The Quest for a Touchmark
Graphic Design
Over the years, I’ve developed many handcrafted hobbies. Part of the fun that I have in making things, is selling or giving them away. Something that I would like to do with the things that I make is mark them in a way to make it clear that I made them. Hence my search to create a touchmark, or maker’s mark that is unique to me and my projects.
Inspiration and Mood Boards
I start my design process by finding inspiration from other sources, and making a mood board of different ideas. The number of outside ideas that collect varies from project to project, and can include key words, shapes, colors, and screenshots. To make my mood board, I compile my notes and screenshots in the notes app on my phone or tablet. This is a program that allows me to write, type, and doodle all in the same place as my inspiration.
For my search for a touchmark, I have a lot of leeway because it is a mark that will be used a bit like a signature. I decided to take my inspiration from the tools I use in my crafting, and some of the things that I enjoy.
Thumbnails and Brainstorm
After I have my inspiration compiled, I move on to quick, rough sketches, drawing ideas from the multiple places of inspiration that I compiled. The goal of this is to get as many ideas out of my head and onto the board as I can. This gives me lots of options to choose from as I refine one or two of the sketches into something more of a final form.
Using the inspiration that I have, I try to combine the things that I like, my initials, shapes, and the tools of the trade in a way that makes sense and looks good. Taking elements from different screenshots, I make several quick sketches to get my ideas onto the paper.
Refining Process
Once I have several quick thumbnails drawn, I can move onto choosing one or two of my favorite designs and making a more refined sketch. This sketch usually takes longer than the thumbnails and contains more details than the thumbnail sketches, but it isn’t the final product. In this step I take my two favorite thumbnails to refine, and will occasionally add relevant aspects of other, discarded thumbnails to enhance the final product.
In this case, I decided that the bear, the hammer, and my initials were the things that described me best. So I chose three thumbnails to develop further. A book, a bear holding a hammer, and my initials integrated with a bear paw.
Final Drafts
Once completed, the refined sketches can be uploaded into Adobe Illustrator, or similar program to be refined further. At this point, if I have more than one refined sketch, I generally choose which one fits best with my end goal and I further refine only that one.
Because this is a personal project, and I wanted the practice in Adobe Illustrator, I decided that I would refine all three designs further. So I uploaded each of the refined sketches into AI and spent time making each of them look nice.
