Art 254 - A Tropical Luau 21st Birthday Dinner Invitation Final

So after trying to fit all my text into a box and not achieving the results I had intended I needed to scratch the concept and look towards a different solution.

I tried to keep a few of the elements of the previous design that I felt was working. I still kept a rather close to being in a box but some of the text was laid a lot more loosely and didn't feel so congested in a compact space. Here is what I came up with first...

I still wasn't entirely too crazy with this concept. I felt it was rather static to me and didn't have much appeal.

So I started playing with changing some of the colors in the background. And eventually I started looking at interesting textures to use. I also thought it would be fun throwing all of the copy into a 45 degree angle. Here's a dirty stained wall look.



Here I tried a fun color rich texture



A more cool feel



Finally I found a texture I really enjoyed. It's a simple bokeh picture, or out of focus. I really like the random smooth shapes. It brings a nice energy to the design.


I was really drawn to this concept and really wanted to explore using the bokeh concept, but there was still something missing to tie everything together. I still really didn't have a primary concept other than it being a 21st birthday party. So what does that mean? I needed to do more research. I looked at endless party theme ideas however most of them were too cliché.

I finally got to a theme that I was excited for, a Tropical Luau. I went to Hawaii a few years ago and went to a luau and it was a blast, and I'm heading back to Hawaii this summer, so thought it'd be good since I can also relate to it.

I kept the bokeh texture from the previous version I had however color adjusted the image so it would be green to go with the new tropical luau theme I was going for.

I changed the tilt to a 15 degree angle instead of the previous 45 degrees I had it set and updated some of the type. I changed the "you are cordially" to a script as suggested and aligned it with the type above it. I also increased the weight of the word bash. I also added some lei's on top of the shot glasses. I like they look on top of the glasses but was afraid it was making that area too busy or was taking away from the glasses...

The front starting to feel good, but there was still a few issues I had to work out. Getting things aligned. And some staying consistent with the colors.


Then I worked on the inside spread of the luau themed invitation for the guest lists and menu. I choose celebrities with Hawaiian roots for my guests and traditional luau foods for the menu. I added an illustration of the luau girl in the center. I had some images of luau performers working with fire on the bottom and got another bokeh image in green.


So I finally had to part with my beloved shot glasses I had as the I's. Don't worry, I will find a way to use them in some other project! The luau girl I had in the center page was very well received and it was suggested that she gets a companion male counterpart. The new luau couple now stand in as the I's for the word invitation. I think it still reads well with them there.


The massive white boxes I had laid the body copy on was a bit distracting and taking away from the nice textures I had. So I tried setting the type in a more grid like structure and also decreased the angle of the text from 15 to 5 degrees to help increase readability. I change the body copy to white with red accents for headers. I also added a short party theme description box on the right page of the spread. The tropical luau couple got blown up and I placed them aside to the edges purposely bleeding off a bit since I didn't want to take too much space away from my body copy or I'd have to reduce the font too much.


I worked on the backside for the directions page. I got an image of PSU off Google and used the same bokeh image on the front page and faded it into the map. I also added a tiki torch to identify the location.



I removed the date/time info that was on the bottom of this page to the center page, since I felt it was a bit distracting on the front. I increased the darkness of the certain parts of the green bokeh so the white letter forms would pop more since I thought some of it was getting lost.


Not too much changed with the center page. I did find that when I showed the guest and menu page to people, they were sort of confused at first what they were looking at. The little tiny "guests" and "menu" tags I had on the luau characters were hardly noticeable so I moved them to the page of the page and really enlarged it and angled them to match the body copy.


The previous version of the map I had was extremely pixelated when I printed it out. I decided to actually illustrate the whole map out myself. This way I was able to completely control the elements and keep the the colors consistent. I also titled the page like I did on the center page with the large condense header at the angle and slightly bleeding off the top.


(sorry for the super long post!)