Continued from the previous page Graphics ideas for the Holidays
Opportunities to combine clip art with typography
Utilizing that same methodology, we wanted to put together some images to propose to clients for their holiday promotions. What better greeting to send clients than a thank you for their business.
While searching the clip art archives we ran across this lovely piece of hand tooled script. One thing we've loved Dynamic Graphics for over the years is their superb typography solutions. You'd have to pay several hundred bucks to have this custom calligraphy script produced.
Always look at your image and ask what opportunities are there you can use to adapt and expand the image. Looking at this image, the circular embellishment at the top makes a perfect frame for a round image. We could have re-used the ornament, but this time we wanted another, more special, message for the client. The globe with "peace" in an old-time banner seemed perfect -- global peace and thank you ... that about does it.
Expanding the theme, change point of view
While this in itself seems ready to go -- for the purpose of this article I asked "What else can we do?" Not that you should be compelled to over-decorate. I'm almost always against over decoration, but in this case, let's play a little and see if we can make the visual message a little more reinforcing of the sentiment.
I've always inspired my design students that one sure-fire way to spark something new is to take a different point of view. Any time you're working on an image for a while it can become stale. By shifting gears and taking a totally different point of view you can sometimes come up with a better solution.
Here we move the globe and peace image out into a gradient background to simulate the night sky. We put our script sentiment on a card and float it in the sky as a separate image. Now the globe can take its rightful place and the card can be "sending" to earth.
This was easy enough ... just copy the script in Adobe Illustrator, then apply a STROKE to all the script of a lighter color. (I think it was about 12 points here, so we would end up with a nice 6-point outline around the type.) Then we created the "card" with a warm blend (remember our warm/cool rule) and then sheared and rotated the card to look as if it were floating. Voila.
In retrospect, I think a texture would have been better for the card ... and when you look at the image, it suggests a number of other improvements. For instance, we could have then scattered a star field across the sky using Illustrator's icon pattern brush. But that's for another day. I believe I've made my point
Always look for opportunities in clip and script
Combine images that reinforce the meaning of the message
Look for shapes that reinforce other shapes that can be used
Utilize the visual Warm advances/ Cool recedes rule for dynamics
Take a different point of view for experimentation
Don't over decorate (like I did!)
Follow these suggestions and you'll be making some great graphics in no time. I've included some of these graphics in the Publishers' Warehouse for you to download and create your own masterpieces. If you do, how about sending examples along to me so I can show them to other DTG readers and spread the fun.
Thanks for reading. Until next time... keep on imaging
Fred Showker, Editor/Publisher
I'd love to hear about your experiences, or your favorite typography products. Please drop me a line and let's share with all DT&G readers!
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