Ugly mug

I also thought that one of my characters in particular might work quite well on a mug, as it is the kind of thing that you would give as a gift as it had a nice sense of cheeky humour behind it. I put the woman’s knickers inside the mug to make it look like she really had taken them off and thrown them inside. I also split the slogan in half so that the other half is revealed as the user lifts the mug to drink. Again I packaged this one really simply because the personality of the mug is so loud, I don’t feel like it needs fancy packaging.

Mugs!

For my mug designs I wanted to really use the shape of the mug and the way it would be used to really show off my illustrations. I decided on this simple idea of a set of two. Growing up I was familiar with the term ‘chewing on a teabag’ to describe a strong brew and ‘like rat piss’ to describe a weak, milky brew. So, I decided to do a kind of twist on the traditonal his and hers mug in this set. The title is ‘How do you like your brew?’ and as you lift the mug to drink it, the respective northern slang description of each way of taking tea is revealed. I also did a little illustration that goes inside the mug and is revealed more and more as you drink the liquid inside. On the milky one I did the rear end of a rat falling into the mug and on the strong one I left the teabag inside. I really like the way these mugs have turned out and I think that they work well as a set. I think they have a real northern quality about them with the way the words read. I decided to package them quite simply so that the mugs speak for themselves. It is also a cheap and easy way of making a package for resale in the future.

The power of the tea towel!

After entering the ‘to dry for’ competition, I was really captured with the idea of printing my work onto tea towels as another saleable outlet for my illustrations. I would like to screen print my designs so in order to see what this would look like, I mocked them up using fabric transfer paper so that I can screen print them ready for sale at the exhibition. Due to the limitations of the size of the paper I think the layout does need tweaking but this could easily be rectified with a large enough screen to accommodate the whole design. I really like the simple two and three colour designs as a contrast to the more complex colour ways of the prints. I also like that both designs have a link to tea because after all it is a tea towel!

They’re alright up North: Characters

I added another character to my gang based on how people are always talking about how rubbish the weather is up North. I put a funny spin on it to say that although the weather is rubbish, at least we always have something to talk about if we can’t think of anything nice to say! This set of prints will work well across a number of mediums from cards to posters or even tea towels which was my next step…

Coasters

Unfortunately due to time scale it was not possible for me to have my coasters letterpressed so I came up with another idea that the designs could be lasered into would or done using pyrography. This would be quite an expensive way of making them but could be quite nice as a one off special edition to go alongside a letterpressed set. I used transfer paper and varnish to mock up what this would look like and packaged them together in a simple way. I like the combination of the old fashioned would stain along with the modern illustrations and I think this goes will with the theme of ‘Then and Now’ which is running through all of my work for this module. I am going to continue to get some letterpress versions done for sale at the exhibition.

Coaster designs

Using my research, I came up with these four coaster designs based on the theme, ‘Up North, everything goes well with gravy’. I used quite a simple, graphic style so that they would be easier to transfer onto the coasters. I played around with different type before choosing these combinations. I think that they compliment one another and work well as a set.

Letterpress coasters

When I was working with the Graphic Design staff to come up with the branding for the final show at Media City, Hannah showed us some really nice letterpressed coasters/beermats that had been used as an invitation. I really like the letterpress finish because I think it looks clean and professional and Hannah said that it is quite cheap to do.

I did some research and found these really nice coasters by Ryan Todd who has put a really modern twist onto something which can sometimes look a bit traditional because the method is popular as wedding stationary. I really like the limited colour palette used and the graphic style of illustration. Coasters could be a really nice way of showing off my illustrations about Northern English culture.