*Transcription Disclaimer: the following transcription was automatically generated, and may have errors, or lack context.*
Alex Lazaris:
Hello. Hello, everyone. My name is Alex Lazaris, and I'm your host. Today on Adobe Live Today we're joined with Christina Jackson of Club Creative. But before we jump into that, in case you missed yesterday's special episode with Paco, Paco did a lightroom tutorial. He was using some of his photography from Lake Tahoe. It's incredible. So make sure you go check out the replay on YouTube or Behance. I think you'll absolutely enjoy it. It's a great video. And then later today, we also have our artist spotlight, so that's super exciting. And then the rest of this week, we are doing recaps of some of the top creative challenges. So stick around for that after this stream. Christina welcome back to day two. I am so excited for us to pick up where we left off really quickly. Tell everybody who you are, where you're at, all that good stuff.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah. Hi, everyone. So for anyone that didn't join in yesterday, I'm Christina. I'm the owner of Club Creative. And today we're going to be working on some cheesies. Yesterday, we got started with the logos, the color palettes, the illustrations, and today we're going to be building up the packaging and creating the mockups. And maybe if we've got some time, we'll create a poster for it as well. But if you would like to have a look at some of my previous work, this is my Instagram. As you can see, I love color, bright colors, bold and bright illustration work, and a lot of packaging as well. All of these. So, yeah, check out my Instagram. Or you can have a look at my Behance, too, which includes the bulk of every project. Yeah, that's everything.
Alex Lazaris:
I love it. Your work in the consumer space and packaging is super inspiring. And I know lots of fans were in the stream yesterday and today. So we're super excited. If you are wanting to engage with us, hang out with us and chat. Make sure you're over on Behance instead of YouTube, and that's Adobe Live. That way, we can read all your comments, you can ask questions, you can provide puns. We had lots of fun yesterday reading some chat puns. We can absolutely take more today. We'll be doing, as she said, different flavors, and that's a lot of copy. So give us your favorite cheesy puns throughout the stream today. Perfect. So, as a refresher, I know you mentioned that the brand that we're working on is Cheesies. How is this inspired? Where can people design along with you? Tell us all about that.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, so as part of Club Creative, we also offer Club Creative challenges for other creative designers out there. And they're available on my website for free. And every quarterly, I just release eight different brands with different names, different business sectors, and you can all take part in it. And this quarter cheesies is available in there. So that's what we're designing today. And, yeah, it's amazing to see everyone else's ideas and concepts. So if you do want to have a look, just go on Hashtag Club Creative on Instagram and you can see everyone else's concepts. I think a few people have actually started doing Cheesies after yesterday who joined in, so it's really nice to see everyone's ideas too.
Alex Lazaris:
That's awesome. I love that. And you can do that through your website. You've got the shopping portal and it's free to download and people will get your PDF. Is that correct?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah.
Alex Lazaris:
Sweet. So that's all the information you need to start jamming along with us real time today. I would love to see what you guys come up with. So, without further ado, we'll let you take it away from here.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah.
Alex Lazaris:
Can you give us a recap of yesterday's?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah. So if you wasn't here yesterday, we had a look at the mood board we finalized on that. We wanted to use more handwritten style fonts and we really liked how they have all these puns on these. And that's why we was asking people for some pun ideas yesterday. All about cheese. We did have a few good ideas yesterday, but if anyone has any more, please send them in. And we wanted to use the craft paper for the packaging, and we also really liked how packed full this is. So this is what we're going to do today. We're going to have all the information, illustrations, images all crammed into the little packet. And we really want it to look really playful and fun. So then after that, we started looking at different font options. We decided that we were going to keep the logo really just simple, just a type logo. So we had a look through a few fonts, all in the handwritten doodly playful style, and we decided on this font kiddie times for the headline font and then the accent font. We went with Copi, Senja, Sans and Body. One, two, three, marker. So we thought that they worked really well together. And as you can see here in the logo that we designed yesterday, we just have Cheesies and then the little tagline cheese flavored mini crackers. So then from there, we started having a look at the color palettes. So yesterday we didn't know what Mozarella was, but after the live, I went and had a look and it is green. So we got lucky with that and we had a look at some different colors, placed it on the craft paper to see what would work best. And we finalized with these three colors, but we could change them once we've got everything on the packaging, just in case it doesn't work. So we've got the three flavors there, and then here we can see some of the puns that we have, but like I said, if anyone's got any for Red, Leicester or Mozzarella, I think we've got a good one for original Cheddar. But the other two, if you do have any, please send them in. And then we moved on to the illustration. So this is what we created yesterday. I drew these up on paper first and then I scanned them in and then I used my wacom tablet to draw them out. We used this oval brush using the paintbrush tool. Just then it looked a bit more organic and free flowing rather than such harsh lines. But we did use the pen tool for the geometric shapes. But for this we did use the paintbrush tool. Just then, it looked a bit more like it was hand drawn. And then from there, we then went in with like a charcoal pencil brush, this one. So we use this to just make it a little bit thicker and add those rough textures all around just so that it matches the organic, natural feel that we want for the brand. And then yeah, so yesterday we actually managed to get started on some of the packaging. So this is what we'll be continue doing today. And, yeah, it looks really fun so far. I can't wait to start adding all the information in on the back of the packet and of course, starting the other two flavors too.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, I love this. I think, like you said, it's also a really great start and I think the craft paper on the back really helps bring that organic kind of all natural ingredients to the forefront rather than a heavy color coat on there.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, that's what we want. So we can just get started on the packaging. Now I'm just going to bring over this information. This information is just for the front of pack and then this is well, yeah, so that's the front of pack and these are going to go on the back. So these are just some mock information. We could have just used Lauren Ipsum, but I thought we may as well try out some real information from another cheese brand.
Alex Lazaris:
Absolutely. Real information goes such a long way, and I think especially in your mockups, if you're using Loremipsum, it just doesn't feel as curated or designed. If you can just go a little bit further and just make up your own content, sometimes it makes it feel even more real.
Christina Jackson:
It does, yeah. So I just pulled out some information from different cracker brands out there and changed them up a little bit just so then they're a bit more fun and playful like we want.
Alex Lazaris:
Absolutely.
Christina Jackson:
Let's get started with this. So I thought this would be really funny. Crack me open already.
Alex Lazaris:
That's great. Do you typically find yourself really writing a lot of copy for your projects? Do you really enjoy that part of.
Christina Jackson:
The process or do you yeah, definitely. For passion projects, sometimes even with client projects, if I can come up with a really fun tagline or something, I'll suggest it to them. And most of the time they love it too and they want to include it in their brand.
Alex Lazaris:
Awesome. Yeah, I think that's great.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I guess it's because when you're really into the brand and you're really designing for it, you start learning some things and you come up with ideas and you kind of think about it all day and all night and you're so excited for it. So you start thinking of ideas for them as well.
Alex Lazaris:
I totally agree. Especially because like you said, you're living and breathing their brand for the course of that project. You might as well if you have some ideas, might as well share them.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, definitely.
Alex Lazaris:
So are you building another guide or what is this line for?
Christina Jackson:
No, we're just going to do I had an idea of doing like the little tur, the little lines, the dashed lines.
Alex Lazaris:
Oh yeah, that's a great yeah, something.
Christina Jackson:
Like this, but we'll do it a little bit thicker.
Alex Lazaris:
And are you going to texture this one as well like the other illustrations or are you going to keep it more just very clean?
Christina Jackson:
We'll see. We'll have a go. Might get a little bit too busy if we start adding so much on.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah.
Christina Jackson:
I always get confused with this. Like which way I should be going. Higher or lower? Maybe something like this. Have it right below that.
Alex Lazaris:
Nice. Do you have any scissor icons readily available?
Christina Jackson:
We could try and draw one. I don't know. Normally I feel like you kind of just rip the bag open or like pop it open.
Alex Lazaris:
True. I know we talked about Comic Papyrus briefly yesterday and comic Sands. Yeah, I found out yesterday or this morning actually, that Meg Lewis has a Comic sands and it's like beachy comic Sands inspired. It's great. It's super cute. It's very adorable.
