In this article, we will look to build on the last workflow that we explored in Make it Stick: From Sketch to Sticker in 7 Steps for creating stickers.
Instead of starting with a hand-drawn sketch that is converted to vector art, this time we will start with placed images as our foundation and manually create the shapes using the drawing tools available in Adobe Illustrator.™ We will then add dimension using custom spot colors, shadows, highlights, and even some water droplets for added visual effect. Lastly, we will add stylized type and place the art within a sticker cut line. The final art file will be completely editable and ready for sticker printing.
You are a designer tasked with creating a product sticker that will stick to the outside of the box for your client's line of baked goods. The client would like to add "perceived value" to the packaging with an additional sticker and make it stand out from the competing brands. They want an illustrated, crafted look that complements the existing branded packaging. In other words, it is not supposed to be photo-realistic, but rather an artistic rendering.
Additionally, the client prefers to have custom art created as opposed to using clipart found online so that they may retain sole rights to the final art. We chose to start with their signature product, "Strawberry Cheese Strudel."
Use a subscription-based platform such as iStock or search online for the images needed. We will need separate reference images for the cream cheese as well as the strawberries.
On the retail shelf, we want to quickly convey, in an appealing way, as much of the product's main ingredients to the consumer without confusing them with minor ingredients. In other words, use just enough elements that visually communicate the flavor to the consumer. The consumer already knows it's a cake, but they want to quickly identify whether it's blueberry, apple, or strawberry. Remember also, that we want the client to be successful (increased product sales), and for our part, the art should look appealing.
The strawberries should be distinct from each other, and the cream cheese would look more appealing with a "home-style" look. Showing the cream cheese in a wooden bowl with a swirl (as if it was freshly whipped), as opposed to a block in foil wrapping. The angle of the image of the bowl is important (we want a 3/4 overhead view). We ended up purchasing an image for the strawberries.
(with watermarks still intact).
Open a new document in Adobe Illustrator and place the cream cheese image (File > Place...), lock that layer in the Layers Palette, then create a new layer as "Base Bowl Shapes." Save the file as "Cream-Cheese-Bowl." In the Tools palette, set the fill color to none and the stroke color to a color that is easy to see in contrast to the background image as you draw. We used 100% magenta with a stroke of .5 pt.
Create a new document for the strawberries, and repeat the same steps, except using a stroke color of 100% cyan for contrast against the red strawberries and name the new layer "Shadows." Save the file as "Strawberries."
Note: It's always good practice to name layers to reflect what is contained within them for easy reference.
Using the Ellipse Tool, in the "Base Bowl Shapes" layer, create an oval that matches the contour of the outside of the wooden bowl. While holding the Shift (⇧) and Option (⌥) keys, drag a copy of the ellipse up with the direct selection tool. Holding the shift key allows you to constrain the direction to 45˚ and holding the option key allows you to make a copy. Scale it vertically using the Scale Tool then positioned it to match the top of the bowl. Copy this shape to the clipboard (to retain an unmodified copy), select both shapes, and subtract this shape from the first using Pathfinder > Minus Front. Past the bowl top back in its original position using Edit > Paste in Front (⌘F). With that shape still selected, use the Scale Tool and click its center point. Then outside of it, click and drag inward while holding the Option key until you have an ellipse that reasonably matches the inside edge of the bowl. Make a copy to retain it in your clipboard.
Select both the bowl top as well as the inside of the bowl (that you just created) and used Pathfinder > Minus Front. Object > Compound Path > Make (⌘8) could have been used as well. Paste the inside ellipse (from the clipboard) back in front. You now have the basic structure of the wooden bowl.
Now let's create the wood grain patterns. Create another layer called "Grain Outside" that will contain the outer grain pattern. Using the pen tool, create paths that reasonably follow the lines of the wood grain on the outside of the bowl in the image. We want it to look somewhat natural but it doesn't have to be exact. Make sure the paths end past the edges of the outer bowl shape (you'll see why in a moment). Make a copy of the outer bowl shape and paste it into this layer. Select all of the objects of this layer by using the "click to target" option in the Layers Palette. Create individual wood grain shapes by using Pathfinder > Divide. They will be grouped by default. Create two more layers called "Grain Top" and "Grain Inside." Repeat the process for the top and inside wood grain areas.
Before we start the cream cheese itself, we must remember what we were tasked to do: create commercial art to sell products. We are not trying to achieve photo-realism (the client could have used a stock photo for that) and we are not creating a "masterpiece." That being said, we will probably wind up somewhere in the middle. That is, just enough detail to quickly communicate the product type – Strawberry Cheese Strudel, in an appealing manner.
Ordinarily, with this type of sticker art, it's a judgment call on how much detail to include and there is usually plenty of "creative license." We felt a high level of detail in the cream cheese was not necessary and maybe wouldn't even reproduce well on a small sticker. We also knew, ahead of time, that this will ultimately be covered by type so we didn't spend too much time on the detail. Create the basic outline contour and add some freehand swirls as you like.
Next up, let's look at the strawberries. We picked this image because it had two whole strawberries and one half to complement the others nicely. Even though the image has the fruit overlapping, we will do our best to create the whole strawberries, or what we think the hidden areas would look like, so that we can position them independently of each other, or repurpose them later on, if needed.
Open the "Strawberries" file and create three additional layers called "Strawberry 1," "Strawberry 2" and "Strawberry 3." Create the outer contour of the red fruit part of each of the strawberries for each layer. Then create the outer contour of the leaves, again, trying to estimate the "unseen" shapes. Group each set of leaves. Make sure the leaves reside on the appropriate layer for that particular strawberry. On the "Shadows" layer, draw the shadows of the three strawberries (we were happy with the overall positions so we ultimately combined them into one).
Create a path for the inside of the cut strawberry. Within this area, draw the separate light and medium red areas. Next, create the seeds for each strawberry and make sure to group them for each strawberry. Accuracy is not crucial, but taking a little time to create each seed that follows the contour of the fruit will help maintain that "natural" or "volumetric" shape that we are trying to achieve. Create separate paths for any highlight areas and shadow areas that are obvious. Finally, create the droplet paths.
Note: A note on rendering three-dimensional shapes: When illustrating a 3D subject (photo or real subject) onto a 2D plane (paper), it is helpful to try to think of the objects as just blocks of flat shapes of tones or color. Squinting your eyes will help you see the tones. We have to train our brains to see just shapes.
Let's first set up our color swatches. We recommend creating custom spot colors so that you can adjust colors, if needed, on a global basis. We used eight red colors (Strawberry Red, Strawberry Red Light, Strawberry Dark, etc.) for the strawberry shadows, mid-tones, and highlights, three for the leaves (Leaf Green, Leaf Green Dark, Leaf Green Light), and two for the seeds (Seed, Seed Dark). These colors were created by clicking on the different sections of the placed image with the Eyedropper Tool and then slightly rounding (up or down) the percentages of CMYK.
Starting with the bottom-most strawberry in the "Strawberry 1" layer, fill the largest area with your spot color that you chose for the main strawberry red and add a 1 pt. stroke of the darkest strawberry red color. Fill the next largest area with a little lighter strawberry red spot color (no stroke color), then fill the highlight areas with the lightest strawberry red color (no stroke color). Repeat these steps for the next whole strawberry. For the cut strawberry, do the same, but also, apply the colors for the "flesh" inside.
Next, use the main leaf green spot color for the leaves with a stroke color of your leaf dark green. Color the seeds with a fill of the main seed spot color and a 1 pt. stroke of the darker seed color (the seeds on the darker side of the cut strawberry will have a darker fill). Finally, color the shadow areas.
The light direction from the original image is overhead and slightly to the right. We will use this to orient our lights and shadows. Make a copy of the main strawberry shape in the "Strawberry 1" layer and paste it in front of that shape. Fill it with a linear gradient (Window > Gradient) that goes from 100% to 0% of your "dark strawberry" spot color on a 30-45˚ angle from bottom left to top right. Set that shape to Multiply in the Transparency Palette. Do the same for the main shape in the "Strawberry 2" layer except change the direction it goes from lower right to top left. One the red main shape in the "strawberry 3" layer, do the same, except going from upper right to bottom left. This will give the appearance of translucency as if the light is going through the strawberry.
In the "flesh" area of the cut strawberry, select both the outer cut shape and the lighter flesh area while holding the Shift key. From the menu: Object > Blend > Blend Options..., set the blend mode to Smooth Color and apply the blend from the Blend menu. Make a copy of the lighter "flesh" area, paste a copy in front and apply the blend to both that shape as well as the inner darker shape. This essentially creates a soft transition of shapes and colors from dark to light.
