For this project I was tasked with making three stickers with some very minimal requirements such as size proportions, only 1 could have text, and that it needed to be image based I was off. I was excited for what this project would bring and how we could put my own unique spin on this assignment.
Sketches
The first thing that I did was start sketching. At first, I thought that the best idea would be to have Parody stickers. These would include saying such as blessed or let your light shine but would have a very strong juxtaposition with certain things going wrong. I explored these stickers for a while and even had a full draft for these, but something felt really wrong. As I was trying to tell the story through the image I felt that I couldn't properly do it without having text on each. So, then I switched. The next design I tried was a style I had never done before called pixel art. I started to go through pixel art look at old games for reference and I got really excited but once again it was not meant to be. I was on somewhat of a time crunch and didn't have the time and effort needed to put into a new art style.
After both of these failures I knew that this third one needed to be my final concept. That's when I came up with the concept of world problems conveyed through cassette tapes. I always really love a nice vintage vibe and I felt that the cassette was a great way to represent how society has been listening to these problems and qualms for years but that seems to be the extent of the action that we. In other words, these things will constantly be replayed and replayed until someone does something. I thought that this was a great way to tell a story through my stickers and it was a really fun way to take something that everyone knows and twist it into something we all seem to know just a little bit better. When sketching I was able to develop these ideas further and was able to holding on some really fun concepts.
Draft
My first three concept for cassette tapes were as follows climate change, equality, and world hunger/water crisis. I put these concepts into illustrator and started my stickers I got some really nice outlines and drafts that really started to convey the message, but I still wanted to go further.
After my first draft I got some feedback. The main critiques I was given involved the water sticker was not clear and that all of the designs needed to be more stylized and emphasized. I once again went back into illustrator and started to develop these concepts a little more. Things I did to improve included adding a wood texture on the climate change cassette or adding a lot more shading and style to the equality cassette. I then decided for the third cassette that I would need to change it and I decided to change it to peace and violence. I struggled with conveying this for a while but decided that having the upper left and right hand boxes we're going to get the message and below there would be a very nice juxtapose sticker that showed life in peace on the left and then violence and death on the right.
Final
These are my final drafts and I feel that they have incorporated feedback and have also met all of the standards for the sticker assignment. I'm really happy with how they turned out and I feel like I was able to develop a new type of style and give the stickers a hand drawn feel. I'm really happy with what I've learned from this project, and I can't wait to start the next one.
(Extra) Each with text/titles
