Although the cellophane bag approach worked well for small stickers, I thought my prints needed something a little more sturdy and clean-cut. Therefore I constructed this card envelope for my prints to slot neatly into. I think this is the best packaging approach out of all the ones I have considered as it combines all the best elements: pragmatic, sturdy, easy to get into and neat.

Having thought some more about my packaging, I thought it’d actually be nicer to see the images. For my research I made some stickers (top image) and packaged them in a cellophane bag. I think something similar would also work with my prints and would also give a preview of one of the images so are more practical than the brown paper wrapping.

Here are some designs for the top bit of card that I will attach to the prints. I tried out the sheep again but I think I would like to have the sheep at the front of the set as it is one of my favourites and I think it is an eye-catching composition. Therefore I mocked up a cow to see what that would look like and also a group of animals. I prefer the group as it shows that several different issues will be covered and makes the animals seem more ‘united’ for their rights.

After deciding to use A4 prints, I experimented with packaging them. I had already designed a cover for the set and tried ways of tying them all together. However I was concious of the practically of this and didn’t think that this method would keep the prints together well enough to pick up. It also offered no protection which prompted me to wrap them up in brown paper, like I did a couple of weeks ago (can be seen here) and as in the post below. I think this is much more pragmatic and also aesthetically pleasing  especially with the strip of card with the tiger. This is an idea I came up with the morning I went to print, based on the set of postcards I picked up at the London Book Fair and luckily I made the image just in case I didn’t like how the sheep cover turned out.

Having tried this wrapping approach, I am not sure it is right for my set of prints. Although a person would get an example of my illustration from the cover strip, it is a bit fiddly to get into and perhaps looks too handmade/craft fair-esque. I feel that a ‘cleaner’ and more simplistic method of packaging is needed.

I found this example of packaging postcards here and love the subtle and professional look of it. I also came across the brown envelope packaging here and think it is worth trying with my prints.

Printed out my final images on the library printers on 200gsm paper. You can’t tell from these photos but I initially printed out A3 versions (bottom image) but was unsure if this was too big. Therefore I printed A4 versions too and found I much preferred this size as I think my illustrations are more suited to a smaller size.

A few different compositions and background colours. I have obviously used the same font as all my images to keep it cohesive and in the first image have used the same background colour as the hanging sheep illustration in order to really tie in the cover. This is the last image I tried out of the five pictured here but it is my favourite at the moment. Although I like all three animals individually, I feel that together they look a big cluttered and unbalance the composition. Having just one animal simplifies it and doesn’t draw the eye to the bottom of the page as much.

Different approaches to the rabbit’s eyes. I originally drew them as in the first image but wanted to make it more obvious that it was looking upwards at the text.

I thought that is would be nice to have some sort of cover image for my prints to bring them together and ‘set the theme’ for them. I went back to my existing illustrations and redrew characters for a composition I had in mind.