Summary

I have made an infographic about ‘How to give yourself a manicure’. My intention was to make a simple and easy to follow process that is eye-catching for young females. For my overall theme of my image, I have stylized it around popular nail polish designs. The pink and black theme was inspired by looking through numerous nail designs that have used this popular combination. As my process is very simple, requiring only six steps, I chose this colour scheme as it brings excitement and liveliness to my image.

I have used the tracing method, using the pen tool, which was taught in class in order to create the hearts used in my image. This was very useful, as when I tried to draw them free hand, they did not look that great. This technique was used again for the nail clippers. I tried to draw this free hand, which did not work, so I had to trace a copy of nail clippers. This was very handy because this tool is quite difficult to draw. I also used the skill of making multiple copies of one image using the alt key and clicking on the image. This was very useful when making multiple copies of the hearts surrounding the border, and the fingers. I used the grouping technique many times to tidy up my image and make it easier for me to navigate. I found it very useful when grouping the finger image and then using the alt key to make multiple copies of it for my six processes. This helped maintain consistency to my image.

I used gradient inside some of my hearts and to my background to give depth and a more 3D effect. By using this inside some of the hearts, this makes them seem less plain and separates them from the smaller hearts, which are just a solid colour. I used slight gradient on my background to give the same effect as the hearts, as the image looked very flat without it. I made sure to use a very light pink colour with white as the gradient to not over power the image too much. By using this technique, it also draws the viewers’ eyes to the images first to let them see the process before anything else.  I thought it was more important to grab viewers attention through imagery rather than texts and titles.

I used the brush tool to draw a smaller heart to insert into some of my bigger hearts. Doing this helped bring authenticity and charm to my image. Instead of having a complete image of computer-generated, sharp images, these hearts added a hint of personality and untidiness. This style of free-hand drawing is very trendy and was used on many popular YouTube websites such as BubzBeauty, and on stationary from stores such as Typo and Kikki K. These are well-known brands and websites amongst my target audience who are young females in their teens to early twenties.

Final Images

References

Trekmash. Toe nail clippers. Retrieved May 30 2015, from http://www.trekmash.com/nail-art/toe-nail-clippers.html

My Cute Graphics. Dark pink heart. Retrieved June 1 2015, from http://www.mycutegraphics.com/graphics/hearts/dark-pink-heart.html

Top 5 Comments

Dearchanudsa.wordpress.com (Dear Chanudsa)

Hi Dear! I’m always interested in any infographic that involves FOOD. So I approve your choice. This sounds like a very interesting dessert and it is great you are choosing to do a Thai dish, especially because many people in New Zealand may not know about it… Well I sure didn’t! It looks like there are many components and ingredients to this dish, it will be a good thing to show each of the processes. My only concern is I wonder if you can replicate the dessert in illustrator to make it look like what it actually looks like in real life, but I’m sure you have already thought this through. It would be good to use lots of patterns and textures to give your images a 3-D mouthwatering effect. Good luck!

Soseviscom.wordpress.com (Sose Morris)

Hey Sose! Some interesting compositions you have here. The one’s that stuck out the most to me were the first and second ones. They are very creative and eye-catching. Particularly the polaroid one, it will appeal to a young adult audience who are in to this trend of polaroids. It is also very hip and current with the youth culture. I do agree that you may face some issues with space, but if you make the illustrations very visually explanatory, that will reduce the need for more writing. Seeing more detailed images will also be good as it applies to the ‘camera’ theme of your infographic. The first composition will be very relevant with your topic and you can be very creative with where you place your illustrations. But I agree with what you wrote, that it will be very limited with the space provided. Perhaps you could even combine the 1 + 2 sketches to have a polaroid coming out of the camera that explains or illustrates something too. Or you can incorporate classic tape-like film that will give you long strips of space to add more illustrations or just added imagery. Just another idea 🙂 Good luck for the rest of your assignment!

Thehausofviscom.wordpress.com (Spencer Fotu)

Hey Spencer! Wow what an epic, and creative idea. I would have never thought to have done something like this. This has made me want to slightly rethink my idea. I approve of this as I too consider my self to be a bit of a Little Monster. This is will give you so many different choices on how you can approach this infographic. Because Lady Gaga is quite a unique and eccentric person, you could fit many different themes into this. It would be cool to see a bit of meaty background as tribute to her famous/controversial meat dress. Or have glittery horns sticking up from the border. That would make your image look so funky. I feel like a famous part of Lady Gaga is her strong angles and sharp edges to all of her outfits/costumes. I think it would be cool to see that incorporated in the composition or background of your infographic. You could even have a small section in the shape of an egg that could hold extra ‘tips’ on becoming a Little Monster, to refer back to when she marinated inside that egg once. That was pretty unique. These are just some random ideas that I hope help fuel some more amazing ones for your final image. I am genuinely excited to see the processes of what it takes to become a Little Monster.

vitamorrison.wordpress.com (Vita Morrison)

Hi Vita! Now this is an infographic that I would love to see come together. I think secretly, we all want to be a little bit famous 😉 I think it’s great that you are taking the ‘simple but effective’ approach as I am doing that too. I believe that a good infographic is easy to follow yet still eye-catching. I think the colour scheme you have chosen here is very suitable to the topic you are doing, very pink and girly. It’s great that the word ‘Celebrity’ is in a different font, as it makes it stand out alot more. It would be cool to see the girly theme incorporated throughout the rest of your infographic like a bit of sparkle, glitter, kiss marks etc just to add more illustrations. But keep it simple and sweet. Good luck for the rest of your assignment!