Christina Jackson:
Oh, wow. I'll have to have a look at that one as well.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, it's great.
Christina Jackson:
So I'm just going to underline this just to add a little bit of something there's. I've just used one of these other paintbrush brushes just so that it's a bit more tapered. And again, it looks like it's been hand drawn onto the.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, it's kind of matching that marker aesthetic of the when you're designing these pieces, how do you go about trying to keep all the elements kind of consistent? Is it just something you have to do manually or is there any tips and tricks you have with that?
Christina Jackson:
Sometimes if it's with illustrations and I've not expanded the strokes or anything and I've left them live, I would usually just copy and paste one of them and leave them on the side. And then once I've drawn everything out, zoom out, highlight it all and then use the eyedropper tool on this one. That the thickness that I like. And then I feel like that just gets them all unison. That's what I usually do. Same with colors, anything. I'll just do this and then just select two all same and then make sure that all the blacks are all the same blacks. Or sometimes I'll add the colors into the swatches like I have with these three.
Alex Lazaris:
So you're doing a global color palette.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah. Just to make sure everything's the same. Because I feel like with black, sometimes you can't really see it on the screen, so you can't tell that it's slightly different.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah. You got to make sure that it's the pure value.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah.
Alex Lazaris:
I think you can set that by default, too. I think originally, Illustrator has a very gray, dark gray version of it.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah.
Alex Lazaris:
Change that by default to be actual pure black.
Christina Jackson:
I love to have a look. So yesterday we drew this little flag. I think we might have it in black.
Alex Lazaris:
Oh, that's cute. Yeah.
Christina Jackson:
Just want to keep it phone and playful. I think that works quite well.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, that's great.
Christina Jackson:
And it brings in this block as well, so it's not so heavy down at the bottom of the packet.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah. Are you still loving the ticket idea?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I do still think that's quite cute once we've got the information on there. So let's get on with the information here. We've already got this, which is the tagline.
Alex Lazaris:
Can you remind me what content is going in that spot again? Is it the calories, or was it.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, we're going to have this. No nonsense. Just the important stuff. Just the stuff that sells. I think they'll make people feel better if they see that it's only 90 calories and there's no artificial colors or anything.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, that's great. I love that you're thinking about how a customer might be purchasing these off the shelf for yeah. What reinforces their purchasing behaviors. It's great.
Christina Jackson:
Because everyone wants to feel better when they're eating snacks. So it's only got a few calories in there.
Alex Lazaris:
What are your go to favorite snacks?
Christina Jackson:
I love sweets. I'm a sweet person. I don't think I'm even a cracker person, to be honest. Even though we're designing crackers today, I love sweets. I love skittles. Anything vimto flavored. Yeah. I am a sweet person. I think more sweets than chocolate or crisp.
Alex Lazaris:
Interesting. I'm much more on the chocolate spectrum myself.
Christina Jackson:
Oh, really?
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah. I think just, like candy. Candy like that doesn't really get me very excited, but chocolate so have me up.
Christina Jackson:
I think I go through different phases. Some days I'll crave a chocolate bar, and some days I just want something sweet.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, totally. What about baked goods?
Christina Jackson:
I do like donuts. Yeah. I'm not the biggest cake person, but I do like donuts.
Alex Lazaris:
Makes sense. That's a lot of sugar on the outside. I see so many regulars in Chat. What's up, Wade? What's up, Robert Stoney. Christina. Barbara. What's up? What's up, Katrina? Hello, everyone. Welcome to the stream. I know you're tuning in from around the world, and we appreciate you hanging out today.
Christina Jackson:
We're just going to I'm hoping that this font I want, like, a little X.
Alex Lazaris:
Like, a check mark almost, or like yeah, interesting. Yeah. Like a bullet point or dot point.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah. I like using the font sometimes I try and so that again, that's another way of keeping everything all similar together and so it all works. Well, that's worth it. Maybe we could just add a stroke.
Alex Lazaris:
So what is the stroke helping you with?
Christina Jackson:
Is it I'm just trying to make it a little bit slimmer. I feel like too bold. Just so it matches this body font a bit more.
Alex Lazaris:
Got it.
Christina Jackson:
Something like that.
Alex Lazaris:
Also probably do like a manual version of it since you've already done yeah. Line above it.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, you could definitely draw this out. I think I've just too matched the font and it's there. It's ready to go.
Alex Lazaris:
David asks, hey Christina, I'm interested in knowing more about charging for packaging. Wow. I can't speak today, it's Thursday. Hey Christina, I'm interested in knowing more about charging for packaging design. Do you consider it worth more or less than a logo?
Christina Jackson:
I think definitely more because it's a lot of information and it's a lot of organization and you have to make sure everything's correct. You don't want to end up with a big bill at the end where the printing's gone wrong. So I think it's a lot of work for both me and the clients. Make sure that everything's correct and everything's good to go. And I feel like that it takes a lot more time and effort and I do think it does cost more in the long run. Even though brand identity does take a lot of brain power and ideas and creativity. And with packaging, you are just using what you've already created. But there is a lot of content on there and maybe they want patterns, illustrations, different designs on there that can take a bit more time.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, I think it's a really good way of saying it really depends. Depends on the brand, depends on the packaging, depends on how many pieces are in the packaging.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah.
Alex Lazaris:
Is it a system? Is it just a one off?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah. I think sometimes some clients have more minimal packaging and then it's just literally they just want the logo on top of the box. Then with that, then I guess it wouldn't be more than the brand package itself. We would just have to talk at the beginning and go for exactly what you want, what you're looking for and then we'll see from there. Really?
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah. There you go. Gauge the client, engage the project.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah. So I'm just making sure that it all fits and it doesn't get in the way of all the artwork that we've already put on. I'm making sure it's all aligned. I can already see here that these are two different blacks.
Alex Lazaris:
David says haha. For sure there's no right answer. No, not an easy answer, I guess is the best way to say it. Do you find that clients typically come to you for either or both. How does that typically happen for you?
Christina Jackson:
Usually they would come for the brand identity first. And sometimes I do also say, let's just start with the branding of the business first and get that perfect, exactly how they want it, exactly how will work for their business. So normally I would say, let's just start with this, and then later on in the line, we will have look. And usually the clients also need to do a lot of research themselves to begin with. They need to look for printers, they need to find the guidelines, the templates, everything from BTU. So whilst we're working on the branding of the business, they can be getting on with that side of it. And then once we've got the branding finalized and it looks great, it's ready to go, then we would have a chat again, maybe jump on Zoom, have a phone call, see what ideas they've found. If they've changed their mind on the packaging, they might have found a new style of box or labels they want. And then we would start looking at what they want in there. And then we would start the packaging after that.
Alex Lazaris:
Awesome. I think that's really helpful for people who are starting to jump into this world.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah. And I think sometimes the packaging can completely rely on the branding. So they might think, oh, they want this big, I don't know, like a big bulky box. And then once they've done the branding, it might look a lot more dainty and minimalistic. And then they might decide, oh, actually, I don't want to do this huge box anymore. I would prefer something more simpler. So I think it is better to start with the branding first.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, I agree. Otherwise you don't know if you're designing everything on brand.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I'm just still filling everything up. Just put in the 20, 50 grams.
Alex Lazaris:
How much content do you typically need to have on each package?
Christina Jackson:
Cheesies.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, for like explain it to me in the audience who may have never done cracker packaging before. And the bags, that how much weight, nutrition, all that kind of stuff.
Christina Jackson:
I guess if it's like a real project, then you would have to rely on the client to give you everything because you're not going to know everything about every line of business and every product line. So you would need to ask the client for all of that. And obviously there's a lot of legal stuff that you don't want to be dealing with, so you have to ask them for everything. But if it is just a passion project and you're just having a play around, then sometimes, like we said before, you could just use Laura Mipsum and see where the content might fit well in your design. So you just place it wherever you like or most like for this project. I just had a look at a lot of other brands out there that already exist, even. They didn't even have to be crackers. There were some fruit and nut little packets and it's just all about the size of the packaging as well. So how small it is, how big it is. This is quite a small, like, snap pack, so it has probably got a lot more information that's needed on here. But we did want it to look quite jampacked and full and a bit crazy and all over the place. So this is why we've got so much information on here.
