Photoshop

Our first brief for digital was to create 2 posters for Tullie and Cumbria Council's project, 'The Carlisle is.. Project'. We needed to pick two themes to express about Carlisle, in the form of a poster which was required to look aged and textured. I created thumbnails for each theme to try and find some direction I liked.

Pinterest Inspo:

Looking at Olly Moss, Abram Games and Tom Purvis from Tony's lecture I created some thumbnails.

First thumbnails, using not much research.

To start I tried to replicate my thumbnails on Photoshop by drawing out shapes or using the pen tool. Because I wasn't used to using the software like this and was unhappy with my outcomes I decided to get some photography involved instead. I had these images of Carlisle.

Going by what I already knew about photoshop I created these.
I used the gradient tool, posterize, colour balance, levels, seletion tool.

However after having only these and other failed attempts to show after day one I decided to go back to the drawing board and collect more research.

I looked at the Tullie Website and took some inspiration from what they're currently doing. I found a certain highlight on heritage which i wanted to explore, looking at the history of Carlisle, Resilient seemed like a really interesting theme to focus on.
I also looked more into the work currently being down in Carlisle center, I liked the sense of greenery and open-ness.

Following my new thumbnails i created these two posters, I was using the shape and brush tools. Still not quite getting a hand on what I was doing I decided to look more in depth at the inspo I collected.

Mainly looking at Plakat-Polska's designs I got the idea to use a boarder for my posters. Which would take a lot of the highlight off the image and onto the title which was one of my issues before.
Still focusing on Resilient as a theme, as well as Industrial I created these two posters.

I used some overlay designs to make the images looked worn and used, i tested out different blending options on Photoshop till I was happy with the look.

I also had to learn how to accurately cut out the logos I wanted on the images, as i took them from the brief itself.

I also learned how to use posterize to create the effect in the above poster.

A lot of the inspiration for these posters was the re-branding on Tullie itself, as well as the University of Cumbria. I focusing on the font and colours used from both.

I wanted to try some digital illustration using a graphics pad, to do this I looked at graphic designer's who were also incredibly good illustrators and would use this skill in their work also.
First I looked at Emily Comfort and her used of illustration while still portraying an advertisement ect.

For the actual Illustrations i looked at both Lulu Dubreuil and Xuetong Wang for inspiration. Lulu has a very intentional outlook with her art while Wang has this messy, scratchy but beautiful way of drawing, looking at these two i created some illustrations.

I decided to experiment with some illustrations as the pen tool was something I hadn't used yet.

This was me experimenting with just sketching on the software and using the lasso tool to fill in areas of colour instead of doing it by hand.
I also tried to used different brushes at different settings to layer texture on top, I tried a bunch of blending options as well.

I used different colours and overlay layers in this second variation, I also focused more on the illustration and the use of line, also starting with a coloured background and creating layers on top of this.

Still focusing on using the software to draw, I did a sketch of another one of my thumbnails and didn't enjoy the way colour looked when it was drawn on. I decided to try and find brushes with more texture and create more tone in the drawing.

Here I used the Multiply blending option to create this colour with using a cross hatching pen for the texture.

For the final illustration, I layered many many layers on top of each other using many different blending options, I also messed around with the opacity of each layer so try and show as much or as little light as I wanted.

After a talk with Tony I decided to go back to drawing some more thumbnails as he explained the importance of having a full understood, drawn out idea.

For these designs i looked a lot at David Carson and Neville Brody, two of my favorite designers, I wanted to create some stuff that was a little more dark and grungy following my tullie inspired posters from before.

I didn't quite have an idea of an outcome with the next few posters I more wanted to learn as many more skills as I could to go forward and create a final piece, however I ended up liking a few of these experimental posters and used them as my finals.

Using photography and filters/ overlays in photoshop i created a few of my thumbnails.
Here I used an image of the Mill in Carlisle and tried to make the smoke apart of the image, however this didn't feel very readable so i created some other variations.

I particularly liked this Variation as i liked the grungy vibe of it.

I tried to go less grungy with the next poster and tried to make something with a more advertise quality about it. I used the images of the biscuit and overlay-ed it on the factory. I wanted to include the gingham because i felt they had the same vibe.

I messed around some more with photoshop and created another one of my thumbnails, i took heavy inspo from Olly moss and any type of sharp, bright posters.

This was the final thumbnail I used and I created what i think is my favorite poster.
I started with a picture of the Brickyard and heavily edited it, adding blur, noise, filters, ect.
I also took advice from another student who taught me to blur and sharpen text as it makes it look more like its part of the image.

Next i edited the photograph on its own and added it to a background.

Photoshop

Final Posters:

Mock-ups: