1323reeves.blogspot.com: November 2014

After completing this project I have decided this is a wonderful thing to send to someone as a present.

To get started I started with a word list surrounding the new year 2015 and all that involves.

I decided that I wanted to the background to be fireworks. A world wide symbol signifying a new year and a new day. On the list I seemed to stay around outdoors or new years parties. My drawings did as well.

I started looking at fonts on dafont,com to help me get the creative juices flowing. I found several lovely fonts that made me want to use a champagne glass and the New York Times Square ball drop. I had a technology inspired font made with dots I used in a champagne glass. I also found a technology inspired font to use for the ball drop. The letters looked like they would fit perfectly in the triangles that make up the Times Square Ball. (Below are the two fonts in action. I didn't get a picture of the number one alone but here it is from one of my process shots.)

I worked with the letter one made of the triangle font to create a triangular grid to make the Times Square Ball. I started with outlining a copy of the number 1 and arranging them equally and plentifully enough to fill the circle size I had chosen. The solid triangles weren't working so I used the line tool to make the grid. It worked perfectly. I finished of with a clipping mask and a square to signify the base.

I used the three made of dots and added three more dots to give the bubbly champagne feel. I didn't want to signify the whole glass with the stem and base I figured it would be too much plus I could cut out a space in the top to signify the clear area of the glass. This is what I had for a long time. I went off of the idea of making a toast just before midnight when the new year starts. Three seemed right because it's just enough time to make a new years resolution and finish off your drink.

The middle layer was difficult to come up with an idea for. I wanted something signifying a party. In my doodles I had the idea for mistletoe but it wasn't going to work out well. I picked flags when a boarder of triangles was suggested. I had run across some flag banner fonts when I was looking for fonts in general for the project.

I figured lots of parties would have a banner saying "Happy New Year!" but with my final message being that I didn't want to use that. I figured some banners would give that feel without needing the actual text in them. I put the 2 in them to show they would have text without having to put the whole message on them. I picked the longer duel pointed flags because they made a nice frame of sorts.
I finished of the number 2 layer with some color to make it really pop against the firework background I chose for the last panel.

The background I was going to use scrap-booking paper but I couldn't find any I was happy with. So I went to the internet. I found this panel of firework like explosion pattern. I noticed though small it would match up on all four edges with itself. so I put it into a pattern with itself and created a larger block to cover the whole background.

I had difficulty with the background font. I wanted it to say happy new year across the back panel but no font I found worked. Nothing popped. So I broke the rules and did hand lettering. I used the Wacom tablet and used my own cursive to create the final message in my design. I edited the lines a little to clean it up and it ended up looking quite lovely in knock-out white.

I then added a fun boarder and some color to the front layer. to make it more festive for new years eve style parties. Lots of color and noise. I feel with the completed piece I have achieved a very new years style.