Exercise: Menu card

I took lots of photos of fresh fish at the market, my screen saver is a Japanese wood block print of a fish by Hiroshige https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT-F76zAzp-5RENEcMK6wbP0qlxQf0or2AyUH59kYNYku0VX6nNTw there’s another woodblock print (Nepalese) in the house

and I collected a couple of other fish images, but beyond that I decided not to do a massive internet search for fish related images before undertaking this exercise as I got a bit overloaded with beautiful artworks by other artists while doing the children’s book cover exercise and I think it blocked me a bit; partly because I felt inadequate in comparison and partly because I was trying so hard not to copy....

  This cut palm trunk reminded me of fish stacked together

Spider diagram and thumbnails

This thumbnail was the stand-out one for me, it’s simple, clean, elegant and the curves remind me of the arches of a bridge or cathedral; both city-type constructions. It also works well as a 4x4cm image and could be scaled up or tiled to cover larger spaces. It’s such a simple design that I’m sure someone else has come up with it before but I arrived at it legitimately through my thumbnail sketching process so now it’s mine!

The repeating curves seemed to make it a good subject for a vector drawing...I spent several hours using the (bloody) pen tool in illustrator and came up with this.

Not bad for a novice but the fish don’t fill the space well enough and my attempts to rectify that led to much swearing and frustration so I moved onto drawing with the tablet in photoshop, trying different backgrounds (photos of papers, concrete, rust, wood etc) and stroke colours. These are my favourites so far.

 

I’ve kept the background colours neutral, and the dark line works better than a white one for clarity and scale changes. Obviously this line work is a bit rough so I need to refine it. I’d like to end up with a vector drawing for scaling reasons so may try a manual line visual which I can then live trace in illustrator...I also need more (bloody) pen tool practice...

I drew some more, slightly larger thumbnails in pencil to help me decide on the final shape and position of the fish, asking a couple of friends for their input. One of them’s in catering –she liked the ‘fishmonger’ stacking of the fish and pointed out that the cross hatched fish scales look like a fishing net, both of which suggest freshness. 

At this point I read an interesting tutorial in Digital Arts magazine by the illustrator Marguerite Sauvage who works at fairly small scale in pencil and scans her work directly to photoshop, adding colour and texture in layers http://www.margueritesauvage.com/. I like the simple lines and handmade feel of her drawings and the was inspired to give some of the tips in her comparatively straightforward tutorial a go.

So I scanned my chosen line visual to photoshop and illustrator,

Inverted it just for fun, it’s like a chalk drawing on a blackboard

Live traced it in illustrator just to see how it compared...

Tried another vector drawing

 I liked my pencil version best so I cleaned it up a bit, multiplied it with layered photos and added a border

I really like these, the green one is similar to my jazz poster for assignment 3; could it be that I’ve found ‘my style’?

I tried rotating the design and now it appears that the fish are swimming, which is more dynamic than hanging but I’ve lost the symmetry through the vertical midline which made it more balanced.

Of course, these aren’t vector images but with a high enough resolution scaling them up shouldn’t be a problem.

   

   Here are some more versions

The final choice would obviously depend on the colour scheme of the restaurant but my favourite is this one for the soft green colour and wateriness of the background (it’s a sushi plate, which is apt)

I’ll try some of Marguerite’s colour tips now and see if that enhances the design.

I used my tablet with the brush tool to add some orange and red touches to the layers in photoshop, forgetting to check that the background colour was the right shade of blue in the first two versions

 

But the orange didn’t come out as brightly once I had the blue right... 

I like these but I’m wondering about the association between green and rotting or sickness (green around the gills) and red and blood (most meat eaters don’t want to be reminded of the slaughter involved in their dinner).

So I’ll stick with my original choice, unadulterated. It’s clear, simple, elegant, handmade and has a watery quality to it.

About a week after I finished this exercise I decided to have a look at other fish logos, this site does what it says on the tin...http://www.blogohblog.com/30-creative-fish-logos/

I particularly like the 8 fish, Robert Fish Band and Green Fish logos but am still happy with mine.