Alex Lazaris:
That's great. I think having a lot of information is sometimes really helpful in terms of making the content look good and have a good hierarchy and makes people want to actually engage with the product.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I think sometimes if it's a bit too empty, it can look a bit like same. I don't know. I do prefer packaging that's a lot busier and full of color life illustrations, as opposed to more minimal packaging. But I do also enjoy working with minimal packaging too. But it is fun to just let it all go wild and go crazy with it.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, I think if the content helps add or is necessary, I think it's great, but I think reduction in terms of content is also super helpful if needed.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I'm just having a look for some local farms. We may not need it, but maybe we could place it on the back. So now we need the puns. Are we going to go with Easy Cheesy or Cheesy Peasy for this one?
Alex Lazaris:
That's a hard one. Chat, what are your preferences? Easy peasy or sorry. Easy Cheesy or Cheesy Peasy? Put them both together, let us know. Chat, I don't know. What is your gut saying? Which one do you prefer? So far?
Christina Jackson:
I think I like Easy Cheesy just because it's the original flavor and it makes sense because it's easier.
Alex Lazaris:
Perfect. Send.
Christina Jackson:
It. Try easy cheesy. And then I did also want to include the actual flavor because I don't think you'd be able to tell what Easy Cheesy is.
Alex Lazaris:
When you started to kind of create this brief, did you have, like, an audience or demographic in mind as your target?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I did start thinking more for kids. I wanted it for, like, in kids lunchboxes, stuff like that. But then I guess it can also appeal to adults, too, older adults, just because it's got that natural, healthy, organic side to it and it makes sense. And I think the flavors maybe like Mozzarella and Red Leicester, maybe that would appeal more to older people rather than kids. But I think maybe this flavor kids would like in the lunch boxes.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, that's fair. Wade says peasy makes me think of peas. I don't want peas and crackers.
Christina Jackson:
So we won't go with that one. We'll stick with it.
Alex Lazaris:
Fargate goes. Do I detect a menchuian accent? Great to see a UK designer live here.
Christina Jackson:
So we can go with something like this. I just need to make sure that it's clear that that's the flavor. I feel like when you've got packaging that's so busy all over the place, it might be hard to actually I don't want people to stand there and read all of it to find out what the flavor is.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, I agree. But I feel like with that, like you have here where you put original cheddar next to it, it seems like a really good way of tying easy cheesy and the flavor together really nicely.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, and I guess with packaging like this, even though it is quite busy and all over the place, because they're all going to have their own color palettes, it's a bit easier to separate what flavor is what.
Alex Lazaris:
Agree. So if this was a client project, what would you be doing differently or how would the process be different?
Christina Jackson:
I guess what we would do is still the same this, but with their content or what they would prefer. If they just sent me a list of all the content, I would probably start with seeing if I can fit everything in. But then if it doesn't work, I'd just ask them, what's the priority, what do we want on there, what do we not need on there? And then we would look into a few revisions, see any changes, and then I would definitely get the first flavor finalized first and get that absolutely perfect how they want it. And then from there, I would just get on with working with the rest of flavors and then send it all over for approval.
Alex Lazaris:
Great. How many rounds of revisions do you typically work through with the client?
Christina Jackson:
So with branding projects, I normally do two concepts to begin with and then three rounds of revisions from there. But with the rounds of revisions, I normally do a specific amount. So if they send everything, like if they turn around in the first revision and say, oh, I don't like anything and I just want a whole redesign, I've come up with some new ideas, then that's when maybe I would say, okay, but there will maybe be some additional charges to this. Just because if they have changed their mind completely from what we've discussed, And I usually ask clients to provide a pinterest board along for the discovery call at the beginning. Just then we can both flick through, have a look through, see what their favorite pieces are, what they like, what they don't like. And the pinterest board usually includes a variety of things. It's not all logos and branding design. There can be just different colors. Sometimes there's interiors, all sorts of stuff. So usually I try and get a really good idea of what they're looking for at the beginning. Then they're going to love either the first or the second concept, or they might want a merge of the two. And then from there, we would just have three rounds of revisions and I just try and let them know that. Make sure you have a look at this properly, take a few days, then just write up all the revisions in one go rather than if I do a few changes and then they come back a few days later like, oh, I did also want this doing, oh, I wanted this doing as well. It just makes it easier for you as well to just sit down, spend a few hours on it, and you can work through all their amendments, what they have with packaging design too, and then instead of going back and forth, back and forth.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, that makes total sense.
Christina Jackson:
I'm just filling up all of this information.
Alex Lazaris:
Do you typically do like fixed fee projects or hourly? How does that typically work for you?
Christina Jackson:
I do a bit of both. So I have some clients that are with me long term, and it's not always a set amount of work every month, so we just work hourly there. I just have agreements with different clients, whatever they prefer, what they're looking for, so new clients, startups, rebrand, stuff like that, then they are just set prices depending on what they want included in their project. And then with a few clients who do stick with me monthly or annually and want work continuously, but sometimes I have a few clients who just pay one monthly fee and I just work with them throughout every day. Sometimes they're hardly there, sometimes they're there every day, but it all works out in the monthly fee. And then I also have clients who are not really sure of how much they're going to need every month. So we just set on an hourly price and I just keep track of how many hours I do for them.
Alex Lazaris:
Great. Helena is asking what would the size of the packaging be for this?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, so with this, I don't really know. I just worked it around the mock up. So I found a mock up online from yellow images of what I wanted. And then I just had a play around in Photoshop, like put different size squares, different colored shapes, had a look at how much of the artwork falls off the sides. And then I had some guides on here yesterday to just let me know that I have to stay within this. So with this as it's just a passion project, I don't really have a size for it. I guess if you are going to be putting it on a mockup, just open up the mockup, have a look at what size fits on there, and then bring it over to Illustrator and design on that. So let me just show you this. Actually, down here is the mockup. So I just opened up Photoshop and I saw that this was the front. That's how much room I have. Up here is where it starts, the seal is so I know that. I can't put artwork up there and then the back, the seal is slightly over to the right. So later on, once we've got the packaging done, I'll just need to make sure that the content is here and here and it doesn't go over the seal around the back.
Alex Lazaris:
It's an interesting way of reverse engineering your mockups.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, because sometimes I find you create something really nice and illustrated and you love it and you just can't wait to see it on a mockup. And then once you put it on the mockup, it just doesn't work at all. The sizing is all wrong and then you don't want to start fiddling around with the mockups and changing up the sizing. So I think sometimes it's all right to just work backwards and see.
Alex Lazaris:
Have you ever made your own mockups or mocked up a collateral piece or a bottle or packaging for a client?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, so usually I would mock up flat things like leaflets, business cards. I just added drop shadow, put some texture overlay on there. If I've got an image, if I can't find a specific mockup but I've got an image of what I want, then I would just take it into Photoshop and then use the perspective warp and apply my artwork over the top of it.
Alex Lazaris:
Have you ever made your own physical mockups for your clients or? No, only digital.
Christina Jackson:
When I worked in a design studio in house, we used to do it quite a lot, though. We'd print stuff out, stick it all together with some double sided tape, but not here. Just because my clients are just all around the world. Sometimes I would maybe make something for myself to have a look at. So if I'm working on, say, like a cross fold leaflet, and I don't know which orientation the artwork needs to be, so I'll just get a piece of paper, draw it all out, fold it all up so I know which way it's going. Then maybe sometimes I'll print it out, have a look, see that it all fits well. And no artwork is falling off the folds or anything. So if it's a more complicated project, then, yeah, I would definitely suggest printing it out. And even if it's just a black and white rough print, just have a look at how it all works.
Alex Lazaris:
Great. I think that's awesome. I think there's a lot of people in Chat thinking that this is a box originally, but no chat. This is a bag of chips or crisps or crackers. Butchering all the terminology now, but yeah, box not in the schedule for right now, but maybe later on, maybe if she's feeling adventurous after the stream.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, maybe can try.
Alex Lazaris:
We need the whole truck. We need a truck. We need a pallet of boxes and individual boxes.
