Finding Gratitude (4/16/2024)
Within this project, I was tasked with making a thank you note that encapsulated me as an artist. One of the unique things that I love about myself is the love of all turtles, Lizards and snakes and I wanted to highlight that within my design.
Within the brain storming part of the project, I needed to think outside of the box. First off, ways to say thank you, I tried to use puns so that I could draw something cute or funny on the cover of my card. On the inside however, I needed to brainstorm what heartfelt messages could be on the back, to tell whoever opened my Portfolio that I hoped they enjoyed it. Finally, I took things I personally liked and wanted to include. Putting aspects of my personality into a card was a fun exercise, I hope I get to do it again.
After doing many thumbnails on what I wanted to draw on the card cover, I ended up taking elements from many different thumbnails and squishing them together into one amalgamation, but a cute amalgamation. Right away one can see that I tended to focus on Axolotls, Frogs and Turtles. I also tended to follow the puns, an Axolotl saying "Thanks Alotl" a Turtle saying " Turtley Awesome" and a frog saying " How ribbiting". I ended up taking some of the silly faces of the Axolotls and sticking it onto an axolotl holding a piece of candy.
This is the first draft of the card face, compared to my final draft, this Axolotl is much brighter and a little more purple. I settled on the font Papyrus for the text because it was playful yet popped off the page very well. Something I really struggled with here was how to use the colors. I didn't know how to use a color like pink in a tasteful way without making it look like a gumball with neon features. However, I used Adobe color to help me pick a tasteful color palette. After getting a second opinion as well, I found out the tail making a frame around the words was a little much, making everything look cramped and what's more, it didn't even look attached to the Axolotl. So that also needed to change.
Here we have the final draft. The background is a little more muted making the soft pastels on the axolotl pop very well. I also made the frills a more bold purple so that the facial features are more prevalent. The text is now comfortably nestled in the corner, in a way where nothing looks cramped. Also, the Axolotl is holding flowers instead of a candy because the candy looks to much like an axolotl. Below is the mockup of the final card, printed out and cut to size.
