Jessica Marie Ingold
A concept calendar design that entwines elegant visuals of each months birth flower within a compact medium.
Brief
Birth Flowers 2022 Calendar is a self-directed project that I designed. I decided to follow a classical direction by using the Flowers associated with each Birth Month.
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To fit in with my personal vision of this Calendar, I was inspired by the vintage hand-drawn botanical illustrations found in old journals and encyclopaedias.
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The main purposes for this calendar was to:
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Improve my skills in Digital Illustration by using ADOBE Illustrator (particularly the Pathfinder Tool, Brush Tool and Pen Tool)
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Layout Design by using Adobe InDesign.
Role
Project Manager, Designer.
Tools
Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign.
Ideate
Once I had my theme for this concept design, I began research into the 12 flowers that would become the illustration content of this calendar. The following list is the final choices regarding the flower of each month.
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January is a Pink Carnation
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February is a Violet
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March is a Daffodil
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April is a Sweet Pea
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May is a Lily of the Valley
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June is a Honeysuckle
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July is a Larkspur
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August is a Gladiolus
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September is an Aster
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October is a White Marigold
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November is a Pink Chrysanthemum
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December is a Poinsettia
Design Process
Flower Design
Line Work
Once I had researched the 12 Flower species associated with each month I begun to Sketch the flowers with the Brush Tool in Adobe Illustrator. I wanted to create a hand-drawn effect to reflect the vintage botanical illustrations that I used as inspiration.
Once I was happy with the structure of each flower, I corrected any lines and ensured all line paths were connected with the Pen Tool.
I decided to keep the line stroke of each flower white. I felt this added an interesting effect especially when placed over a white background.
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Fill Colour
After I was finished with the line work, I gave created a specific colour scheme for each month, a colour that would reflect the natural colours of said flowers.
Typography
Title
In order to reflect the elegant and delicate nature of Flowers, I wanted the Title Typography to be elegant and delicate as well. After searching and experimenting with various Fonts, I decided on the Decorative Font called Youngblood Regular. With the delicate flourishes, Youngblood suited the theme very well.
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Youngblood was also used to display the name of the Flower on the calendar layout for context.
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Subtitle
To contrast with the decorative and flowing script of Youngblood, I chose Scala Sans Pro Regular to use as the subtitles of this calendar. This Sans Serif Font has clean lines that contain unique letter structures that make for a great combination with Youngblood. The subtitles include the year and tag-line of the front cover but also the days of the Calendar.
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Finally, I wanted to have a clear difference between the Title, Subtitle and the Numbers. To accomplish that I decided on Chalkboard Regular for the Day Numbers of the calendar. Chalkboard is a rounded Sans Serif that contrasts well with both the straight edges of Scala Sans Pro and the elegant flourishes of Youngblood. It also has a hand-drawn visual aesthetic which ties in well.
Layout Design
Format
For this project, I wanted to challenge the conventional format of a calendar. Instead of a wall calendar with a rectangle format I decided to create a square shape that is 150mm by 150mm. By having the size this ratio, I could create a calendar that was a beautiful table decor item which also had purpose.
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Layout
After I had finalised the Flower illustrations and the corresponding colour scheme for each, the Typography, and the calendar format, I combined all these elements into a layout.
Each month has a slightly different layout and colour scheme. However, the typography of each month is the same to keep uniformity across the calendar.
The flower illustration becomes the focus point by being the largest element on the page.
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Background
Each month has a simple white background to ensure the other elements become the main attraction.
Reflection
Birth Flowers 2022 Calendar was inspired by the vintage botanical illustrations. This calendar contains 12 flowers Illustrations associated with each month. With a unconventional layout, this calendar was created to combine Art and Purpose.
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This project was a great way for me to experiment and learn new tools and skills. It was particularly helpful to show how the Pen, Brush, and Pathfinder Tools can be utilised together to create delicate graphics.
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This project also increased my skills regarding to layout design due to the unconventional calendar shape. Learning how to organise a design within a small area taught me how to place various elements while ensuring that there was enough white space was also extremely helpful.
