Development of an Idea

Why?

Why do we have this stage?

The development stage is pretty much about refining and testing ideas to improve your deigns. This stage allows us to redesign our projects and make adjustments, involves iterating on your original concept, making changes, testing, and getting feedback until the you are happy with the design. Making a development poster will also show us a visual of the process and stages of how your project developed into what your new design is.

Creating the poster

Using Procreate

Menu Actions Adjustments Selections Transform

To import the photo into your procreate canvas, use the Actions button on the top of your screen. It'll open up a small menu, click on insert a photo and select a desired photo of your lamp design. Use the transform button to move the picture around and resize it. Tap on the layer your image is on and use the slide bar to lower it's opacity. Then on a new layer use the Technical Pen to trace your model and once finished, on a new layer, increase your pen size and outline your design as shown in the photo →.

I felt like my current design looked too bulky and looks as if there's a lot going on. I think the base just looked weird so I thought about one of my old designs that I also liked which had a curved base and since this design already has a height difference in the front and back of the base so I might as well keep it. For the neck and the actual lamp part its self, I think it was also ok so I decided to keep those. Lastly, for the head of the lamp I kind of had a bit of trouble of coming up with a design for that. So the first thing that I thought of was a Library Lamp's head but then Mr Douglas said that if the base is already curving downwards it should be symmetrical or have some kind of link to make it look more 'themed' (I don't know the word). He suggested some ideas, I took one I saw and liked, then drew another version.

① To import a photo go to the Actions tool on the top left hand corner of your screen, select 'import photo' and choose the images of your choice. I chose these two to (try and) show my design in different angles and perspectives. You can lower your photos' opacity by selecting the layer it's on and use the slide bar to adjust it.

③ After you've drawn out the guidelines, on a new layer, use the boxes to help you draw your new design think about the curve and how something might be more angled down/up than the guideline boxes, and how you are going to draw that.

② The next step I did was draw out boxes so you can see roughly how the design is going to look (also as guidelines to draw your design), proportions of the old design whether you think it would fit/look good with the new design (having the same proportions) or not. The boxes should be drawn on another layer onto the images and be sure to also lower its opacity.

④ Lastly, Outlining. To do this, use the same pen you were using before to draw your design but on a slightly bigger size and trace around the outside of the shape. Doing this give your design more depth and dimension. Once finished you can hide the other layers other than the drawing's.

For the base I just used flat color (brown) but just in a different shade on a layer below the drawing. Next, find a wood grain texture image from google and import it into your canvas. Use the clipping mask tool so that it's only inside the brown parts (base). If you want to be even more detailed, you could use the 'wrap' tool like I did to adjust the wood grain (+ direction it's going in). When finished you can group all the wood grain layers together by swiping right on the layers you want to group together and select the group tool at the top where the '+' button usually is.

Since I've changed the shape of my base already I kind of thought maybe I should change the resin design too. Below is a photo of my old resin design, I couldn't really think of anything at that time.

I found a photo of gold flakes in google and imported it onto procreate. On the layer below use your transform tool to move around the photo and you can duplicate the layer by swiping left and selecting the duplicate button. To finalize the look, use the eraser tool to remove the excess parts.

On the layer of your design's drawing use the selection tool and the 'Automatic' settings to select the part you want to render/color and then add a new layer. Use lighter colors that is similar to the original flat color first then gradually get darker in areas that should be darker (shadows).

Repeat the same process for the other parts. Then the final touch is to add highlights since we already have shadows (while rendering). Use a smaller brush (white) and draw a line from the direction from where the light source is coming from. And add base shadows too or leave that to the end.

Details

resin details: I've added this star like shape (two lines) on the resin using the color of the gold flakes and then used white (with an even smaller brush) to draw the same thing inside (light) to emphasize the resin's look.

light details + on different backgrounds: For the lights I used an airbrush in yellow to go around the lamp, and then a lighter shade of yellow (but it's not really visible). I also did the same for the resin part but without the lighter shade inside.

opinion: I like the grey background because it makes it easier to see the light (airbrush).

After a bit I felt like the light design was really boring and not so appealing to look at so I changed my old unimaginative design into a more interesting light effect. (I used the same color and airbrush but I just decreased the size) The first light design was just two circles and the second design is a circle with lines going towards the lamp in different lengths. To finish the look use the adjustments tool and find 'gaussian blur', I seted mines to 8%.

brush

new layer (clipping mask)

color

texture

For a prefect circle, draw your circle and hold it down then procreate will automatically snap it into shape. This is to present my resin design since I found this circular photo of the resin design I was going for, clear with gold flakes. Add the photo on the lower layer and erase the excess bits.

Image from google

I went back to my old procreate design and used my old photo as an idea/reference for my new base design. Take a screenshot it.

Import the screenshot and use the selection tool to remove the unnecessary parts. Use airbrush on largest size to create fading effect with eraser tool. You could add decoration or arrows to show the idea too.

To add texts go to the actions menu and select 'add text'. There will be a button that looks like this 'Aa' on the side of your keyboard. This button allows you to change fonts and sizes. The text size shouldn't be too big that there are barely any explanation or too small to see, and fonts should be easy to read.

I've decided that if I made the texts which comes in contact to the yellow bit in the poster black and texts that are in the grey part for the background white it would look more interesting. So to do this make a new layer on top of the text box that is overlaying the yellow part of the background, click on the layer and then 'clipping mask' on the small menu then color the part that touches the yellow bit.

Lastly, write out the dimensions of your design into the poster, measure in mm. Why? Because our designs on Onshape (3D CAD platform, basically used to design in 3d, click on the word to direct you to Onshape modelling page) everything will be measured in mm, and it's easier to read than 4.63cm.

Don't forget to check if you have a title, added base shadows and highlights, and texts to guide the *readers* as these are the little things most people forget.

Finished

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