Christina Jackson:
Well, we could do a full flavor range in a box.
Alex Lazaris:
I think it'd be really cool to see these illustrations on, like a big truck going around.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, that would be really fun. Big smiley faces everywhere.
Alex Lazaris:
Exactly. The fun. Little illustrations bringing everybody happiness in the neighborhood.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, that would be really nice to drive past.
Alex Lazaris:
What's the coolest thing or place that you've seen any of your work?
Christina Jackson:
Do you mean where hasn't been on.
Alex Lazaris:
A car or a billboard or anything like that yet.
Christina Jackson:
Let me think. I did some work in the past and I honestly did not know who they were, where they came from or anything. I didn't know where they were based. And then one day I was just shopping around my town center and then I just saw it there, just inside the shops, just on the wall. And it was crazy, really. I didn't even know they were from here because I don't usually get a lot of clients who are from around here, to be honest. Not a lot from the UK either. They're mostly just everywhere. So it's really crazy if I do see anything around here because usually everyone's everywhere who I work with.
Alex Lazaris:
That's funny. That's awesome. Chat. Let us know what you've designed that's made it somewhere unexpected or really cool. I think it's always fun hearing stories of what somebody's made and where it's at, all that stuff.
Christina Jackson:
It yeah, I would really like to see something. I've done a lot of, like, van designs, van wraps, mmhmm, stuff like that. But again, they're everywhere worldwide. They're not really in this country, so I would really like to see those. Sometimes I get pictures or I see on their own social media and it's really nice to see. It's nice to see when you're just looking at everything digital and then see it all printed, especially something in such a large scale like that, because then it's business cards, leaflets, stuff like that. They all just kind of look the same unless they're printed on a specific material.
Alex Lazaris:
I agree. Do you have any kind of dream spots or things that you wish that you could see? Like a billboard in Times Square or I don't know, pieces.
Christina Jackson:
Probably. Yeah, we'd like to see it on a billboard in Times Square. Definitely. I've never even been to America, so that would be amazing if I got.
Alex Lazaris:
A flight there and saw yeah, I was going to say it sounds like a great trip, like opportunity for you to just go visit all the vans and billboards that you've designed other countries.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, that would be really good. A lot of instagram content.
Alex Lazaris:
Lots of selfies in front of their face. Amelia asked, do you include prices for product production in what you charge the client?
Christina Jackson:
I guess it would depend. If we have discussed it and we've agreed that's what you want to do, but in the initial stages, then no, like I said before, I would normally do that afterwards, after the branding side has been done, if that's what you meant by the question.
Alex Lazaris:
I think so. But it could also be I think it really depends on the project and what they're specifically looking for, because I know sometimes you can have the original design done, but it needs a lot of artworking in order to get it ready for production. And sometimes that needs to be farmed out to other people or other designers to help you out with that.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I think sometimes with smaller scale items like leaflets, business cards, stuff like that, then I would get it all ready for print, ready to go. I would normally send the clients the original file and the print ready file, but with things like larger scale stuff like vans, car, artwork, stuff like that, then I would get it ready to some extent and then say to them, just get it checked by them. Or if there's a specific file they need, then just let me know and then I will get it all ready for them.
Alex Lazaris:
Sayeed asked. Hi, Christina. Can we use font sizes less than six points for packaging design?
Christina Jackson:
So usually no, I normally would. I think the smallest I've ever gone is four points on packaging, and that was really small, but it was like, the fine details. But today we're at three points, but we're not printing. This is just for fun. So we're okay today.
Alex Lazaris:
That's funny, I didn't even catch that. Welcome, Annika. But, yeah, I would say also six points depends on the font. Some fonts are still legible at six and some aren't, so do a gut check. I prefer just to print things manually with my own eyes before saying that a typesate face can work or not.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, definitely. I have a little printout that I printed a while ago with just a certain font in all the points, all the sizes, just so then I could just have a look at it smart instead of reprinting. If there's a certain font that I always use, for example, in my own branding, then I've got it all printed out just so then I can just have a look at it.
Alex Lazaris:
That's a really good idea. Great questions. Chat Johanne is asking, is there a method to batch process info from CSV? There definitely is, and I would highly recommend it's. Kind of one of those things that you might need to Google it for a better tutorial than I can explain over this project. But especially if you're doing things like business cards and things like that, there's some really handy ways of just pulling in that information from the CSV and populating all that content and exporting it for you. That way you're not having to manually do 300 people's individual contact information.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I've definitely done that before.
Alex Lazaris:
All it took was one project where I was like, all right, I'm done. I'm tired of this. How do I.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I've done that a lot of times before, and then they usually come back again.
Alex Lazaris:
New staff member exactly. We hired four new people and changed people's names. Or this person moved or they have a new phone number.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, or someone's changed the name or someone's been promoted. Then you're looking for a full list of names because I always just save the files as the name of that person and you end up looking through everything to just find who this person is to change the smallest of details. So we've got manufactured by Cheesies. We don't have a real location. We just have one, two, three street name.
Alex Lazaris:
What about like one, two, three cheesy. Cheesy place or Cheesy Road. Cheesy Road. There you go.
Christina Jackson:
One, two, three.
Alex Lazaris:
Easy street. I don't know.
Christina Jackson:
Cheesy Road, post Road.
Alex Lazaris:
Do you often purchase illustrations or pictures for your clients projects or do you prefer to create them on your own?
Christina Jackson:
I do prefer to just create them myself, but sometimes if they are looking for something specific where I don't think it's in my scope to draw or design, then I would just tell them, here's some stock websites, maybe if you want to have a look and see if there's anything on there that you like. And then we'll have a look at purchasing it and then I will use it in the project. But normally I would try usually with illustrations and stuff, I do try to draw it all out myself, illustrate them all, and then they're usually happy with it all straight away. Sometimes there's been a few changes, but it's normally just minor stuff like maybe make it a little bit thicker, a little bit thinner. They might want it just the outlines rather than the fill. But yeah, normally I would try and draw for myself sometimes some things can be hard to draw out, so it's helpful having some websites out there like Adobe Stock and places like that, or.
Alex Lazaris:
Find some friends who are really good at illustrations.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah.
Alex Lazaris:
But you seem to be pretty talented with your illustrations, so you could probably accomplish a lot on your own.
Christina Jackson:
I think it's just a lot of practice doing it over and over and over again and then you start figuring out ways of making it a bit easier for yourself. But yeah, it definitely helps if you do have people out there who are who specializes in those types of things. Like, I try and stay away from drawing, illustrating people. I just don't like faces. I like drawing faces and painting faces. I used to always paint portraits, but for some reason I can't do it digitally.
Alex Lazaris:
Why do you think that is?
Christina Jackson:
I think it's because I'm not drawing on. I guess if I had an iPad maybe where I'm looking directly at the screen because with the wacom tablet that I use, it is just I'm looking at the screen and drawing on the table. So I think that might be why I'm struggling a little bit. But maybe if I did have an iPad, maybe I could have a play around and try it out.
Alex Lazaris:
Interesting. I'm curious to see if you ever get an iPad, if that does solve it for you.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah.
Alex Lazaris:
Do you think it's untilting I know a lot of people who paint like to have their easels up at a yeah, maybe.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I guess I could get a little stand and put my iPad on there.
Alex Lazaris:
Helena asks, is there a package design you did from a product that you use yourself?
Christina Jackson:
Trying to think I've had things sent to me from clients, which has been really nice to see the clients from all over the world. If they have sent me stuff like candles, beauty products, stuff like that. And that's really nice. And I do use all of them.
Alex Lazaris:
Awesome.
Christina Jackson:
So that is nice to have things around my room that I've designed, but I don't think I've never purchased anything from just the store. As like I said before, everything is worldwide. There's not a lot of things in where I live that I work with anyway.
Alex Lazaris:
Totally. That makes sense. And if you're just tuning in right now to chat, we are currently working on packaging design for Cheesies, which is an organic, fun, whimsical cracker company. Lots of puns, lots of fun little cute illustrations. All done by the wonderful Christina from Club Creative. And if you're tuning in on YouTube.
