Art Nouveau Soap Package

Our most recent project was to design a soap package in the style aesthetic of the Art Nouveau era. Overall, I really enjoyed making this project. Here’s what I learned about Art Nouveau, and made sure to incorporate into my own piece: Art Nouveau is half naked ladies with long flowing hair, flowers, leaves, crazy typefaces like Bocklin and Belwe, borders and swirls, and everything in French.

The most challenging part of this project was the scale. It was even smaller than the matchbox project! I really struggled with feeling like I had to continually simplify my design, just so that it would fit onto my bar of soap. This is maybe my biggest disappointment with my finished piece. I feel like it is too simple (and yet I feel like I was backed into a corner to produce this result). That aside, I’m quite happy with how it turned out. Illustration is definitely not my strong suit, and when researching the designs of the era, I could not help but notice that practically everything produced in the Art Nouveau period portrayed a half nude woman. I couldn’t get by on elaborate typography and simple graphics with this project. And yet I feel like once I put myself up to the challenge, my half naked woman (because of course I had to include one) turned out quite nicely. I also really enjoy the colour palette of this era. It is mellow but without being too subdued or washed out. I would maybe describe the colours as rich pastels… if there is such a thing.

I named my soap “Laver la Bouche” which roughly translates to “wash your mouth (out).” I named it this because my husband James always says that he will wash my mouth out with soap when I curse (which is often). He is only joking, of course. But the name seemed fitting. Also, translating it into French automatically makes it “Nouveau” in my mind. That, along with my choice of typography and elaborate climbing florals and leaves. I wish I had been able to master the mechanical aspect of putting my design directly onto a piece of paper (as this is what was done in the era) but I got really caught up in worrying about it getting wrinkled, or ruined, with the process of taking the paper on and off the bar of soap. And I wanted to be able to do that to showcase my lovely bar of soap inside…

…because my friend Dawn made it! If you don’t know, making your own soap is incredibly difficult, time consuming, and actually quite dangerous. Apparently it’s super toxic, and if you make a mistake, you could accidentally poison yourself or others. Luckily Dawn is a soap making veteran 🙂 Plus it smells amazing! Way better than store-bought soap. I feel that a home made soap package paired with home made soap just makes this project a total knock out. After I was almost finished, I decided that just designing a label didn’t feel like enough so I added the ribbon to give it a little something extra, as well as a little seal label on the backside.

 

Do you notice one tiny detail that I forgot to include in my project?

The word SOAP!! Ah well. C’est la vie.

 

Victorian Matchbox

Our latest assignment was to render a matchbox by hand in a Victorian style. I’m really enjoying all these hand rendering projects, but I wish they were worth more marks! This little guy was so much work, but only worth 5% 😦 Ah well. I had fun making it.

This project was a challenge because our teacher told us to make the matchboxes for “IDEA brand.” I think her logic was so that we wouldn’t fuss around trying to come up with a company name. However, I then felt that I had to figure out a reason that the match company would be called IDEA. I decided to go with the concept that you were “Sparking an idea,” and the lit match is a representation of that. Similar to how a lit lightbulb today signifies an idea, but this project being set in the Victorian era, naturally a match is used instead!

I also decided (for some insane reason) that if I was making a matchbox, I also had to make my own matches. I can’t explain why, but putting real matches into a matchbox that I had made by hand felt like a lie… so I cut up kitchen skewers and dipped them into red candle wax… voila. Handmade matches.

Another interesting thing to note is that these matches are called “safety” matches. Why? I do not know. A quick google search of “Victorian era matchboxes” revealed that most matches at this time were called safety matches. I couldn’t find out why, but decided that mine should be called the same thing!

There is a side shot, showing the logo and catch phrase.

There is a shot of the inside. I initially wasn’t going to do anything on the inside, because if I were truly trying to emulate Victorian style, there would only be print on the top and sides, since this is what the technology of the day allowed them. But then I decided it looked boring. So I said screw it, and added the illustration inside.

The History of Graphic Design

Last week we got assigned a project for our Survey of Design class. The assignment was to create an infographic for the history of Graphic Design entirely by hand, and to render it in an historic design style. I chose to do my project in the Baroque style, partly because I didn’t think many people would choose this design era, and partly because the lettering is extremely intricate, and I love doing hand typography. This project was a real challenge because we were assigned it while our teacher was away in New York with the third years, and so we actually haven’t even met her yet! I don’t yet have a grasp of how she likes things done, and so it’s hard to gage if I have executed this project well by her standards. My finished project doesn’t have quite as much colour as I would have liked, but Baroque style font is traditionally entirely black, and so any place that I contemplated adding colour looked forced or contrived. I did, however, add a few tiny illustrations, which were optional, so this will have to suffice. We’ll see what Judy has to say tomorrow morning!