Bird Development

Again, messing about in Illustrator with colours and vectors.

I think it would be better to use neutral colours but the darker image was an attempt to show how the bird could possibly look as a wooden piece.

Rough Drawings

Owl Development

Following on from the initial sketches I imported them into Photoshop and began to play around with the colour. The black and white raw effect appeared too harsh for the outcome we are looking for.

Originally I was using Photoshop, however, then I used a live trace in Illustrator to produce the two more neutral images. I think these were more successful.

Design Doodle Sketches

These are a few initial sketch/doodle ideas for the graphics which may be used on the cards and gift wrap. I'm aiming to have at least 5 card designs to be produced using printing techniques. These designs would also look effective if they were to be hand printed.

Biscuit Cutters

Some idea's for shapes for the biscuit cutters..

Doing research into biscuit cutters I found that it's quite simple to make your own cutters. Copper, aluminum and metal ribbon can be used as long as it hasn't had any chemical treatment it is fine to use with food.

I found this page on a website that goes through the process of making your own biscuit cutters and what materials are needed: http://whatscookingamerica.net/PegW/CookieCutters.htm

At the cookery store in the byram arcade biscuit cutters were sold for £1.20 each or £4.99 for a set

Jewerly Tree

This is on possible design for the Jewerly Tree. This will be lazer cut out of 6mm Acrylic and use two cutings that will interlock .

Some Scans from Handmade Graphics Book...

These are a few pages from a book called Handmade Graphics by Anna Wray. Thought they could be useful when looking at printing techniques.

Prototype/Product Pricing

We went on a hunt around Huddersfield to find out prices for various materials or craft products that we need to use on our project.

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We went to find out some prices for the card for our gift cards that we are producing. We found out that in our local stationary shop, A1 Stationary, you can buy an A6 ready folded card for 18p, or 20p if it's metalic or glossy. Bargain!

Envelopes for the cards are also very cheap at only 15p per envelope.

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Also when in A1 stationary, we asked about the prices and suitability of inks to print on various materials.

We were told that for wood blocking, screen printing ink would be best suited, which costs £6 for a tube of about 350ml.

For decorating the matte plates, or canvas', or for the front of the sketchbooks, we were told that using acrylic inks would be best, and these cost around £3 for about 100ml.

We were also told that if the plates we were going to decorate on had a gloss to them, then using glass painting inks would be best and then after we would have to re-varnish the plates. The shop does not sell glass painting inks so we could not get a price.

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For our gift wrap we went to the university print bureau to find out the best paper to use and how much this would cost.

The paper they said would be suitable is what they call "CAD plotter paper" its a thin paper, about 80gsm, and the cost is £3 per metre for a print.

We also had the thought to print on brown paper for our gift wrap, we found a roll of 600cm x 50cm for 67p in Wilkinsons!!!

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Below are some prices that we found for various canvas' which we could use to design upon. These are as follows:

Wilkinsons: £2.50 for 1 x A4

Home Bargains: £1.00 for 1 x A4

The Works: £9.99 for 4 x 40mm x 50mm

We think the option from the works is the best as we would be getting a good quality canvas, and 4 of them for £9.99.

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Below is something that we came across by chance which is a heart shaped, what seems to be, jewellery box. We really liked this idea as we could laser cut designs onto the top of the box. We could also tie this in with the jewellery tree seeing as they are both jewellery related.

Just £2 from Wilkinsons.

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Possible Options for Garden Set: Below are two sets of trowels & fork for a garden set that we came across whilst looking for a few ideas in Wilkinsons.

Trowel: £4

Fork: £4
Trowel: £1

Fork: £1

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Possible Options for Sharing Platter: Below are some plates and bowls that we found that would be ideal to make a sharing platter out of. We haven't quite figured out how to attach them together yet, but the option to make a groove in the plate where the dish fits seem to be the most likely right now.

Dark Brown: Bowl £1.75

Plate £1.75

Biege: Bowl £1.75

Plate £1.75

White: Bowl £1

Plate £3

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Below are the prices we found in Wickes for some timber board of various sizes which we may use for our Jewellery Tree and our Woodland Creature Ornaments. We still need to find out prices for other hardwoods that are available.

(width x height x depth)

Point of Sale Display

For our Point of Sale Display for our sketchbooks, we were thinking of doing something simple, yet effective in its purpose.

The image below shows a rough idea of how we would like to design our POSD, yet we may make some modifications to the design.

We were thinking that the POSD, would be made out of card, possibly corrugated, to give it some strength when holding the sketchbooks. Also, corrugated card would be rather cheap to use, the only minor problem we have with that material, is figuring out how to print upon it.

Image from: http://www.saundersdisplays.co.uk/

Material Pricing for Laser Cutting & Printing

Laser Cutting:

MDF 4mm

900 x 600 approx A1: £4.00

MDF 6mm

900 x 600 approx A1: £6.00

Acrylic 3mm

900 x 600 approx A1: £16.00

Acrylic 6mm

900 x 600 approx A1: £25.00

Styrene 1.5mm

900 x 600 approx A1: £8.00

Styrene 3mm

900 x 600 approx A1: £16.00

Clear Polypropylene

1020 x 720: £5.00

Printing:

CAD Plotter Paper; £3 per metre