Christina Jackson:
Make sure you come on the packaging because if you're really enjoying something, I like it if they've got it all on there and you can just have a quick look at what else is available.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, it's like encouraging them to continue enjoying more products, which is great. Jeffrey says, I like to work in non destructive, though, for when a client needs an adjustment in text. Yep, non destructive work is the best way. So she's done all of her masking on these images and things as well in Illustrator so that she's not destroying the images, but just masking out the ones she doesn't like.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, we are going to need to do that. The other two flavors. We have these images here.
Alex Lazaris:
Hey, Mike, welcome to the stream.
Christina Jackson:
So I think I'm quite happy with how this is looking now.
Alex Lazaris:
That's looking great.
Christina Jackson:
Everything fits in.
Alex Lazaris:
I can't wait to see how this looks. The mockup.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, the mockup I've got is actually like a craft mockup as well. So it's got a bit of texture to so great. It'll work well with what we're looking for.
Alex Lazaris:
Do you know if the UK has specific nutritional tables that you have to stick to or is it pretty open?
Christina Jackson:
I think a lot of them are like this and they're usually on the front, I've noticed. But we're just going for the looks today.
Alex Lazaris:
Owen's way prettier than the American version. Very boring table.
Christina Jackson:
I have seen a few that have been quite nice where I've seen some like this with the longer, but then they have curves here and it's like blocked out, separated. I've seen some nicer ones, but I think they are usually like the one above.
Alex Lazaris:
Cool.
Christina Jackson:
Now we'll start moving on with the next flavors.
Alex Lazaris:
Which one are you doing next?
Christina Jackson:
I think we should do what's the hella?
Alex Lazaris:
Goodbye.
Christina Jackson:
I am going to keep the layout very similar on all of them, but make changes that are needed. Like this. It's not going to fit. That might just need to go on two lines.
Alex Lazaris:
You outlined that type. Is there any reason in particular you outlined it versus just nudging it down.
Christina Jackson:
I prefer everything to be outlined. I don't know why, even though it's a pain, if I need to change anything. But I don't know, I feel like it's just easier to work with. I do know I saw the other day that there's this touch type tool which I didn't know existed. I think I saw it on an instagram reel the other day and was absolutely amazed.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, the touch type tool. I think Nick Longo and I were working on our brand together and he told me about it and it blew my mind and then just used it for the rest of the program. I think it was great. It's a great way of just moving things around.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah. I haven't used it properly yet, but I will definitely try it out.
Alex Lazaris:
That's pretty cool. Nicole asks, do you have any tips for getting yourself out of a creative block.
Christina Jackson:
Doing passion projects? Definitely. Yeah. Just get into passion projects. Have a look through different other people's work. Like I said, you can have a look at club creative challenges, go on the hashtag, have a look at how other people have designed that certain brand. I think that's what's good about passion projects, because everybody is working on the same brand and you get to see everyone's take on it and how they think it should work. So I think that's a good way because then you might think, oh, I think this could look like this, I think this could look like this. And then you just come up with lots of ideas. Then it feels more like a challenge then rather than I think that motivates you a little bit to try and think of some cool, fun ideas.
Alex Lazaris:
Do your challenges have like a time constraint to them or are they pretty? Just as long as you need to get it done.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, it's open. It's just there as just a resource if you need it one day. It's not any type of competition or anything. It's just if you can't think because sometimes it's hard if you are coming up with just your own projects and it's hard to come up with a business name.
Alex Lazaris:
True. Have you ever done a 15 minutes creative challenge before?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I did a while ago and I did film it for a reel and then I hated it, so then I didn't post it, but I wish I did post it because it was fun, but no, I have done a few. I've also done one where it was like you do on the random letter generator on Google and then I just generated two letters and then tried to create a monogram with those letters.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah. How did that go?
Christina Jackson:
It was actually quite good. It was fun. Yeah. I really liked working on it because I feel like with monograms, they can be very difficult sometimes, putting two letters together, especially in a specific font that you're using. So that was really fun to just play around, try a few letters, and then just in case I did ever get a client that had them same two letters, I already had a few ideas ready.
Alex Lazaris:
That's awesome. Joanne is asking, how do you cut those crackers? The menu is oh, so that was a PNG that she had, and then she used the shape and then used that as a mask. Solid color. And then was it enable Clipping Mask, is that right?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, Clipping Mask.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, Clipping Mask. And it just crops out the other pieces, but it's non destructive. So she can pull out those crackers or the other ones whenever she wants.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah. Usually if it was a proper project and it was going to print, I would spend a bit more time on them in Photoshop and cut them all out separately.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, I think that's necessary because from my experience, when it's gone to print, sometimes there's artifacts that happen. Clipping Mask, so it just makes it a little bit easier. But it's like a quick and rough mockup. Really quick.
Christina Jackson:
So now we're just going to carry on with the fill for the illustrations like we did yesterday. It's just very rough again. Mozzarella. We decided on green.
Alex Lazaris:
It's the cutest green mozarella I've ever seen.
Christina Jackson:
I don't think it should actually be green. Maybe we should add a separate color. Maybe just have the leaves green.
Alex Lazaris:
That could work really well. I feel like if everything is green in the background, it's fine. I don't think anybody's going to be made to feel like the cheese. Helena says about the creative block, I go on a walk and do a fast design challenge as well, with site that generates multiple kinds of design prompts. A prompt for UX design for physical product. That's cool. It's a really interesting idea. Yeah. I think 50 minutes challenges are great because you're constrained. I think, in my opinion, I personally struggle with open ended, where it's like, okay, I can spend four weeks on this project that is a personal project, and then all of a sudden, all the time is gone. So if I just say, okay, I'm going to spend 15 minutes on a crazy idea and then do another one and another one, then I think that helps me with just yeah, but that's just because that's how my brain works and I get really excited and work on things for way too long. It but going on a walk is a fantastic piece of advice.
Christina Jackson:
So we've got some leaves and some green mozzarella. Now I'm just going to try and work it in and.
Alex Lazaris:
In about 27 minutes, we are going to be doing the Artist Spotlight. So make sure you tune in for that's.
Christina Jackson:
Now just going to group these because we are going to keep that bait it.
Alex Lazaris:
So you're thinking that these pieces of mozzarella crackers will have some basil included in it?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I guess it can do. I think if cheeses was a real product, it could have every flavor. When I was looking into flavors, I was like, oh, we could do nacho cheese. There's so many different flavors we could have. They might do mixed flavors.
Alex Lazaris:
That's great. Helena asks, what is the spotlight? Well, Helena, the Otter Spotlight is where we get to feature some of our wonderful community members and show off their work and tell you how awesome they are and where to follow them and all that good stuff. So if you want to and you're curious, you are more than able to go to the top corner of your behance chat where it says Chat info Artist Spotlight. Click on Artist Spotlight and you can nominate yourself or friend or loved one, whoever you want to that page and they'll have a chance to be featured one day. Feel free to nominate whoever you want.
Christina Jackson:
Just add in these little geometric shapes. Again, I really like how it looks like you can feel that it's been snapped and you can see that the cracker is cracked. I guess.
Alex Lazaris:
You'Re not really a crisp or a crafter, huh?
Christina Jackson:
No, not really. I do like crisps, but I don't choose to have them. I don't go into a shop and think, oh, I can really fancy a packet of crisps. I would mom likely get a packet of sweets instead.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, I'm right there with you on that. Sayed says, I think you should add a little details on the mozzarella cheese as you have added on the cheddar cheese illustrations. Yeah, maybe a couple of little dots.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah.
Alex Lazaris:
The triangles remind me of cheese pieces.
Christina Jackson:
Oh yeah, that works.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah. Great. More cheese.
Christina Jackson:
I feel like mozzarella is really just quite smooth, so maybe we could just add lines on the outside rather than on the inside.
Alex Lazaris:
Oh, yeah. There you go.
Christina Jackson:
It's just going to do the same as yesterday. Just make it quite thin. And.
Alex Lazaris:
I know you mentioned that you have clients all over the world. Which country or place would you want to go visit a client to see their project?
Christina Jackson:
Probably would be in America.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah. Whereabouts?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I have one in San Francisco, I think, and then Sacramento.
