Final

Rationale

For my brand I chose the New Zealand soft drink company L&P. From a marketing and branding stand point L&P rely heavily on distinctly New Zealand humour and often vintage graphics. The mascot I have designed I feel embodies the very dead pan humour many New Zealanders have, which is usually aimed back at New Zealand itself. To show this I gave the mascot a very emotionless face that never changes, instead of expressions the mascot instead has many different costumes or personas. All of the mascots personas are based in a vintage setting, this retains L&P’s vintage look. I designed the mascot around the L&P slogan of “Bit different aye?” which I think sums up brand as being different in the market of soft drinks. 

Line-work and development

Doing the line-work for my mascot in illustrator didn't give the level of irregularity I wanted, I also faced similar problems with the stipple shading. Creating it directly in Photoshop or Illustrator made perfect circles, which again doesn't fit the style of the mascot or the brand L&P.

Character Flats and Development

These are the Flats of my lemon mascot so far, the All Black lemon is till left to do. I've tried to keep the basic shapes very irregular, this emphasised with a charcoal brush stoke around the shape, which is then merged with the shape. I think the use of half-tone suits the Branding of L&P well they use a very vintage look to alot of there other campaigns.

Lemon rendering/shading part II

Lemon shading/rendering

Vector inspiration

Characters and concpet

The idea behind my mascot is that he is plain and embodies the dry side of kiwi humour. Playing on the slogan "A Bit Different Aye", the lemon character has wide variety of costumes and scenarios. The scenarios may not be distinctly New Zealand, but the manner in which the mascot deals with them, or acts will reflect a New Zealand attitude.

Expressions

Lemon studies and concpeting

My current concept is a play on L&P's slogan "Bit Different Aye" my take on this was to have a plain lemon mascot with a range of costumes or disguises that make him a bit different.

Initial sketches and Silhouttes

Branding research

Lemon and Paeroa, also known as L&P is a soft drink originally manufactured in New Zealand. However is now manufactured by Coca-Cola. The drink was traditionally made with a mixture of lemon juice and carbonated mineral water from the town Paeroa.

L&P’s marketing and branding revolves around it being a New Zealand company, often incorporating New Zealand slang, terms and colloquialisms previous campaigns using language like;

                "World famous in New Zealand"

                “World famous in New Zealand since AGES ago”

                “World Famous in New Zealand since quite recently”

                “Bit different aye?”

Visually L&P has a mix primarily of vintage and some fairly contemporary design solutions. The mascot I will be designing will need to be translatable between 2-D and 3-D to accommodate new campaigns.

Project 2: Brand Mascot; L&P

Final Portrait

Biography

My family originally settled in New Zealand form Scotland, Australia and England. My family name Laird comes from Scotland, where a Laird is part of the Scottish gentry. The word laird comes from the old Scottish word laverd meaning lord. The term acts more of a description for a position in society rather than a title.

I think I'm quite a reserved person, preferring to sit and listen than stand and shout. Favourite hobbies of mine include; gaming, anything from chess to video games, preferring a solitary experience to a social. I suppose I would also say I am an avid reader, and very picky with the subject matter, classical literature being among my favourite. I am a graphic design major however I find myself taking a range of subjects, in accordance with a my broad range of interests. This often results in graphic and typographic elements becoming apparent in my illustrative work, and vice versa.

Rationale

For my self-portrait I wanted to give a sense of alienation and show my reserved personality. To do this I am facing away from the viewer, disengaged, while reading a book. Whilst appearing uninterested I didn't want to give the impression that I was a hermit or completely reclusive. The book I am reading in the painting is Dale Carnegies How to Win Friends and Influence People, acts as a representation of how I tend to act in social situations, being more observant than partaking. Stylistically I wanted my painting to have a traditional aesthetic coming through with the use of texture in the brushes. The colour palette I used was based on the work of painter John Singer Sargent, overall being quite dark. This I felt suited my subject matter better than a more vibrant palette would have. The background of the painting is a typographic composition I made from the letters in my name.

Process to final

Line-work and crop for final painting, graphics need to be added to background.

flats and colour palette established

background texture and clothes mostly painted

Skin painted, although to far to dark, trying out different graphic backgrounds

Tonal values painted in, background added

Colour development

Colour palette in bottom right

This colour palette was adapted from a Singer Sargent painting. The Process to painting this will be a digital version of oil painting similar to that of Jeff Haynie Link Here. The process involves building up tone and contrast over multiple layers, periodically increasing saturation in the colours. Most of the colour palette I will be using will remain quite muted, so only the yellow light from the book will be pushed to such an extent. Which I feel relates to me as a person being quite reserved.

Portrait development

colour and light study

secondary elements added, cup with smoke, text reflections in glasses and light from the book

Thumbnails

Initial ideas focusing on a solitary activity. 

Artist models

I like James Jeans use of colour and broad brush-strokes add a level of depth to the character in the painting. 

Jeff Simpson, in these two paintings in particular, uses overplayed imagery and symbols. I could employ similar devices  with subtle symbolic shapes, thus giving a more personal dimension to my own portrait. Whilst still retaining a reserved nature to the overall painting.

John Singer Sargent has very visible brush-strokes adding a liveliness to his paintings. This type of technique could breath live into an otherwise sombre and very clean looking my painting.

Head Studies