Design a Day Challenge - Day Four

If I don't have any pressing business to attend to in my mornings, I like to catch up on some of my favourite blogs. One of them is the fabulous http://crumbsandpetals.com. This blog has a fantastic mix of subjects for its daily posts including delicious recipes, art and design, gardening, good reads and general life-enriching finds and experiences. I would definitely recommend subscribing!

Today's post was a round-up of lobster based design goodies: http://crumbsandpetals.com/2014/07/friday-wishlist-the-world-is-your-lobster/

Not only were the products beautifully designed, but this post was laden with accompanying lobster puns. I love a good fish pun. 

It reminded me of another design that has been in the back of my head for some time and I decided to realise this idea for today's design. I'm naming today Fish Pun Friday!

My first requirement for this task was some fishy drawings. I opted for a dip pen and ink to get some good watery textures.

They're supposed to be flatfish, or plaice. It was quite a tricky drawing task!

My next step was to scan them and import them into Adobe Illustrator. I decided to Live-Trace my drawings to simplify them and adjust the faces. Here's how they looked once they were traced into vectors and tweaked a bit.

I find it fascinating to see the way that Illustrator can change your drawings depending on how much tone and texture you allow it to trace.

I adjusted them a bit more, added a background colour and some additional paint splatters. Finally, I added my text, which was also hand-drawn and scanned in. 

Today's Design - Your Plaice or Mine?