In the main leaf areas, create a gradient from your "Leaf Green" to "Leaf Green Dark" spot colors. You will find that the gradient direction is not as important for the leaves and the less thought that goes into it, the more natural they will probably look. Finally, select the strawberries' shadow areas and apply a Gaussian Blur.
Select one of the water droplet paths that were created earlier and fill it with a radial gradient that goes from white to transparent in a 30-45˚ angle, from the lower left to the upper right. Next, make a copy directly behind it and use a radial gradient that goes from dark red to transparent from the upper right to the lower left. Make another copy and paste it behind that one. Fill that with your main strawberry red color and apply a slight drop shadow with a minimal blur that offsets to the lower left. Set it to multiply in the Transparency Palette.
On top of all of these duplicated shapes add some smaller shapes for the specular highlights and fill them with gradients of white to transparent on a 30-45˚ angle from upper right to lower left. Create a group from these shapes so you can move them later on if you need to. Repeat these steps for each of the droplets on the strawberries. We created an additional droplet on the cut strawberry but used the strawberry flesh color instead of strawberry red for the path that has the drop shadow.
Create three new spot colors: "Wood," "Wood Light," and "Wood Dark." In the "Base Bowl Shapes" layer, select the base bowl shape and apply a radial gradient that goes from top to bottom with the "Wood" color going to "Wood Light" color respectively. In the "Grain Outside" layer, select the wood grain pattern, apply the same gradient without changing from the default direction (this will allow the gradients to be oriented individually inside each shape of the pattern). Set it to Multiply with an opacity of 50%. Repeat this for the remaining layers, "Grain Top" and "Grain Inside" but vary the gradient direction to create some contrast between sections.
For a softer edge on the lip of the bowl, you can copy the path for the outer contour, paste the copy on top and give it a 2 pt. stroke of "Wood Light" color with no fill. Finally, create a shadow area by copying the bowl shape, paste it behind and fill it with the "Wood Dark" color then apply a Gaussian Blur.
Create another spot color, name it "Cream Cheese," and fill the different areas with varying percentages of that color; 100% for the darkest areas and approximately 10% for the lightest.
Create a new document and name it "Strawberry-Cream-Cheese-Sticker." Name the default layer "Cream Cheese." Select all of the elements for the cream cheese art and paste them into this new file. Create a new layer and name it "Strawberries," paste all of the elements of the strawberries art into this new layer, and group them. Scale and position them as you like. We scaled them larger than they would be in real life relative to the wooden bowl, for emphasis.
This is where the advantage of creating spot colors ahead of time will come in handy. If you wish to adjust any of the colors globally, just double-click that spot color swatch in the color palette, click preview and make any necessary changes. We decided that the shadows needed to be closer together in color while still retaining some of the reflected colors from their associated objects.
In the Layers Palette, create a new layer named "Circle," move it to the bottom. Create a 2.5" x 2.5" circle and fill it with the color of your choice. We chose a fill with a 5 pt. stroke (for bleed) of 75% cyan because a "cool" color (cyan) will visually recede and cause the "warmer" colors (wooden bowl, strawberries) to visually "come forward" against it.
Note: "Bleed" is a printing industry term used to describe the color that goes past the cut line to compensate for any mechanical press misregistration.
Create another layer named "Stylized Type" above the "Strawberries" layer. Using the Type Tool, type out "Strawberry," hit return, then type "Cheese." We used a stylized font to complement the graphics from dafont.com called Before Christmas. We chose to use a fill color of "Strawberry Red" from our custom spot colors. We made a copy and pasted it behind the original. We added a white fill and 5 pt. white stroke. We applied a subtle drop shadow set to multiply to make the main graphics stand out a little more. We also set the shadows of the bowl and strawberries to multiply in the Transparency Palette.
Make a copy of the circle, create a new layer on the top called "Cut Line" and paste the circle in front within this layer (⌘F). Change the fill to none and the stroke to black with a .3 pt. width. While the circle is still selected, go to Menu > Object > Create Trim Marks. This is not a crucial step but does aid the printer in the file preparation.
Download and examine the final Strawberry Cream Cheese Sticker file. PDF version | AI version
