Creative Brief
I created a deck of cards that contains 52 cards. In this deck of cards, I created each individual suit that includes hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs. Each suit contains 13 cards and I illustrated each one. I picked a concept that expanded in four suits but related to the topic I had chosen. I created four suits of cards, and designed a backside on all the cards to keep the consistent theme. The topic I chose for my deck of cards was my dog’s breed, King Charles Cavalier Spaniel.
Sketches
I have chosen the King Charles Cavalier Spaniel breed because I wanted to showcase my dog, Lady. The history behind this breed was they are related to British royalty dogs, and it made me think how I can portray that detail onto the cards. Since the breed was already considered royalty, why not make it into 52 cards with the four different suits using the royalty designs? The breed was named after King Charles II of Great Britain and Ireland, which made this breed popular among royalty families. Just like my illustration book, I wanted to pick a concept that I enjoy creating, so what better way to showcase my talents by using creative sketches with illustrations that resemble my dog.
Work in Progress
At the beginning of my process I started in Procreate, then to the sketching phrase then into the final coloring details. When I put my project into Adobe Photoshop to change the colors, it caused the saturation to be too high and it left red highlights. I fixed this problem by covering the red highlights with yellow highlights to balance out the color scheme and give each dog a more appealing look. I had to many problems with the saturation, so I tried to fix this issue in Procreate because I learned they had a saturation, value, and brightness option. Yet, when I was adjusting the colors with each option, it made it worse.
Final Illustrations
So I decided to do a color overlay, with a blend mode of multiple and that fixed the issue of coloring tones and how to make sure each color was correct. After each suit of cards was fixed by applying the changing colors details suggestion from my peers, I brought all the suits into Adobe Illustrator to create the letter, number, and symbols because I tried with Procreate and it wasn’t a success. When I illustrated all the symbols and letters into Adobe Illustrator, I did not have any problems and the creations looked amazing with the dog illustrations.
Artist Statement
The biggest mistake I learned from this project was that Procreate is a raster file and no matter how clean you get the illustrations you will always have to fix something that is related to a resolution issue or to make it clear enough for the viewer to see. I learned the hard way what people mean Procreate is a raster program. Another good lesson I learned was the difference between PDF, JPEG, and PNG. I had an idea of what each file format meant, but I learned more about the difference between a PDF and a JPEG more. JPEG is primarily to compress digital images, while PDF is mostly used to send text, images, and fonts without being compressed. Another thing I learned is printing, I would highly suggest to young designers that you contact your vendor or whoever is printing your design and make sure it’s laid out the way you wanted it before they actually print it. In summary, this project was fun to design and not simply just about printing something. I am happy we are at the stage where graphic design majors can learn about printing and have their projects printed off physically to showcase without having a smart device. Printing is something that every designer needs to know, especially a graphic designer. Printing is part of our career and detailed printing knowledge will be a huge asset when applying for jobs. Without printing, the world would not have business cards, flyers, brochures, or anything that is a physical paper form. Creating and printing artwork actually helps the artist see their work come to life and it helps the artist and or business they are creating the artwork for to share their product and information with their clients. This project was very special to me because I was able to create a design using pictures of my dog and I will enjoy creating and printing this deck of cards and using them because it will have significant meaning for me since it involved my dog and the knowledge that I have learned with this project and applying that knowledge into the illustrations. With each and every project, I have learned more about the details and concepts and also about how to apply that knowledge with my own style and individuality
