I started off by quickly drawing out some ideas from my scamps and emulation. I decided I wanted to have a ribbon/banner on one of my cards and had the idea it would look good as if it looked like it was a blackboard. I then carefully inked over the pencils and placed it into Photoshop.
After putting it into Photoshop I took away the background, added in the threshold and put the banner on a separate document. I used the brush tool with a black colour to fill in the spaces that i thought were too big and then used the lasso tool to tidy up some of the edges I wanted to be neat.
After that I inverted the image to make it white and changed the contrast to ensure that the the whole of the image was white and there were no small sections that weren't.
I then added in the chalkboard background .
I then added in the text that i had already drawn out and scanned in, selecting the image using the magic wand tool and changing the colour to white.
I also decided to play around with the spacing of the lower text, to see if it made a difference to the overall look of the design.
After doing that i decided to make the background darker, changing the levels of the image, but making sure that did not take away the effect of the chalkboard.
I then added in the rest of the text, using the same technique, and using the lasso tool total away small parts of it if i needed to. I decided to use more of a script for this font to try and create more contrast in the design.
However I then realised that the first type I used didn't give the look I wanted, and so I decided to use the caps lock version i had previously drawn out instead.
After sorting out my type, making sure i was fully happy with it, I decided to add in colour to my design. I wanted to do a gradient, so i chose 2 colours, a dark orange and a orange toned yellow. I then used the gradient tool, going downwards which created a subtle ombre style for my banner.
Then I decided to change the Hue, Saturation and Lightness of the banner to see if it made any difference to the image, and whether it would look better in a different colour. Eventually I decided to change the colour to a pink and purple tone, lowering the saturation slightly, so that the inked effect was still visible and the colour wasn't too vibrant.
After I was happy with how the front cover looked, I placed it into a separate Photoshop document so that i was able to make the back part of the card.
With the company name and message inside information I wasn't sure how to align it, and started by aligning it to the left and seeing how that looked, but realised it looked better in the centre of the page. I also added in some of the conventions of a greeting card, such as a barcode, the copyright year and where it was made. I knew there were lot of different styles to the back of a greeting card but i wanted to keep mine simple.
For my second card i wanted to do something slightly different, but keeping to the hand-drawn feel, so I took a type I had also previously drawn and inked out when I was experimenting with my type.
I then started to slowly add in the hearts I had drawn, scattering them around and duplicating different parts of the pattern to create the effect I wanted. I knew I wanted to keep it fairly neat so I decided to use the rulers to create guidelines where to put the hearts.
I then decided to change the colour of the hearts, but later changed this colour because i knew it didn't look right. I also played around with the type, and decided that a font already made looked better than the hand-drawn one I had chosen.
I eventually came to a decision that i wanted a bold, script typeface, so that it stood out on the page, but didn't overpower the hearts too much. I then changed the colour of the text, making it a coral/pink colour to see what it looked like with the blue hearts. I knew instantly that it didn't look right, but I wasn't sure what colour to go for because I didn't want them to clash too much. I decided to add in a light pink background to see how that changed the design, and noticed it had a good effect on the design. This made me realise I would be able to change the colour of the hearts to white, as I wasn't able to before on the white background.
Again after I was happy with the front design I added in the extra parts for the back, copying them over from the other card so that they were in the same place. I changed what the message inside and the price, just so that it was clear they were different.
