The Project
During the Fall 2022 semester, I was so happy to have helped my friends out with Marywood’s Mental Health Awareness Day. I designed a coloring page to be used at the table I was volunteering at, as well as took some pictures of the event for social media. It was such an important cause to support, and I can’t wait to participate in it again this year! I was lucky to be asked by my roommate to create a logo for this school-wide event to be used on t-shirts in the years to come.
Thumbnail Sketches
I started off by doing some thumbnail sketches based on certain ideas I was provided. Emphasizing the mental health ribbon was something important to include, especially in different ways across all of my sketches. I also included elements about Marywood in some of the sketches to make the designs unique to our school. This step, although not the neatest, really helps me get all of my ideas down before committing to one. Brainstorming a list of words or adjectives also helps me if I have a bit of artist’s block. I try to find aspects I like in each design, so no matter which one gets picked, I’m excited to develop any of them. Oftentimes, I’ve found myself setting my heart on one thumbnail sketch, and hoping that’s the one that gets picked. But I’ve learned over the years that if I spend a bit more time on each design, I’ll be more excited about what the finished project could be.
Color Comps
Sketches 1 and 4 were picked to develop further, so I went to my iPad and began refining them in Procreate. In this step, I add color in order to give a better idea of what a final might look like. The color green was important to emphasize, not only because it is one of our school colors, but it is also the color of the mental health ribbons. I made sure to find the exact Marywood colors by going to the handy-dandy University Brand Guidelines pdf on the school website.
Final Design…
I’m still in the process of completing the final design in Adobe Illustrator (so it’s in vector format and easily resized without losing quality). But, once I finish it, I’ll save it as a pdf, png, and ai file, and make a couple of mockups of what the design might look like on a shirt. I probably won’t post an update of the final design, so I guess you’ll just have to come to the Mental Health Awareness Day this coming fall semester to see what it looks like! I can’t wait to see the designs come to life and support such an important cause as a school community!