Alex Lazaris:
Is that in it's outside of yeah, it's in California.
Christina Jackson:
I also have one in New York. That's a bakery one, which I am still currently working on. Yeah. So that hopefully will be opening sometime soon. So that would be really nice to see walking past and seeing the shop sign everything inside. Then I would probably have to eat some cakes and baked goods.
Alex Lazaris:
Absolutely. And I can ask, how does Christina find the right contrast for colors for a branding project?
Christina Jackson:
I think just a lot of just playing around of it trial and error having a look. Even with this right now, I'm not 100% sure on the green, but I think it works on everything else. But I think with this, it's just not the clearest to read on the craft. But we can have a look at that after we've done this one. But yeah, I think it's just a lot of trial and error playing around, seeing what works best and if you can print it out, see how it looks printed, if you've got those specific materials, if it is a printed project, but with just branding projects, then I just try out a few options. I feel like I just normally I would have some understanding of what the client the direction the client wants to go. And I will have a look into those colors. Like, if they say, oh, we definitely want blues in there, then usually with the two concepts that I send over, one of them would be more the safer option with exactly what they asked for. And one might include a complete crazy color palette that I think would be amazing, but they might not want that. So I do try and propose two different styles in the two concepts, but with the colors, I do just play around like we did yesterday. We just went through a few colors and looked at what we thought would work.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, I think like you said, you're kind of also trying to balance it with the other colors in the brand as well. Not just one piece.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, we definitely want to keep them all bright. I think sometimes if we do have one really deep color, so maybe in the future, if Cheesy's has a very large product line, then they might have to go down a few color palettes and have some deep darker colors and some lighter pastel colors. But for now, with these three, we're going for really bright, strong colors. It.
Alex Lazaris:
Illustrations are super fun. Just love how you're pulling them together.
Christina Jackson:
It actually we're going to need to cut out these holes. I just realized she's in the Pathfinder tool, which is probably my favorite tool on Illustrator.
Alex Lazaris:
I love that tool as well, but I always click it around and do 15 versions of it first.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah.
Alex Lazaris:
Is this the right one? Is this the right one?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I think I always just use the top left and bottom left, so but I am trying to start using the shape builder tool a lot more. But I got taught the Pathfinder tool and I've always just stuck with the Pathfinder tool.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, I mean, if it's working. Any beginner advice for a beginner on packaging design?
Christina Jackson:
I would say just have a look at other packaging out there, see how they fit things in, how they work around the little small spaces. Just get a lot of other already made packaging, have a look around your house, anything you've bought recently. Just take a look at what's already been made and just see how they fit everything in. But I guess if you are just starting to do packaging, then just do some research, have a look at what size text needs to be, all stuff like that, really. And just have a play around and see what works.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, it's good advice. I think for me, whenever I think about trying a new project or something I haven't had experience in is understanding what I love about what they've done. And so it could be like four things I could love the type or the contrast or the patterns or the illustrations. And then that helps kind of break down things. Because I think if you look at it on surface value without diving deep into what makes it work for you, then it can be a little bit daunting because it's too much information. If you like break it down systematically, you can start to understand and kind of replicate without dealing.
Christina Jackson:
This one looks really angry with the red Jeez Louise.
Alex Lazaris:
About 15 minutes before the audit spotlight. But if you are on YouTube and you're wondering where is all these questions and these fantastic comments coming from? Well, it's because they're on Behance. So make sure you come over to Adobe Live, type in Chat, hang out with us here. We'll answer any questions you have. Happy to help. Colby says loves the type. What up, Colby? How are you doing? Because it's very fun. Or it's fun.
Christina Jackson:
So we have all the flavors all completed, everything's here.
Alex Lazaris:
Sweet. Johanna's asking are we going to see the final product? I think that's probably the next stage, right?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah.
Alex Lazaris:
Showing those mockups.
Christina Jackson:
Think I'm actually going to keep it simpler around the side, the back of packet, just for them. Once we put it on the mockups, we can just use the one because they are all the same on everyone. Maybe try a darker green. I think it's just a really hard color.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah.
Christina Jackson:
That one. We have all of the packaging completed, all the flavors are on there. The fun puns the images and the illustrations and start to get it ready for mockups.
Alex Lazaris:
It says it's looking really nice.
Christina Jackson:
Good.
Alex Lazaris:
So are you mocking it up? Oh, you have to break it apart for the yeah.
Christina Jackson:
I'm just all.
Alex Lazaris:
64. TV says it'd be nice to see the crackers in illustration form too. Yeah, that could be a cool like a poster design later on if she wanted to redo everything and not redo the things, but also add cracker illustrations too, later on. Great thing with the system is it's flexible, right? So you can add as many illustrations as you need for whatever advertising campaign you might need as well.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I think with this, I just really wanted to have some real imagery in there just then they know what they're buying, I think because this packaging is so crazy and out there and just full of information, you might not know what it is from just cheesy.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah. So right now you are explain this process of this image down.
Christina Jackson:
So I'm just using the size that I already got from the mockup and then just using the clipping mask to put all the artwork in, just so then it's easier to move over onto Photoshop rather than having the full. So now I know exactly where the center of the design is.
Alex Lazaris:
Got it. Makes sense.
Christina Jackson:
And then we'll also do the same for the side.
Alex Lazaris:
TV 64. She does not use Dimension right now, but is looking into it later on.
Christina Jackson:
Definitely. I hadn't even heard of it quite only recently I've started seeing it all over Instagram. Everyone started trying it out recently. I've seen a lot of it on Instagram reels, but no, I hadn't heard of it before then.
Alex Lazaris:
Jenna says, I heard today most printers can print in RGB. Is that why you edit in RGB?
Christina Jackson:
No, we mentioned this yesterday. We were giving ourselves the full budget and we're just going from not looking too much into the print specifications or anything, but yeah, I wish every client had the biggest budget and they could print an RGB. But I know that it is hard and it can get quite costly. So it is upsetting. I've had times where I've worked in RGB and I've not realized till the very end. And then I switch it over to CMYK and then it's just so dull and ugly.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah. So you'd ask, where do you find inspiration for using the fonts? Did you already have an idea of trying to do some mercury goodness? Or did you kind of already have something pretty chunky?
Christina Jackson:
It was just from when I was looking at other packaging of other products and I searched up just like natural packaging, organic packaging, healthy food, snack packaging. And then I just saw the handwritten style and I just really liked the way that and I just started having a look round on different websites. Usually I think I had to look through Adobe Fonts, Google Fonts, Creative Market, and then just tried yesterday we purred them all together, looked at what worked best, the headline and the accent font and the body copy. I did want to go for this playful type font where it's not so serious and so clean and tidy.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah.
Christina Jackson:
This it it.
Alex Lazaris:
So when you're mocking these mockups up, because these mockups can get pretty heavy. Are you working off of just one file or are you working on three individual ones for each no, I do.
Christina Jackson:
Usually just work off one, but I do normally just hope for the best that it's going to survive. But we will see. I think it should be okay.
Alex Lazaris:
Sweet. And yesterday you mentioned that these are from yellow images.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah.
Alex Lazaris:
You said you have a front and a back, is that correct?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, we have a front and a back. Yeah. The back has a seam right down the center. That's why we just had to do that where we slightly pushed one side of the information to the right.
Alex Lazaris:
Eight minutes until the artist spotlight and see if we can get a mockup cranked out before then.
Christina Jackson:
I hope so.
Alex Lazaris:
See if these gigantic Vexter files allow that.
Christina Jackson:
There we go.
Alex Lazaris:
It.
Christina Jackson:
All seems to fit. We'll just export these as we go just in case we do have time. It.
Alex Lazaris:
Is there a reason why you paste it in as pixels over like a smart object or layer? Is there a path or shape layer or anything like that?
Christina Jackson:
I'm just doing it as pixels now just because I am worried that they might be a little bit too crazy. Normally I do just put them in as smart objects.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, smart objects are a great way to go about it. But if you are worried about computer performance and things like that, then doing pixels probably a good bet.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah. You're having.
Alex Lazaris:
Jenna says this is so cool. Starry eyes, smiley face. It's looking just perfect. Heart eyes. TV 64. Looks awesome. Excellent mockup. They're great mockups.
