life’s not a paragraph

in my computer type class we were assigned to create a beverage company and create the packaging for it. that required us to choose our beverage, find an existing bottle that we liked, and decide on the name, colors and logo of the drink. we could pretty much do anything.

i decided i wanted to do something tropical. my roommate and i were brainstorming, and she thought of aloe vera juice (something new on the health food scene apparently). i love the way aloe vera leaves look, so i though why not? i’ll make aloe vera and mango juice.

i wish i could say violà and it was done beautifully, but design doesn’t really work like that. so i am struggling along trying to grapple with the excess white space i have in my current design. i think i kind of got stuck on one idea, which now, i am realizing, isn’t completely working. i think i need to start doing more work in the beginning stages. i am awful at sketching. i just want to get on the computer and start messing around, where i really need to start spending more time with a good old fashioned pencil and paper to flesh out my ideas.

one of my favorite professors says that the thumbnail/brainstorming stage should be extensive and exhaustive. i should have all of my ideas on paper in rough form. basically i need to design vomit all over my sketchbook before i start doing the actual design work. i am starting to realize that the process i am currently working with (which is not at all exhaustive) is not working, and it ends up causing problems in the long run. this is a habit i really need to change. it’ll be for the better, but it’s going to be hard to do.