In this session we took the sketches we had done previously of different possible designs for the front of our cereal box, including our character, cereal name and bowl of cereal.
Firstly when we had scanned in our sketch we cropped it and altered the levels so that we had a good quality scan to work with. In Photoshop we then duplicated the layer with the scan on, and set the top layer from 'normal' to 'multiply' so that the sketch lines looked more defined and darkened. We then saved this file as a jpeg.
After this we opened up Illustrator and set up an A4 landscape document. We then used rulers to create a rectangle that would be the correct size for our scanned sketch of the front of the cereal box to fit in, the width being 70 mm and the height being 105 mm. We then placed our scan in the document over the rectangle.
Once we had done this we then created a new layer for the net to go on. We placed the net file on the document and sized it to fit the rectangle, subsequently deleting the rectangle layer as it was no longer needed. We then drew the outline for the net. From this point we had to use the pen tool to draw round our scan art and then think about designing the rest of the cereal box.
At first I decided to use to first design that I had sketched out as I thought the necessary requirements for the box (character, name of cereal, bowl) were all laid out quite well, but as I began to trace over the scan art on Illustrator using the pen tool I found that the design didn't look as I thought it would and also the felt the colour palette I had chosen wasn't working. Here is the design that I first started to create:
Then after having a few weeks between the second and third session I decided to start again with creating my cereal box, changing first the sketch design for one with a better layout. I also decided not to draw round the letters using the pen tool but use a heavy, block font so that it would stand out and be easy to read. On the second design I also chose to use an image of a real bowl of cereal and not one drawn on Illustrator as I felt this made the design look more authentic, also to work with my chosen cereal name of 'Oaty Owls' I Photoshopped an image of some porridge in to the bowl and spoon image I had found. As well as this I decided on a new colour scheme featuring brighter, bolder colours and keeping to a few colours.
I chose this design variation to work with in Illustrator instead as I liked the owl character perched on the spoon. I went through the same process for creating my second cereal box design attempt like using the net template as I did for the first design.
I made a few changes to the sketched design in Illustrator such as changing the cereal name to Oaty Owls and removing the tree branches, but kept the overall layout of the different components the same.
I am much happier with the way this design turned out and think it works much better overall with improvements to the colours and also using fonts that were not drawn by the pen tool, as well as the owl character being much better drawn this second time round I feel.
