Recently, I’ve been delving into the realm of graphic design and branding. Now I’m obsessed, and I think I’ve found the perfect way to work my passion for design and illustration into a wider avenue instead of just making pretty pictures and portraits (though I still love making them!). Whilst exploring these other creative avenues, I’ve decided to steer my portfolio in a different direction. In order to create a cohesive body of work (since I’ve had no clients of this kind), I decided to make my own projects for imaginary companies.
I’ve been brainstorming and bouncing ideas back and forth about company names that sound like they could be real, and what kinds of things they would offer. I think about what the demographic would be, and then start designing a cohesive brand image from there. The first project I came up with is PeachTree Cosmetics.
In order to narrow down the parameters for this self-made design brief, I had to step into the imaginary client’s shoes. PeachTree would be a beauty brand geared toward young women in their teens through thirties, and focused on having a line of sustainable and ethically sourced ingredients for their products. Sticking with the icon and colors of a peach as a staple and jumping off point for the visual design, I got to work.
I began with designing a landing page for the website, which would tell what the company is all about and highlight their most popular products in a visually appealing way. Given the demographic and the established company values, the colors, fonts, and elements should convey a youthful, vibrant, and upbeat vibe. I choose fairly clean and simple visuals to keep in line with their environmentally friendly/clean formula goals.
Once the webdesign was complete, I created a quick design cheat sheet I could refer back to in order to keep the colors and fonts consistent through any piece I made for this company.
Along with colors and fonts, I also included some little visual elements and icons to get a feel for the shape language and overall flavor of the design.
With a solid design established, and an easy sheet to reference for the technical aspects, I set to work making a couple labels that would be used on bottles for their products.
I really enjoyed working on this project, and I learned a ton about design, branding, and the programs I was using to create the designs for this. I feel it was a solid start and I can’t wait to get started on another project and keep learning and improving!
Art of Caitlin Gadd 