, illustrate grass and some minor features for the background, however I do really like how its bare, I think it brings out the colours in the title and the animal really well.

Steve Simpson Pastiche

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I took Steve Simpsons style of illustrations and created pastiches of his work in Illustrator. Doing this has increased my knowledge and abled me to create a certain style that I’m gonna stick with in my children’s picture books. The first pastiche I did was a mix of his works, and I tried to create a person. However this didn’t turn out well in terms of attractiveness, however I have taken away styles that I really like and now I know how to apply these techniques in Illustrator I can create my own illustrations. I didn’t finish the human version as I felt like it wasn’t going anywhere and it was just a practise on methods of style.

SIMPSON PRACTISE

 

I then looked at a children’s book that Steve Simpson illustrated which was called “Mise Agus An Dragun” which features illustrations of a young bear and a dragon.

Mise-agus-an-dragun

 

I took an illustration of a chicken and animated in the same style as the previous pastiche. I really liked the outcome of this animation and I will definitely carry on this style. I also feel that creating animals would be a lot easier in terms of shapes and proportions. Chicken

 

 

SCALE AND GREYSCALE LOGO TEST

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I decided to test my finalised logo when it was shrinked down to 1cm up to enlarged at 22 cm which was largest I could fit on a A4 spread. I did this to ensure that the logo would be suitable for being printed on letters or printed on a large poster without any confusing on what the logo is. The one problem I found my logo had was that as it has the name of the company across the middle of the logo, it was difficult to read. However I feel that the colouring and the pattern of my logo aids this and depending on whether you have seen the logo before you will be able to notice what company it is. I feel that my logo has no issues when it is enlarged, due to its level of detail and because it does the font across it, it can take up as much space as no supporting text is needed. I then took the image and put it in greyscale to see how it would look if it was printed out in black and white. I feel that the logo is quite light however its still eye-catching due to the four different tones in the image.

If I was to improve this logo I would have placed the companies name next to it so it could be visible shrunk down to 1cm. However, I don’t think the logo would have the same effect due to the fact it compliments the text and the wave effect.

Scale and Colour Test Scale and Colour Test 2 Scale and Colour Test 3

 

I have added a PDF of a Branding Booklet which goes into more detail of the uses of my logo design:

High Seas Ink Branding Booklet.