Reindeer for Every Season

Dec 3, 2015 by misa33

For my Vector Graphics class we have been working on designing T-Shirts. Finding a theme for a project like this is actually really difficult for me because the only time I will wear printed T-shirts is to bed. So I needed to find something that I actually really liked and would wear around the house or find something to give to someone for Christmas (I’m sure one of my sisters will steal it from me anyway). I have a strange obsession for reindeer, I own several reindeer pajama pants, a reindeer dress, reindeer shirts and sweatshirts. All except the dress I only wear around the house. I also have a reindeer pillow pet.  I figured I could add to the collection. I knew I didn’t want just a plain reindeer, but I was still unsure of what concept I would give the reindeer.

 

Sketches:

I studied various types of reindeer on Pinterest and sketched out a few that I liked. I really liked the outline of the reindeer bust and the one just right of the words because I could visualize myself designing it in illustrator much better than the other one. I decided to use that one and give it a theme of a “Reindeer for Every Season” because I believe reindeer aren’t just a winter thing. I sketched out a few different reindeer with seasonal themes.

 

 

Draft:

I designed the shape of the reindeer that I would consistently use for each of my reindeer. I really liked how the reindeer ears turned out. I started designing the seasonal accessories for each reindeer. I was not set on the accessories at the time, but I had a basic idea of what I wanted each reindeer to have. I did not like the bunny ears on the second one. The reindeer were also out of order and the layers panel was a mess. I also thought the fall reindeer looked a little too wintery. I struggled getting each of the reindeer to appear from a different season because I was only allowed to use three colors. I choose red, black and brown. So I knew the bunny ears weren’t going to work. I thought that red made the design look too “Christmas-y” but I also didn’t want an odd colored Santa hat.

Final Vector Design:

I arranged the reindeer in their correct seasonal order: Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. I wanted winter so the stereotypical reindeer was last. Since I hated the bunny ears, I decided to make the spring reindeer with a flower by it’s ear.

 

I thought the fall reindeer took on more of a winter feel. I didn’t like the beanie anyway, the lines were horrific. I decided to put the baseball cap on the fall reindeer as I see boys wearing baseball hats and scarves more often in the fall, than in the spring. My roommate also pointed out that fall is sometimes considered baseball and hunting season. I added an acorn to contribute to the fall theme. The summer reindeer didn’t need a hat.

 

The layers panel was extremely obnoxious to deal with. I tried organizing them in Illustrator by each individual season. The problem was when I placed one reindeer in it’s correct season, other seasonal accessories stayed on the back layer behind the actual reindeer. I also made the Santa hat out of a copy of the baseball hat, so Illustrator did not at first let me separate those groups. Overall the layers panel looks a lot better. I am still working on being more organized with my layers panel.

 

Mock-up Shirt:

I played around with colors that went nicely with the reindeer in illustrator. I came to the conclusion that darker colors looked better. Two of my favorites were a dark green and a burgundy. I went looking for a burgundy shirt to mock-up my design on. I was reluctant to download anything as most of the free websites looked spammy. I didn’t want to end up with some bug on my computer. I found the website  www.shirtmockup.com where I could place my own PMS color in, place my design and appropriately size my design. The website lets you download a quick JPEG file of your shirt without having to download other content.

 

I am happy with my design, I would probably wear this around the house, or my little sisters will steal it when they get the chance. I really enjoyed this project because I had the freedom to choose to design any object with any theme I wanted. I also love reindeer. I consider this project a success and look forward to the next few projects as I end the semester.