Project 5 - Personal Mark

CONCEPT
I decided to do all my design based around a peacock feather, but steampunk. (I have a track record with peacocks ever since I was 4 years old.) Steampunk I am in love with because it brings two things I love together: Victorian era and Sci-Fi. I love everything about it. So bringing these two things that I love together, was fun, a learning process, and I believe came out what I had visioned.

INSPIRATION

Mike Save's Steampunk - Pretty as a Peacock

Copyright Mezcraft

OohLaLaBoudoir's Etsy Shop

PROCESS

I have been trying to draw out my ideas for the business cards, and I have been unable to do so because there is just no way to do it. I have so many ideas for this but I'm lacking at drawing exactly was is going on in my head. Here is what I drew up for my card...but not what I'm really happy. 

I didn't really like any of those designs...But came up with one by drawing

I would create a peacock feather, and add gears to it. Sure not that conventional steampunk but I could make it. 

I started with Illustrator in creating the beautiful Peacock:

Using the pen tool and direct selection tool I was able to form a peacock shape. I added a Linear gradient to all three layers to give it more of a peacock feel versus a blunt color.

I took the Ellipse tool to form the center 'eye' and then took the 'Direct Selection Tool' to form it more into a peacock eye shape. 

 After that, I copied the shape and added a gradient over it to give it more dimension with a Linear Gradient.

Added an extra layer on the orange with with a Radial Gradient to give more depth.

More colors and layers because Peacocks are super extra. 

And VOILA! Peacock figure was done and gorgeous. 

Now to add gears and such on Photoshop using the Shapes tools.

I started by adding a single Gear on the orange part of the Peacock with an outer glow from the blending options, and then casually added more to connect them with the same glow to form a more 'steampunk' looking appearance.

I felt that it was coming along nicely, but it was still lacking that feel I wanted. So more gears were added:

I thought this was the perfect place to stop adding gears in the orange because I didn't want to take away the full essence of the peacock there. 

Next I added some gears on the top to give it a 'feather' look but more gear like shape.

With the gears for the top, I found it a little difficult because I wanted to give it that 'gear' look if I were to run it...they would all move and then gradually split off. Think of when you blow on a dandelion. How the parts taper off and fly away.

I randomly placed a bunch of gears to give it that 'dandelion' effect.

Finally I added a gear at the bottom to give a rigid look!

Steampunk Color chart Idea

The palette I decided to go by for the project. 

I knew one of the fonts I would use was 'American TypeWriter' I thought it had that feel both steampunk and Victorian, and was perfect for the sub-text in the design. But the main font, I wasn't too sure about and decided to work on the business card and focus on that before deciding on a font.

I started off knowing I wanted the darker crimson color as the background. 1. It fit the color palette and 2. I'm a huge Oklahoma Sooner fan, so I believed it added more about me from that.

I placed my fantastic peacock onto the board. I tried different placements but really wasn't fond of them. Plus, no matter if I twisted it slightly or a lot, it caused the design to be pixelated, which was odd because my dimensions for the graphic were 300dpi. Regardless, I liked how the placement was and stuck with it being right side up.

I added a double line board (thin/thick) around it. I wanted a border, but I didn't want anything too fancy because I didn't want it to be as eye catching as the peacock feather.

I stared to work on the font...here are all the ideas

Ultimately I decided to use Aesthetique for this layout.

I added a Bevel/Emboss filter on my name and enlarged the L and the M from the rest of the name and in the golden color from my color palette.

I added the rest of the information I was placing on there and also gave it the same bevel look as my name. 

Final Business Card.

Envelope

With the envelope, I wanted to fit in the peacock without the geats above it, and incorporate the color palette. I didn't want anything really huge, but I didn't want anything dull either. I started with the pen tool and made parallelogram 

Taking the CMYK blue I had made from the color palette and then copying and pasting the new path but with the different colors from the color palette.

Since the peacock feather was mostly layers. I was able to just paste the peacock with the top and bottom gear onto the top left corner of the envelope for a nice touch.

Then took my name in the font Aesthetique again and the address bar in American Typewriter:

No that is not my address, but if I used this, I would use my real address.

FINAL ENVELOPE.

LETTERHEAD:

With the letterhead, I pretty much did the same thing as I did with the envelope, but made it a little bigger.

I made it longer and changed it up a smidge, but kept the same essence of the envelope.

I added the peacock as I did for the envelope

Once I did that, I felt like it was still a little plain, so I took the gears that floated above the peacock from the business card, but rather than putting them above the peacock, I placed them behind the peacock feather.

After that, I added my info to the right upper corner:

Threw the Ipsum text

Voila!

FINAL LETTER HEAD

WEBPAGE

I honestly had no idea where to go with this. I didn't want to focus all my energy on it or stress myself out over it. So I did what I thought looked moderately ok. I feel like if I had more to work with, and didn't have to stick to one specific style, it would look a lot better.

I started with the same crimson color as the background

With the peacock and gears, I felt it was necessary to make is large, that way the detail was seen in this incredible (well to me), design.

Next, I added buttons that would be used for the links to other pages.

Next, I added the words, Portfolio, About, and Contact. I wanted to keep it simple.

Next I added my name and title

And there was really not much else I thought I needed to do...

FINAL Webpage

ALL FINAL PRODUCTS:

REFLECTIONS

I believe that my entire design was constructed and executed rather well. I would say the best thing about my design would be the peacock and the gears. I haven't really worked with Illustrator enough to know how to use it, but after creating that peacock feather in Illustrator, I cannot wait to learn more about how to use the program. Overall, I'm very pleased and proud of my design. I would say the hardest part about the project would be the font. I knew I wanted American Typewriter for the sub font, but when it came to the main font, there was a lot more trouble with that than anything. I found tons of fonts I loved, but the problem was I didn't want to pay $59.99 on a font I probably wouldn't use other than for this. As for the webpage, I think it could of made it better, but I think it is a stepping stone to something that can be amazing in the future.