Merry Sticker-mas!
For this project, I was able to create any set of three stickers. I decided, since I was browsing and coming up with ideas in the cold, snowy November that it was time to get some Christmas designs prepared and ready to share. So taking the inspiration from many different christmas movies and traditions, I created a set of stickers. The sticker designs were finalized to a gingerbread house, a fireplace with Santa in it, and a warm cup of hot cocoa.
I think that the stickers accurately shared the Christmas feelings and feed into a lot of traditions tha we all had or still do in our households. My goal was to reignite and rekindle that belief and those memories of the things we are able to acheive and enjoy in our lives at this time of the year. Reminding us of the christmas spirit we all need and desire for in our lives during this cold frozen weather season.
Design Ideas
I started as I normally do with my projects, by drawing and sketching out ideas for these stickers. I started sketchign with the first htings that came to mind. I had a general idea that I wanted to do somethign that had to do with the winter or the Christmas season but also included a few of my other interests like video games and virtual reality. I wanted to give myself a variety to choose from in the off chance that I decided to not do something that portrayed with the cold winter that lingered beyond my apartment walls.
Putting those designs on paper... well digital paper
I then hopped into illustrator, eager to get to work on those new designs. I started by finding an image of a mug and using that as a reference for the shape and shadows of my mug. I then started working on the fireplace. Using the pattern feature in Illustrator, I made a pattern of bricks. I originally had a individual shadow on each brick but ultimately changed it to make ti look more realistic. I didn't create the entry for the firplace until further into the design and the stockings were one of the last things to be added. After getting a start on both the cup of hot chocolate and the fireplace, I started on the gingerbread house. I put in the thought to how the gingerbread house would look from the front and the individual pieces for the house itself. I created the base of the house in the same shape of an actual gingerbread house and tried to use references to help me know how to build the best gingerbread house I could in the Adobe Illustrator.
Getting into it
I thought about how to make this more individualized and personalized to me. I added what I would personally add to the gingerbread for my individuality for that sticker, and added some wood logs in the fireplace for some more personaility there as well. At this point, I was debating whether or not I wanted to draw a fire and flames in the fireplace or try somethign different. I thought about what else could be significant of a fireplace and when I turned back to my sketches for ideas, thats when I starting thinging about adding Saint Nicholas. I initually started with the thought of having the stockings filled wiht candy andtoys of all kinds and having some very faint particles in the fireplace to show Santa's recent departure. I ultimately decided to just put him in the fireplace, as if he was just about to leave the house. I did my best to make it look like he was just leaving and was really actually proud of how it turned out in the end. After adding Santa's legs to the picture, I added in little candy canes and added some more detail to the stockings hanging by the chimney for effects and realism.
I had a hard time thinking about what I was going to do for the mug and got inspiration as Iw as watching a christmas favorite of mine, The Polar Express. The movie has a song dedicated to the Hot Chocoalty beverage and I wanted to see if I could incorperate a reference to the movie in my designs. I decided to add the Polar Express logo on my mug and was really happy with the result of the mug in the end. I also added detail to the gumdrops on the gingerbread house, giving it that gumdrop texture it deserves and to help it be more realistic.
Conclusion
I had so much fun with this project and I was really impressed with the turnout of it. I still have a long way to go to improve and I still have so much more I want to exppand on in these stickers but I am so proud of the turnout for them. The final step for the stickers was to give them the die cut lines they needed for the printer. I used the pathfinder took in Illustrator to unite a copy of each design and then made an offset path from that combined outline. I changed the color to stick out from the desings and absolutely love how they turned out. With every new project, I get better and better and I can't wait to see where my next project brings me.
