Year: 2016

As I am going with the dot work/geometrical theme for the actual tattoo design, I thought drawing it out by hand and then scanning it in would be the best way of making it as using Photoshop/Illustrator would be too difficult. I did an extremely rough sketch of what I eventually want the tattoo to look like and I am going to draw this out properly, paying more attention to detail and making it symmetrical.

The reason I have gone for a design like this is because as I said before I want it to be heavily based on the nautical theme, but also expanding past that to appeal to more clients and to really show off the great work of the tattoo parlour. The bottom half of the tattoo is the sea, including a starfish, octopus and boat/anchor. These designs are not yet finalised but I do like the idea of having an octopus swimming around in the tattoo- makes it a lot more visually interesting and is very different from the typical octopus tattoos.

The top half is a range of mountains plus the sky. I think this ties in really well with the nautical scene, giving it a bit of contrast and creating a quirky style. The dot work is very patchy but on the real design I am going to give it more detail and space it out evenly, making it look professional yet stylish.

Reading ‘Graphic Designing Your Small Business the Smart Way’ (2014) gave me some great tips and advice on the little personal touches that you can make to stand out against the crowds. It explains how a client will be more inclined to go with a company that goes that little bit further. This is what I want to do with my business cards. By adding a temporary tattoo, it will hopefully appeal more to potential clients.

Using the same typeface I made in the first semester, I am going for a more up-market theme. The geometric font works really well with the company, as nautical tattoos can often be in geometric form, as well as this I think it adds more character to the brand, not only specialising in nautical tattoos, but also expanding upon this- making them more appealing to clients. Looking at some tattoo ideas, I am going to try and combine aspects of these tattoos into something to stick onto my business card. I don’t want to go for the generic anchor or ship tattoo, I want to expand beyond this, not only to appeal to more customers, but to make my design stick out against others.

Battling with ideas for this brief, I am finding it quite hard to find a starting point. I’m not sure how I want to layout my website, what colours I want to use or how I am going to design my logo. One thing I know for sure is how to make my business card. I was having a look at some unique, interesting yet simple business card ideas and I have thought of a very cool idea.

http://imgur.com/gallery/ahQ8m

For the business card I am going with the temporary tattoo idea as this ties in directly with the company I am rebranding. It will be a very unique business card, one that will make a name for the company itself. And obviously it is going to be something to remember, after all it will be on potential clients skin for a couple of weeks.

I have found a website where I can buy sheets of tattoo paper to print on, from there I can print my design, cut it up and make several business cards that will leave a lasting print. For my design, I am going to keep it quite simple. Obviously I need to put the name and the location of the tattoo parlour so potential clients know where to go to get an awesome tattoo. But I want to keep these bits quite small and have the rest of the business card making up a cool tattoo- so clients can see what they would look like with a tattoo, and to show off the amazing work of High Seas Ink.

This brief is definitely an interesting one. I am excited to start working on rebranding a company as I think this will put a lot of my skills to the test and will hopefully look really interesting. I have decided to go with the High Seas Ink tattoo parlour as I have a lot of awesome ideas I want to try out with it. I have always had a massive interest in tattoos and designing something for a tattoo studio has endless possibilities.

First of all looking at the logo I am going to design, I have had a few ideas about which direction to go in. I want to incorporate a chain and anchor into the logo. I was originally thinking of having the name underlined with a chain and then finishing off with an anchor at the end. As well as this I wanted to have a tattoo gun finishing off the anchor to make it look like a real life tattoo. The only problem with this is that I think it sounds better than it actually will be as drawing isn’t my strong point. The reason I wanted to try this logo out is because of the hidden connotations within. The tattoo parlour want to expand and branch out, and the chain on the anchor would represent the chain of tattoo studios they have around the country. The anchor would then represent the ‘home base’ in Shoreditch- where the tattoo parlour started off.

With the brochure/internet I’m not too sure how I am going to approach it. I like the idea of displaying the tattoo parlour off with its nautical but in a very professional way. I want it to be something they would want to show off- very smart. Using pastel/dark colours I want to show off their hipster Shoreditch style but by adding some class and style, I think that would be extremely interesting.

Finally, for the stationary I am really interested in playing around with some business cards. I really want to create something different, using different materials and not just designing it on software. One idea I have is to use acetate, with the name and the location on the top of the card and having a small tattoo-like image in the centre so customers can hold it up against a part of their body to see what a potential tattoo would look like. Another idea was to print the business card onto temporary tattoo paper. The logo would take up the centre of the card, with the information about the studio on the top and bottom. This way people can play around with the card, putting it on a certain part of their body to give them a temporary tattoo – something fun and definitely a way to be remembered by potential customers.