Pop Culture, Film & Comics Amalgamate! (part 1)

Wow - it's been a whole month since my last blog post.

When I started this blog, it was my intention to post once every week or four times a month on average. To make up for my lack of posts recently, I'm going to post an art process blog entry every day of this week.

This year I have been creating more art than I have in the last 12 years combined. I have been reacquainting myself with concept, process, technique and execution. At the forefront of all creativity is inspiration or a passionate curiosity to explore ideas in any medium. Earlier I was working on Batman / Tron hybrid artwork designs which also lead to a Ladytron (Wildcats) piece as well. I like the idea of amalgamating 2 franchises or film concepts with comic universes. The results can at once be rewarding and delightfully obvious.

With the above in mind I now present; 30 Dark Days of the Knight.

I was conceptualising a series of poster designs that fused film poster design with comic franchises. The first idea I had was combining characters from the world of Superman with the poster design of Fritz Lang's 1927 film, Metropolis. I'll post a blog about this work later in the week.

Getting back to 30 Dark Days of the Knight; By studying poster designs for both 30 Days of Night and Batman Begins, I was set to create my amalgam tribute piece.

I had already determined that the size I wanted for these particular poster designs was going to be long portrait style, proportionate to half of an A3 page length-ways so my sketches were produced to scale to ensure the design elements would work together (see sketch below on the left). I wanted the poster title treatment to be very similar to the style on the official poster, but I didn't want it to be exactly the same so I added some variation and also distorted '30' a little more and included some extra 'splatter' here and there.

The Batman head sketch evolved from initial thumbnail sketch (above) to actual size rough which was then refined a few time before it was ready to be inked and digitally coloured. The images below show the character/detail evolution for the vampire inspired Batman character element.

Now that the title and main character had been established, I required some paint splatter marks and a lot of bats. The following images are some of the splatters and the bat colony that were used in the final poster design.

 

With all the art and design elements now ready for layout composition, the poster was completed using InDesign. One of the many benefits of using InDesign as my main tool to composite poster design (rather than Photoshop) is the ease of which colour can be edited/changed as well as being able to work on duplicate versions in tandem in the same document. I also prefer InDesign for ease-of-use text editing to PhotoShop.

Here's the 2 final versions. Design B has a photo of The Peak View at Hong Kong superimposed above the title treatment. The photo was taken whilst travelling in Hong Kong many years ago. I ran it through some filters and colour shift so that it worked within context of the design. I also set the over all colour theme to be blue as opposed to red as this further removed it from being too similar to the official 30 Days of Night poster design. Plus cool blue works so nicely with the theme and provides contrast against the white teeth and flesh of the Vampire Batman characters face.

Final Poster Design A

Final Poster Design B

The Peak Hong Kong photo by Melinda Kinnane - edit DKS

I hoped you enjoyed this look at the evolution of my 30 Dark Days of the Knight poster design and I hope you're back to see the evolution of Metropolis Pictures presents Superman in The City of the City of Tomorrow. You can follow me on Facebook too if that's your thing.

Best wishes

...

Damian K. Sheiles

www.dks.net.au

Lady Tron wants to fight you on the Grid!

I simply love the design of Tron. It's such a fun environment to work in so it was with much relish and enthusiasm that I created the following piece of art: Ladytron - Bring on the Disk Wars!

For those that don't know, Ladytron is a comic character created by comics mage, Alan Moore along with artists extraordinaire Travis Charest in the pages of Wildstorm's Wildcats comic book series. Ladytron is an angst driven, anarchic, narcissistic cyborg with a criminal past and a perfect candidate to fight it out on the grid. For the purpose of this amalgam piece of art, I wanted to play up the Tron aspect of the character's name so I developed a little logo for Lady TRON.

Lady TRON logo

I started out with an initial character sketch (pencil on A4 paper) to work out the pose and over all design of the figure. With Lady Tron, I went through 4 revisions before getting the pose and design to work, adding more detail as I went from version to version.

Revision 4 sketch

Version 4 colour

I created a blue line version of the above sketch which I inked, scanned and coloured in Photoshop. It was at this stage that I realised the character was way too masculine and that the arms weren't quite working as I'd hoped. As I had already done a LOT of work in Photoshop to get the figure to this level of finished art, I decided that the quickest way to continue was to draw 'head' and 'arm' patches (see below) to fix up the artwork.

 

These were integrated with the original black and white line art and then coloured and added to the work-in-progress figure. This saved me having to go back to the drawing board and re-doing the figure from scratch, saving me a ton of time. This is where computers come in real handy.

Final art for Lady Tron character

I already had some environments in development for the world of Tron as I'd previously developed a TRON: Uprising Paige piece and was also working on some Batman / Catwoman / Tron amalgam pieces in tandem. There's also a reason why Lady Tron's right leg is cocked up, she's standing on a derezzed games program. This was sketched and inked, then coloured in Photoshop with the derezzed pixels being composited using Adobe Illustrator. Fun, fun, fun.

Derezzed Games Program - taken out by Lady Tron.

Background image sans characters

Final composite artwork. Lady Tron Disk Wars

Alternate version

...

Damian K. Sheiles

Logo Design

For this week's blog post, I'm going to share my design process for developing logos. I'll be using a logo I designed for a friend's new business, The Bitter Queen to support the process as shown below.

The design process I use is the same for every logo job although sometimes certain stages may have different nuances or take longer depending on conceptualisation or the complexity of the design task at hand.

