Finished Mock Up and Flat Prints...

Velvet Liaison Lives!

This is the final magazine in mock up form, I really enjoyed this project and especially the production process. I have learnt so many new techniques such as flocking and laser cutting. I have also refined my skills in screen printing as well as traditional design practices in layout, format, typographic design, information graphics, copy writing and editing. I am thrilled with the final outcome and I am really looking forward to photographing the mock up for my portfolio. I do feel that some further development will be needed before I can do this however. I would like to reprint the black swan covering page on a gloss based paper to give it extra presence within the overall magazine. The illustration for the Alice in Wonderland covering page also needs more work, I may even completely rework this spread as I feel it is the weakest with regards to quality of output. I have also got concepts lined up for all the other spreads laid out on the contents page and would like to spend some time developing these as to put more work into my portfolio. I visited the D&ad portfolio surgery in February and I was given some extremely helpful advise on how to maximise the work in my portfolio, this advise was particularly geared towards developing full alphabets of my many custom designed typefaces that feature in a lot of my work. From this most recent project I would also like to develop some of the custom typography I have used into full alphabets. All of this can only help me in my professional development and this project in particular has really helped me to get creative and find inspiration in new and exciting places.

Production...

These images show part of the production process of Velvet Liaison. As the images show there was quite a lot to do in making the mock up of my concepts shown in digital format in the previous post. Everything from laser cutting to screen printing was used in the production of Velvet Liaison and I am thrilled with the results. Photographs of the finished mock up will follow soon!

Final Digital Output - Ready For Production....

These (almost) are the final digital output for Velvet Liaison, all the changes suggested in the critique last week have been explored and applied. The cover is going to be screen printed in gray, all the lighter gray parts of the BAFTA logo will be foiled in silver. The opening page of the True grit spread is going to be screen printed on to sand paper for a tactile effect in keeping with both the philosophy of the magazine and the genre and nature of the film in this particular spread, it is a tactile take on the traditional 'wanted poster' which is carried onto the DPS which will be screen printed on brown paper (body copy will be printed on the inkjet post screen-print). The original King George VI coat of arms and film title will for The Kings Speech introductory DPS will be flocked to add a tactility of a royal persuasion, the original colour for this technique was to be the royal purple for which the following DPS title and drop cap were colour matched. However, during the planning of the development this choice was changed to Royal Blue, the follow on page will be colour picked to match before being printed conventionally using an inkjet printer. The Alice in Wonderland introductory DPS illustration will be added to with a silver foiled pocket watch, adding a level of tactility to tie in with the overall effect of the magazine. All other spreads will be printed conventionally using an inkjet printer. I have secured high quality matt 180 gsm paper for all the printing techniques to uniform the spreads apart from those which are intentionally different, I have found some beautiful 230 gsm cartridge paper for the cover (all the paper has to be cartridge paper as this is the best material for the foiling and flocking techniques, found out the hard way by the illustration and fashion students before me) and last but not least I searched high and low for a paper that was suitable in both colour and texture to use to construct the belly band that will be die-cut (preferably with the laser cutter, but if a scalpel and my hand is the only avenue I will give it my all!) with the magazine masthead. The colour of the paper was very important as I wanted it to match the colour of the masthead which will be printed on the inside cover. Wish me luck!

Screen Development - Printed out, scribbled on and pumped back into the blogosphere....

These images show the results of two critiques that have taken place over the past two weeks. I have been working on these concepts on screen for a few weeks (whilst also working on another 60 credit module I have titled 'Hello, my name is Emma and I'm a Penguin', the meaning behind this will be explained in the near future as I will be blogging my way through the creative process of this particular conundrum soon enough). I have not included the development work between the ideas on paper stage and this as there are only so many screenshots one can stomach. This creative process has been a labour of love, working to get my ideas from my brain to screen was not an easy modus operandi, I had such a specific image in my minds eye of what I wanted VL to look like and after long hours on the Mac I have got the digital foundations of the final output. The two crits I mention above have gone a long way to refining these concepts and getting the editorial basics in grid structure, page furniture and body copy at their best as well as composition and layout. At this point in the development I am still waiting on illustration from the wonderful Rae Carter, she is currently working on two pieces for these spreads. The first is a portrait of Hailee Steinfeld for the True Grit spread, currently in its place is placeholder image of the actress on a horse. The second piece I am waiting for is to be a full page illustration of Alice falling down the rabbit hole for the Alice and Wonderland DPS introduction page, I have given Rae some art direction for this spread using the illustration I found whilst conducting research, but Rae is using this merely as a basis forcomposition in terms of size and space and giving the concept her own interpretation. I am now going to be taking these concepts even further, the big push it is sometimes called, and hurl myself towards the finish line and the 17th March (deadline day). As you can see from the last 13 images which are the product of the latest crit I have a few changes to make to the spreads before I can start producing the final mock up of VL. The concepts, as I have lain out in all research posts, are to be completed using a variety of techniques including screenprinting, foiling, flocking, conventional inkjet printing (using the biggest printer I have ever seen, honestly it looks like a spaceship) and the construction of a device known the industry insiders as a belly band entreated with the magazine masthead. I am going into the screen-printing room next week to take VL into its final development stage and hopefully production of my final mock up, watch this space, there will be pictures and I am guessing some of them will be quite funny (obviously not for me as I will probably be pulling my hair out).