Notecard iconography

A list of key iconography in which may be used was outlined within a mindmap. A vast amount of visual ideas were recorded in order to develop a broad spectrum. Envelopes, stationary, British teacups and balloons were all highlighted as paths in which I may wish to follow. As the notecards have to be maintained within one set it is pertinent that all the design iconography links. As a result of this the key ideas were separated into groups. These are listed below. 

• Teacup, kettle, teapot and cutlery. 
• Balloons, streamers, cake, banner
• Speech bubbles, thought bubbles, stationary and paper planes, post it notes 
• Waving hands, fingers crossed

Once listed within specific groups it became evident which groups appeared strongest in nature. With set 2/3 appearing the most relevant to the project. Idea 2 felt somewhat 'tied' to a birthday theme and thus I asked my peers what they thought. They suggested that the usage of cakes/banners lead the design towards a birthday theme and that this must be changed if I wanted to broaden the usage of the notes. 

The 3rd idea felt far less restrictive with multiple usages of iconography being listed. The 3rd theme also specifically relates to the work hard youth in which is the intended consumer of this product. As a result of this the 'Speech bubbles, thought bubbles, stationary and paper planes, post it notes' theme was selected. 

Initially rough sketches were developed in order to outline some specific ways in which the designs may be formulated. Structure was key when developing these ideas as when completing the designs using ink the process can often become messy and feel 'unstructured'.

 Iconography was explored widely with ink. Green was used as the base colour as this can be easily manipulated using CAD. Multiple approaches of the same piece of iconography were developed in order to explore the design fully. This allowed myself to select the designs in which I felt most appropriate. A key example of this was that a variety of shapes were explored with in order to formulate the speech bubble. This was to allow for a design in which felt friendly yet focused upon the cards structure. The oval design was selected as this felt far more friendly than the square, and felt more imbalance than the circle.