CUSTOM STICKER DESIGN FOR PACIFIC UNION COLLEGE
How can we create sticker designs that effectively represent Pacific Union College's unique culture and values while adhering to branding guidelines?
How can we create sticker designs that effectively represent Pacific Union College's unique culture and values while adhering to branding guidelines?
Adobe Illustrator
4 Weeks
Inspiration, Conceptualization, Market Research, Design Work, Refine + Launch
Myself - Lead Designer
Caleb Pudewell - Art Director
PROCESS
TOOLS
SCOPE
I thrive on challenges, especially those that stretch my design skills in new directions. With Caleb asking me to take over, I eagerly took on the project as an opportunity to delve deeper into Adobe Illustrator and venture into creating my first physical product.
DESIGN CONSTRAINTS
Pacific Union College, nestled in Napa Valley, annually seeks a fresh sticker design to enhance their collection. However, as a private university with specific branding guidelines, I quickly learned that traditional regional areas of Napa Valley such as vineyards or wine wouldn't work. Furthermore, limitations extended to exclude anything associated with California or Northern California, ruling out more touristy places like Los Angeles or Santa Monica beach.
This project encouraged me to think creatively, exploring innovative design approaches to craft stickers that truly embody the spirit of Pacific Union College.
PROBLEM
PROBLEM
Crafting stickers within brand boundaries
Crafting stickers within brand boundaries
previous designs
Moodboard
& color palette
Moodboard
& color palette
The initial reason why I didn't add the mountains with design #3 was because it would have made the text harder to see. Even if I were to make the text smaller it still would be hard to distinguish the name of the college even from a far.
As of July 2024 this project is still ongoing and will provide updates as they come.
THAT SAID, THERE WAS A CHALLENGE
The client ended up moving forward with design #3, and added they wanted the scenery to continue to the other lens similar to designs #1 and #2.
SECOND REVISION
During the last phase of the concepts I focused on the overall designs on the lenses. I enjoyed playing around with continuing the scenery to both lenses with the name of the college sitting behind the text, but found the text to fit tight around the lenses. In the end, During this phase I sent the images to Caleb to review and make minor edits.
After Caleb's reviewal we smoothed out the lines of the sunglasses, changed the aviators to a light blue, changing the dock color so it's more visible, and added another variation of sunglasses with a bolder font.
FIRST DRAFT
Since I'm not super familiar with Northern California, I decided to do some market research of things that Napa Valley and Northern California are known for. As I was going through the common tourist attractions I remembered the time I saw California Sea Lions for the first time. I really liked the boardwalk idea from the first design and decided to incorporate a sea lion instead of a ferris wheel.
During this phase I included a concept with the bear as it's on the California state flag. with the bear I wanted to include a more dynamic scenery and added the bear in the water with mountains in the background.
Finally, I played around with the idea of binoculars instead of sunglasses Given that California is known for it's outdoor activities I wanted to see what I could do. However, the problem I ran into was the binoculars being difficult to distinguish so decided to focus on the two sunglass designs instead.
CONCEPT 02
CONCEPT 02
In this first concept, I went to thinking about the beach. First concept I quickly created a ferris wheel to represent the coastal activities to do in California. However, we decided not to go through with this design as ferris wheel activities typically related to Santa Monica, which is too far from the college.
CONCEPT 01
CONCEPT 01
FINAL DESIGN
With the feedback and the help of the creative director I was able to redesign the bear design in a dynamic way that allows for the scenery to go over both lenses.
Right off the bat, the first thing I learned from this experience was the importance of spending time in the initial research. By spending more time in the research it would have helped with navigating the early challenges I faced before I came up with the designs that were sent to the client.
I also would have wanted to play around more with the fonts. Any designer would know that looking for a font can take days, but with a deadline I decided to use a font from a previous design so it looked overall cohesive with the rest of the sticker designs.
I learned a lot throughout this project.
I learned a lot throughout this project.
