Redux:
sweet home
Designer: Michelle Li
The redux project was about the reductive representation of composition, color, and context. I selected three pieces of kitchenware that's suitable as a set and reduced the details down to create icons. My process includes sketching as a whole with all the details, tracing it on tracing paper/grids, iterating on paper, digital iterations, color & artboard explorations, and selecting the most fitting typeface, color choice, and icons.
My design system is called sweet home and it consists of a grater, a kettle, and a wine glass with warm pastel tones that give out a sense of comfort and belonging. I had a choice of doing kitchenware or hardware objects to create my brand. I decided to go with the kitchenware objects because it’s simple and basic, and it’s something we use or see every day in our homes, radiating the “home” energy and vibe I aimed for.
From the nine black and white, I selected two photos for each object and sketched them as still-lifes. It took longer than I expected because I wanted to focus on the details in the shadows and to draw them as precisely as I can, especially the tones. I would’ve saved more time if I focused less on this part since these were only the rough sketches, but as I sketched, I had an idea of what I wanted my three icons to look like.
Moving on, I turned all of my hand-drawn iterations into digital iterations. I made a lot of changes to the originals and simplified my drawings the best I could, getting rid of the unnecessary details and keeping the elements that’ll truly emphasize the object’s appearance overall. Some examples of what I did and used were black and white lines and fillings. I explored the sizes of the strokes and filling/no fillings, seeing which ones look better close up and in a distance. I tried to keep it as round and geometric as possible since my brand’s concept is simple and minimal.
Based on the consistency and styles of the icons, I chose the ones that match and fit well together as a design system and continued by working on the color choices. For my color palette, I chose light, warm-toned colors to represent the “home” type of vibe. I applied to mix and match different colors from the palette I selected on all three of the icons. After testing out every single color on the icons, I looked at it carefully from close up and distance again to decide on which colors to use for each object. As for the typeface, I chose Futura, which is based on simple geometric shapes, to complement the round and circular forms of the icons. For the words, I thought it would look unique and feel more fun if I kept it all lowercase, and after trying out different sizes and cases, the lowercases certainly did feel comfier.
I tested out different placements, alignments, and scales and finally picked my top three. After I touched up the little details, I finalized and placed the final three signages.
The main focus of this project was to create a consistent design system. I simplified my selection of kitchenware icons to communicate a minimalistic style by sticking to all lowercases letters and give out a sense of comfort and belonging with a warm color palette. This project was enjoyable because I had a chance to express my creativity and get out of my comfort zone.
