Firstly we started by opening the scans of our sketches that we did for the layouts of the box. The process of neatening the scans was simple. We began by cropping the scan area to the artwork desired, and opening up the level adjustment window - allowing us to adjust the level of black and white in the sketch. The black arrow only had to moved in a small amount whilst the white arrow was moved in on to the inside of the peak of the histogram, so that the paper was white and not giving any coloured tints.
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We then moved to illustrator, setting up a landscape A4 page. We then turned on the rulers using cmd R. Next we created a rectangle with the dimension of 70 wide by 105 tall. After we then created a new layer underneath to place the packaging net into, when this was placed we had to make sure that it fitted to the page rather than just clicking it in - this saves time having to re-size it and risk losing the proportions. The layer with the net was then moved to the bottom, so that we could see the rectangle we drew. Next we had to re-size the packaging net so that the front face was the same size as the rectangle.
Once in place, we locked this bottom layer, and duplicated the rectangle we drew so that we would have the front and the back, and drew/adjusted two more for the sides. After, we created another new layer and placed the scanned artwork in, and re-sized it as well to fit the size and proportions of the content that was already in place on the art board. At this point Jay reminded us that its good practice to have seperate layers for the fill and the stroke, as well as any text, and colours and black had to be on different layers too.
We then went on to spend a couple of hours creating the vector artwork for the box.
I started off by drawing over all the lines and strokes that I would need. I then added in the coloured elements. Once both these elements were in place I began to experiment with the stroke options, so that they would fit better with my intended aesthetic. Next I added the text - and this was one of the most challenging aspects as it was harder than I had anticipated to achieve the desired effects with the shape of the title. I struggled with the shearing and warping of the text before stumbling upon the shear tool which allowed me to achieve the difference in height between the start and the end of the of the word. I then used the warp option to achieve the curve. For the tagline I duplicated the line I used for the bottom edge of the flash and used the text on a path tool and used a vintage handwritten style font. I used an eroded style font to fit with the grunge/zombie aesthetic.
For the back I used the same font combination because I think it works well with the difference between blocky all caps and the flowing script. The back also features a fun maze mini-game which I made using rectangles in illustrator, encouraging kids to run from the zombie outbreak to safety at a hospital (not sure how good that advice would be in a real outbreak however).
I then used a couple of clipping masks to get the nutritional information and small print from the packaging net. This is done by dragging a rectangle (with no fill) over the desired area, selecting the rectangle and base layer, then right clicking and selecting make clipping mask.
The colours I have chosen are mix between neutral colours like the white, black, dark blue (representing nighttime) and the pale skin tone, to balance off against the red and pink of the cereal pieces (representing colours of the brain and blood), as well as the red and yellow of the branding. I like the red, black and yellow used in the swipe as this is quite familiar with warning symbols, which fits with the zombie outbreak theme of my concept.
