D&AD Don't Panic

Rather than focusing on my main project, I was side tracked into finalising my design for the D&AD competition brief, in association with Don't Panic. I thought I was finished and all i needed to do was print it out for the deadline, but after some useful pointers and crit from Chris O and Ian my design got a bit of an overhauling to make sure it was up to par...

From my original screen printed maze idea...

I kept with the idea of not following the rules but wanted to include more humour and get some of my drawing in there...

I wanted to include this development work, just to show that drawing a simple character.. isnt all that simple. From my original sketch, I tweaked bits left, right and centre... and then flipped the design to make sure nothing else stood out as "wrong". Tracing paper is my new friend, I used so much of it during this project but it allowed me to produce multiple versions of my work...

I ended up vectoring the character but I was adamant about trying to get away from the computer. When I make anything on the computer it gets sapped of all its character and "feeling"... theres a certain kind of quality to hand made images that is lost. Yet, by printing out the vector onto some cheap paper and scrunching it up, it once again becomes hand made and has a character to it...

All of the above culminated into this final design, from hand drawn elements to digital vectors and scanned in textures to digital colour all combine to give the effect of a real children's colouring book...

After finalising the colours on my designs I went back and reworked my original maze so it all tied together better.

These have been packaged up, sent off and emailed to D&AD... so... it's out of my hands now...

it's strange thinking about how I started this project when compared to how I ended it, but this has probably been one piece of work that I am most proud of... purely because it feels like something I have made for myself, from my own influences and inspirations.