Greetings Cards for Tigerprint Hand Drawn Type Competition

These are the final 3 designs I submitted to the Hand Drawn Type Competition from Tigerprint. I hand drew all elements using fineliner, pencil, coloured pencil, and ink, and then scanned them into Photoshop, where I collaged all the pieces together and added more colour if necessary. I wanted to use bold typographical imagery and geometric shapes to create a fun and contemporary outcome.

I had loads of fun working on these, and would have done more if it wasn’t for time constraints, and the fact that there is no guaranteed payment! However I do think it is worthwhile entering competitions like this, especially if it’s for an area of your portfolio that you think needs work. I would love to have the opportunity to design for greeting cards, so this has given me the the chance to work to a brief, with a deadline (always needed) and pushing my hand-drawn type abilities, which I do pride myself on.

Before I settled on these final designs, I played around with a lot of doodling and type in my sketchbook: (click to enlarge)

I also had a variation of the Happy Birthday one, where it focused on the words ‘Dancing Queen’ as opposed to just Happy Birthday, as I felt this fit the age group quite well. However, after the age-old ‘come back to it later after a cup of tea’ I realised it was far too busy for an eye-catching card; the elements were fighting for space and it looked too young and childlike for the age range of 30+:

I still felt it useful to post it here, to show the evolution of the design to the more simple one above. It’s a way of working that often happens to me; I stick everything on the page and it’s only when I start to take things away does it come together.

Update: My ‘Baby Girl’ entry made it into the Top 27 :)