Here's my process breakdown;
1. Client Discussion
2. Scope and Quote
3. Research and Development
4. Rough Concept Sketches
5. Digitise Concept Roughs
6. Present Logo Versions
7. Refine
8. Finalise Logo

Generally, the above process takes between 10 to 12 hours but can take longer depending on the client's requirements. It is the time invested discussing with the client their business and brand perception coupled with two hours of research and development that provides me with the insight required to produce great logo design work. I always research the client's business to get a feel for what their competitors are doing, what colours are being most commonly utilised and how the overall 'flavour' of their profession, service or product is being represented. The research stage will inform the best way to approach the logo design project; whether to work in contrast against what everyone else is doing to create a point of difference or to stay with the flock and develop a logo inline with what's already out there, playing to the public's preconceived awareness.

1. Client Discussion.

This is a casual conversation that lasts for about an hour where I'll take notes while listening to the client explain to me how they perceive their business, what their business core is, how they desire to be positioned in the market place, what their long-term goals are, how they'd like to grow their business, what branding collateral they require, what their stationery design needs are; whether they require signage and vehicle wrap design, what they are going to do online to promote their business, do they require website design or social marketing media, who their competitors are, what their ideas are for their logo design and any other contextual information.

2. Scope and Quote

After the client meeting, I'll review my notes and develop a scope of work in order to provide a quote for the logo design job and any other graphics or marketing work discussed. I then write up the scope and send it to my client for their review, feedback and acceptance. This occurs prior to any design work being started.

Quote and Scope document

3. Research and Development

During the client discussion, competitors are mentioned or the client may have seen a similar business to theirs that is successfully pushing its brand. I'll research these businesses and their industry in general to get a feel for how their service, product or profession is being perceived in the market place. This informs my design decisions as I do not want to inadvertently design a logo that is too similar to an already existing logo. This will also help me find my clients unique 'voice' among their already established profession.

While researching, I'll have my sketch pad handy and make notes and draw concept roughs as they come to me. I'll draw up a flow chart indicating pressure points of the project and include any client mandatory requests here such as colours to use or avoid, font preferences and the general feel the logo needs to achieve. Thus begins the development stage which leads into the next stage.

4. Rough Concept Sketches

I'll sketch out a lot of rough thumbnail sized ideas for the logo as determined by my client notes and my findings at the research and development stage. Creatively, I simply let loose and get the ideas down as they come to me. I always do this by hand as it allows the flow to be much quicker and less restrictive than if I used a computer. I do not edit any of my ideas at this stage. The energy in creating roughs should transfer across to the final logo design.

Rough Concept Sketches (pencil, marker pens)

5. Digitise Concept Designs

I select the best concept designs from the roughs I created at stage 4. I then spend a few hours digitising these designs to the level of presentable polished designs. It is at this point that I'll choose fonts, create a Pantone colour palette or decide if I am going to custom draw the logotype. I use Adobe CC with my primary software for logo design being InDesign and Illustrator. I always work in vector art format when creating logos and presently 'flat' logo design is very popular. What that means is that there is little to no shadowing, beveled edges or 3D affects being applied to design aesthetic.

At this stage, new ideas may present themselves while I'm digitising the concept roughs. If I deem any of these new ideas to be stronger than the roughs, then I'll review my work prior to sending to the client to reduce the number of logo designs being presented.

InDesign > Digitising the logo designs

6. Present Logo Versions to Client

I send my client a PDF proof showcasing several design options, displaying a selection of fonts and colour palettes as well as a short written rationale for each design so that client can better understand my thought process and design decisions. I limit the amount of logo designs from 3 - 6 versions. I only present the strongest or best logo design solutions to my client as I firmly believe that quality wins over quantity. I leave the PDF proof with my client for as long as they need to process the design work so they can collect their thoughts and offer me feedback in terms of their preferences. I often suggest that they think on it for a few days or show their partner or trusted friend for some unbiased feedback. Sometimes the decision making can be overwhelming when presented with a handful of strong logo design solutions. I am more than happy to meet with my client to talk them though the designs to help them decide what is right for them.

First Round Logo Designs

7. Refine

Sometimes additional design refinement is required after receiving client feedback. It's at this stage that the client's preferred logo design becomes better realised, with a little tweaking here and there. I may also work up mono and reversed versions of their logo at this stage if not already developed. I always provide at least 2 logo formats - a horizontal version which is handy for website banners and a more condensed 'stacked' version which may be better suited for stationery design. I find it's best to develop these formats at the same time to maintain design consistency. Mono versions also come in handy for black and white documents or for use at reduced sizes. This also ensures at design stage that the logo can be easily 'read' at very small sizes which was essential for The Bitter Queen logo design job as small labels were required for essence bottles.

A new PDF proof is sent to the client. This time only the refined logo designs are included for their review. The refinement process continues until the client is happy with their logo design and a final design is approved.

8. Finalise Logo

After the client has approved the final logo design, I prepare the logo in several different industry standard file formats; JPEG, PDF, EPS and PNG. I bundle these up with a 1 Sheet Logo Style Guide that they can pass on to printers, embroiderers or sign makers to ensure that the correct colour and logo file is used. You'll note that the Style Sheet below showcases the final logo design in it's three formats along with the fonts and Pantone colour palette utilised in the design.

Final Logo 1 Sheet Style Guide

There you have it. My logo design process broken down into 8 stages. I hope this gives you a better understanding of how much work goes into developing logos and brands.

...

Damian K. Sheiles

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