Christina Jackson:
I'm getting something. Let's go. Think I might just delete.
Alex Lazaris:
It. Awesome. You can always adjust your levels and some of those filters if you're not completely happy with what the creator of the mockup made. So if you want, you can just mess with that.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I do usually mess around with it sometimes.
Alex Lazaris:
Jonas says, how is the highlights and shadows added to the smart object? This one has pre built into it, but each one has typically like a bunch of different layers within it. So she's kind of showing right now.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah. So there is a lot in here.
Alex Lazaris:
A gold layer. Sign me up.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah.
Alex Lazaris:
Sucker for gold layers. Do you think a mockup presentation is as important as designing the artwork?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I do think mockups help a lot. Mockups just sell the brand for you. If you show people how it will look in real life, they're more likely to be able to visualize the product. And it's nice for yourself as well to see what you've designed.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah. TV also agrees. It says help solve the design. The flat design might not properly be appreciated by the client. I think bottles especially like I think if you can make a physical mockup for it and hand it to the client, they can see it, feel it, hold it.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah.
Alex Lazaris:
Anything you can do that helps with the presentation factor and will help sell the idea.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I do find with what you've just mentioned, the bottles and any labeling work. Normally, when you send them the full flat label, they can't picture what will be shown and what won't be shown. So then sometimes mockups are really helpful there to show them. This is how much you're going to see on the front of the bottle, and this is what's on the side and this is what's on the back.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah. I think it also helps contextualize. I think a lot of times if they just look at the flat thing, they might say, oh, we need to have XYZ added to this. If not, then we don't have enough information. But if you see it on the actual packaging yeah. Oh, we actually don't have any more room. Like, we're already out of space, so it makes it easier to say, okay, we don't need to add every single.
Christina Jackson:
Little yeah, this is where I was having the problem yesterday because of this fold. So this information would actually be underneath the fold. So we could just chop it off so it looks like it is actually under the fold.
Alex Lazaris:
Joseph asks, Where did you get the mockup from? This packaging design is amazing. This is from yellow images, but you can find mockups on Creative Market Adobe stock. You work for them, you said Etsy yesterday, which I thought was really yeah, yeah.
Christina Jackson:
There's a lot on.
Alex Lazaris:
Of lots of spots. LS store or LS graphics as well.
Christina Jackson:
We have the back of the pack.
Alex Lazaris:
Nice.
Christina Jackson:
And then we just have one more for the front.
Alex Lazaris:
Cool. Let's throw that in and then we'll jump into the Artist Spotlight.
Christina Jackson:
Sure.
Alex Lazaris:
Abdul, we mentioned just a couple of minutes ago why she's pasting as a pixel, not a smart object is because of computer resources. Right now, smart objects are great, but to save some resources and processing power, just putting it as a pixel right now is fine.
Christina Jackson:
There we go. We have all the packets done.
Alex Lazaris:
Awesome. Well then let's jump into our words. Artist Spotlight. If you want to nominate yourself, friends, family, coworkers, other creatives, make sure you do that up in the top right corner of your screen where it says Artist Spotlight. There's a nomination button there today. Our wonderful artist that we're spotlighting is Mike Musas, located in the Dominican Republic, democratic Republic of Congo. Sorry. And make sure that you go over to his page, check him out on Behance, but he's also got a follow button there. Make sure you hit that. Give him a good, like, check out his work, give him some comments, some praises, all that good stuff. We're just dive into his work really quick so you can see a glimpse of who Mike is and what he creates. Looks like this is a Chiropractic brand.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah. Oh, I really love anything that's animated. I wish I could do it.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, this is a great way of kind of showing how everything comes together.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I really like that.
Alex Lazaris:
I think it's really clever. I think one of my favorite pieces is the before and after.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, this is really nice.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, it's such a clever solution as well, with the ampersand. Getting the curvature of the spine incorporated is super cool.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah. Oh, I really like it when creators do this as well, when they explain why they've done certain things. Yeah, that's super nice. Yeah.
Alex Lazaris:
Wade just posted Mike's Behance in Chat, so make sure you check it out. It's a direct link for you right there.
Christina Jackson:
Here are the mockups. This is what I mean by it sells the brand. It's nice to see the products, the design on the mockups.
Alex Lazaris:
Absolutely. This is a great way of getting clients buy in and saying, have you thought about letterheads and folders and things like that? It's like, yes, I have. Here you go.
Christina Jackson:
Oh, these are fun. They are fun. I could imagine them as little gifts.
Alex Lazaris:
For Instagram stories or animations on a website.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, awesome. That's really fun. Social media templates. It all works really well. The colors, the logo.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, it's cool.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah.
Alex Lazaris:
Nice. Want to check out another one?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, this one caught my eye. I think this one's so cool. Illustration work. Even the pattern in the background. And this with the added grain on top.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, that little bit of noise really brings it to life.
Christina Jackson:
It really suits the style. It's really cool. I wonder if he's selling these posters.
Alex Lazaris:
Mike, we saw you in Chat earlier. Let us know if you're selling these posters. They're really cool.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I really like all the different landmarks. It does say they're his poster project. These are really nice.
Alex Lazaris:
Well, Mike, if you're still around, let us know if you're selling them off that are just living on the digital world right now. Or not. Yeah, whichever one you want to click on. Follow Congo electric. Oh, some more animation. I know you love the animation.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, that's really cool. I like how he's done that arrow.
Alex Lazaris:
That's a great way of bringing that brand to life and kind of reinforcing the motion that's already happening in the logo.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, very cool. Again, this is really nice to see. This is really cool, how he's got from one location to another.
Alex Lazaris:
That's awesome. Nicely done. Your case studies are really robust. Yeah, great to see. So make sure you check out Mike. We'll scroll down and make sure we can shout out his Instagram as well. But Mike, fantastic work. Great to see you on behalf. So you got your contact information there, your Twitter, your Dribble, Instagram, all shared there as well. So make sure you give Mike a follow, check out all their social media. Make sure you go give him a comment. Tell him Creative Community is with him. So it's perfect. We'll get back to the mockups now. Thank you, Mike. Oh, Mike's still here. Let us know about your posters. They're so cool. Awesome to see, man. Cool. So where are we at now in the project? What else do we have left? We got about 20 minutes.
Christina Jackson:
I think we should work on a poster. Something like Available now for sale. Yeah, just show off the flavors, the products. Imagine it in a shop, a billboard, a bus stop, anything like that.
Alex Lazaris:
Love it. Do you have mockups for all those?
Christina Jackson:
No, we just have a poster today. Just going to drag those in. I think it would be really fun as well. All the social media for this product. Maybe I could work on that at a later date and then upload them onto my Instagram.
Alex Lazaris:
That'd be fun. Going to do a four x four like you did?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, maybe.
Alex Lazaris:
I was gushing on her four x fours. If you're not familiar, check out her Instagram. She does these really great little snapshots of kind of her whole brand deck that you might normally see in like a Behance post, but it's just a single post on her Instagram. You see the kind of full spectrum of each brand. It's really cool stuff. Would you put like a drop shadow behind each of them?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I think so. It's really nice to see them all lined up together.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, it's like this is like a real brand already. Who would have thought?
Christina Jackson:
I'm just adding just a light drop shadow on those. Not too much.
Alex Lazaris:
Mike says that the posters collection was a passion project. See, that's what we're talking about earlier. Passion projects are a great way to get people excited about what you're able to do. And Mike is delivering in spades, so great job.
Christina Jackson:
You should definitely start selling those.
Alex Lazaris:
Cool.
Christina Jackson:
I really want to use this ticket idea just because it's on the packaging itself. So I think we could use that maybe as like a border for the textbook. Make it a little bit longer.
Alex Lazaris:
Using this as like the headline border. Is that correct?
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I think I might put something like available now. It.
Alex Lazaris:
What kind of background are you going to use? Or background color? Are you going to keep it light or are you going to do something a little bit more spicy?
Christina Jackson:
I think we should maybe try and pull in all three of the colors. Maybe we could stick with a craft, but I think because we've got the craft package in, it might be a bit too much craft.