https://chloesvisuallycommunicative.wordpress.com/2015/06/02/wip-week-four/ (Chloe Blommerde)

Hi Chloe! first of all, great idea you have here, especially because there are so many gals (and guys) who love seeing extra tips and advice on applying makeup properly. Nice compilation of images you have here. So here is my opinion: as for the liquid foundation, I do agree with what you wrote to only use one swipe instead of three. The first image is the type of swipe of foundation that is used more commonly than the second one (did that make sense?) in most fashion blogs and magazines so I recommend using that one as its more recognisable. For powder foundation, the one on the right looks alot more like foundation where as the one on the left could easily be mistaken for cooking herbs (just saying). In terms of bronzer, you’ve chosen a nice simple image, maybe in your infographic you could add a bit of swirls and a blend of other browns just so it does not look too simple compared to the other illustrations. For example the ‘brick’ style bronzers from Bobbi Brown have alot of texture, colour and shimmer http://www.bobbibrowncosmetics.com/products/14020/Makeup/Face-and-Cheek/Bronzerhttp://www.bobbibrowncosmetics.com/products/14020/Makeup/Face-and-Cheek/Bronzer

I quite like the fourth image you have uploaded of the blush as it’s chunkier and seems more pigmented. But just another idea, maybe you could take a similar approach with the blush that I suggested with the bronzer, to go for that ‘brick’ pattern, just so it may be easier to illustrate. Anyways, good luck for the rest of your assignment and I look forward to what your final image will look like! Ciao bella!

Research: Inspiration

I have spent a rather long time trying to decide on the theme of my infographic. As stated in my previous post, I did search through certain Youtubers and Websites but still could not find a theme that appealed to me.

So I decided to change my perspective and instead of making my theme according to a certain trend, I have decided to base my theme around popular nail designs. I have chosen black and pink as my main theme colour, with pink hearts. This will make my image look very girly and glamourous.

Black and pink is a very popular choice in terms of nail designs. It’s very youthful, bright and girly. I like the use of glitter in this design and I may try to incorporate the glitter into my infographic too.

The hearts are very cute and add small, decorative imagery to this design. I would like a similar design to this.

Pink also goes very well with black lace design, as shown in the photo above. This is a very nice design but black lace may be a bit difficult to imitate, as well as making the overall design seem a bit too complex.

Work in Progress: Final draft

This is my final draft. I have looked over this and asked advice from numerous people. Some feed back has told me that this looks very flat and simple. In order to change this I may add a few boxes around the steps (as suggested by one of my friends) to bring more attention to the process. The yellow box may change colour to a lighter pink so it does not draw away attention from the title and the process.

Research: Theme

I have had to make quite a few changes from my initial idea. I have decided intstead of using multiple bright colours, I will stick to more mellow, faded, pastel colours as that is trendy in the fashion, beauty world. Also using these subtle colours will be more calming and appealing to the eye. I have been doing some research on this and found this website of a YouTuber known as ‘BubzBeauty’. I love the colour scheme and pattern of her website and would like to grasp some inspiration from her. http://www.bubzbeauty.com/

BubzBeauty uses alot of light pinks, heart shapes and pastel colours. I find this a very nice theme to work off from.

Another Youtuber who I have looked for for some inspiration is also ‘Michelle Phan’ http://michellephan.com/

She has a similar style to BubzBeauty. I will look more into these website themes as well as shop websites such as Kikki K https://www.kikki-k.com/ and the BeautyBybel http://www.thebeautybybel.com/search/label/fashion

I will also check out some of these Youtuber videos to see what kind of background they use in their videos, as that is what I am struggling to find for my infographic at the moment.

Work In Progress…

This is my work in progress so far. I have changed the background colour to be more purple. I am thinking of adding hearts around the border as it will add a nice, small design and pattern. I also created small nail polish bottles, as seen at the bottom of my infographic, and these will act as bullet points for ‘tips’ that I will scatter around my image. There is still much more work needing to be done!

Composition

My main intention is to make an infograph that is easy to read and understand. In order to achieve this, I will think carefully about my composition. I want my viewers eyes to travel from left to right, top to bottom. I will do this by spacing out my images in an even pattern and writing the number of steps next to it. In total, I will have 6 images to illustrate my process. Each of these images will be spaced within an equal distance of each other.

For example, this infographic that I have pasted above has a similar format that I am aiming for. Each process is marked clearly and spaced within an equal distance of each other. Each step in the process is marked by a number. I will do something similar to this composition. There is a very limited colour pallete as well which is very simplistic and easy to follow.

I will leave a small space next to each of my images to insert a small amount of explanative text. The text for each image will be in the same position for each of my steps to keep my image looking clean and clear.

Work In Progress

This is my progress so far.

I have created my main images that will illustrate my process. Unlike my concept sketches, I thought it would be more simple to just draw one finger as it will be clearer to understand, rather than drawing a very poor imitation of a hand.

I still need to add text and my small section of ‘Tips’ at the bottom.

I am still yet to decide on my background. I was initially going to chose the rainbow coloured background in my concept sketches but it seemed like an outdated style for my target audience. I will opt for more simple, mature, hip colours that are in style today. I will look at beauty guru’s on YouTube and Pinterest as well as stores like Typo and Kikki K. for inspiration.