Alex Lazaris:
I agree. It could be kind of has a typewritery feel. Maybe it's because the letter spacing on it. It feels like yeah, it's interesting. I think it's just at that size compared to the rest as well. Or maybe it's a black background, but yeah, it's cool stuff. What's the name of that typeface that.
Christina Jackson:
You'Re using is Copy Sender Sands. That one's from Creative Market, I think.
Alex Lazaris:
Oh, nice.
Christina Jackson:
I think it would be really fun to have all the little doodles everywhere that we've designed things like this. That'd be cute.
Alex Lazaris:
What other copy are you thinking you're going to need to put on there? Is it just available now?
Christina Jackson:
I think we should have the logo and maybe just the flavors, maybe above and below the packets.
Alex Lazaris:
That's a good idea. Available at Tesco's.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, we could do and have a look for a Tesco.
Alex Lazaris:
The only brand I know that's as limited as my UK knowledge goes in terms of where I can buy chips or crackers.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, Tesco orders. As I I do usually go to Tesco.
Alex Lazaris:
It.
Christina Jackson:
Put them all in a line so then I can make sure they're all aligned and in the same.
Alex Lazaris:
Michelle says the smiley face you can also use.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, definitely.
Alex Lazaris:
We have about 20 minutes left, or sorry, 14 minutes left, so make sure if you have any questions, please let us know. We'd love to answer them for you. It's looking really good. I love that I could see this really sticking out on, like a Subway ad or yeah, subway like us. It's fun.
Christina Jackson:
Maybe we could add some of these just flying around in the background. It lets me.
Alex Lazaris:
Doing a lot of thinking today.
Christina Jackson:
Maybe we could have some just it maybe we could just have pieces kind of flying around, sticking out everywhere.
Alex Lazaris:
That's fun. Get the crumbs everywhere. I could see there being a lot of fun copy around crummage. So when you're working on these posters, how do you typically kind of approach them? Are you looking at hierarchy, messaging? What are your thoughts?
Christina Jackson:
I think usually I normally would sketch it all out first on a piece of paper and see what content goes where, and then normally I would have all the content ready and have it all. I would normally just type it all out here. Then I could see it all, see how many words are in certain sentences and see where could each thing go. And then I normally just gather everything that needs to go on there and have a look at everything and then just start coming up with ideas and playing around with layout.
Alex Lazaris:
The great thing is, with all these pieces being vectorized is you have endless opportunity to yeah, do a series of these posters, one offs billboards, wrap a vehicle, whatever you want.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, you can really just go crazy with it.
Alex Lazaris:
Is there anything on this project so far that you wish you could have done differently or changed or would do better for next time? Was it all pretty spot on?
Christina Jackson:
I think maybe I would have liked to work on the brand itself a bit more so the logo work and see whether we could have done something fun. I think because there's so many e's, we could have had something really fun. Maybe we could have turned one of them into a little face, a little smiley face in there. I think that could have been really fun.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah, I feel like the logo is in a really good spot. Even though it's just kind of a typeface, it works well, especially with how you treated it on all the packaging. It reads well. It feels nice. It's pretty lovely.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah. I think it has worked well. Just because we have pushed on all the content, everything. We've really gone crazy with the illustrations and the images.
Alex Lazaris:
Absolutely.
Christina Jackson:
I think if it was a bit more plain, we might have needed to add a bit more to the logo.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah.
Christina Jackson:
So I'm just adding all sorts everywhere, just making the poster as busy as the packaging themselves. We could add smiley faces.
Alex Lazaris:
That's what we're missing. Smiley faces.
Christina Jackson:
Yes.
Alex Lazaris:
I feel so much better with a couple of smileys on there. Chef's kiss. So if you were to present this to a client, what other pieces of collateral or mockups would you include to kind of sell and win the pitch?
Christina Jackson:
I think I would definitely show this show maybe on a shelf, if I could find a mock up like that. Or maybe I would even if it was a really big project that I really wanted to get, then maybe I would get some craft paper, print it out, glue it together, and take it into a shop and just take a picture of it. But I think what else could you really produce? Probably, like you said, like, show it on a bus stop, show it how it can be advertised in different locations. Maybe even show it with some kids or adults eating it, holding the packet. I'm just going to try the craft and see how it works. Yeah, I think there's a bit too much craft.
Alex Lazaris:
I think if you took all this content and just duplicated it and did one offs now, it would work really well with the colored background. So if you did the original Cheesy easy yeah. And then just did a yellow swatch in the background, that packaging will pop off and it just would look awesome. And I could see that performing super well in a social post or like a busy, like when you're scrolling through Instagram, all of a sudden you get hit with that color palette and the craft, and it just looked so good.
Christina Jackson:
Think maybe we could try right.
Alex Lazaris:
See if all the color the colors work together or not.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, hopefully it's green. Yellow. It almost it reminds me of traffic lights, but yellow instead.
Alex Lazaris:
I might need something a little bit more neutral.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah, I do think it's fun. And it shows that there's three flavors.
Alex Lazaris:
Yeah.
Christina Jackson:
It could be nice if we had maybe like a wooden countertop or a marble countertop. Proper image. Maybe we can try out what you mentioned and just do the one squeeze off.
Alex Lazaris:
I think we'll only have time for just the one.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah.
Alex Lazaris:
About four minutes left. So two minutes to get this mock up out. I know you don't really do the time based challenges, but you have one now.
Christina Jackson:
This can be a lot smaller for this one.
Alex Lazaris:
Cooking goodbye. Yeah, I think that's awesome. I think, like, if you were to be scrolling through Instagram or whatever, hit with that bright yellow, perform really well. So we have just enough time to get a quick little recap in love to see, kind of over the last two days, all the progress you've made, all this great work that you've done. Just a quick little yeah.
Christina Jackson:
Let's see where we started. So, at the beginning, we had the mood board. I think we have definitely hit all the points that we wanted to with the hand lettering, the craft, the puns, the full packaging, the illustrations. And we've managed to mix in the real imagery with the illustrations. So I think that's worked well. The fonts we've used, all the fonts that we chose, used the logo as is, and we've chosen the colors. We have tweaked a few colors to make it work on the craft, but it seemed to have worked well. Illustrations, we've got the smiley everywhere. We've got the cheeses. We decided to add a fill on them just to make them pop a bit more in the packaging. We've worked on all product information and placed them into the designs. These are all the label, the packaging designs we've created. We've mixed in the hand drawn illustrations into images, used all the fonts that we've chosen, and, yes, just created a really fun brand. And here are the final mockups. The back is here, too.
Alex Lazaris:
These are great. Honestly, this is such an exciting brand. And I think the color palettes are working now. The illustrations are fun. I think the mockups really like you mentioned, they help sell the product, they sell the idea concept. Oh, look, you do have a poster mockup.
Christina Jackson:
Yeah.
Alex Lazaris:
Like, I got to get it. Got to get it. I think we can, if your photoshop will participate. Oh, we can do it. We can do it.
Christina Jackson:
I don't think it's quite the right size. We'll make it work.
Alex Lazaris:
Ship it. There we go. Saved. All right.
Christina Jackson:
There we go.
Alex Lazaris:
So beautiful. So easy. Cheesy. Love that. Perfect. Well, Christina, thank you so much for these wonderful two days. I've learned a ton. I'm sure Chat has as well. This has been super fun. So where do people find you again?
Christina Jackson:
You can go to my Instagram, Club Creative Ltd. Or on Behance or to my website, but I'm mainly on Instagram, so club Creative Ltd.
Alex Lazaris:
Perfect. Love that. And if you are just now tuning in, make sure you stick around. We have some really exciting Adobe Creative Challenge encores after the stream. So you'll see some of the best of the XD Creative Challenges, but then also come back tomorrow. Andrew Hawkrettle and Nick Longo, two wonderful humans, are doing a very special episode of their Office Hours. This Friday. Their Office Hours episodes hit their hundredth episode, so it's going to be a very exciting, very fun stream. I can't wait to see it with you all. See you all soon. Thank you, everyone, for hanging out.
Christina Jackson:
See you later. Bye.
