I needed to design three stickers to hand out at a sticker-swap that would happen in a few weeks. Even though I was going to hand out stickers to other people, I wanted to design stickers that I would want to put on my own things.

 

I like three things pretty consistently: puns, morbid humor, and romcoms. As I was considering the theme for my stickers, I thought of characters instead. I thought of two ghosts who were in love- soulmates. Once I knew I wanted to do these ghosts, I immediately started sketching.

The most difficult part of sketching these ghosts was finding a consistent way to draw them so that they were obviously the same pair in every sticker. It was also difficult to think of different poses for them since they are essentially blobs. I eventually brainstormed a few ideas that I was satisfied with. It was time to create them with vectors.

My process for each sticker began with me sketching out the basic poses for each shape. Then I'd lock that layer and re-create the shapes I wanted with vectors.

After I had the shapes in that I wanted, it was time to add color. In my original ideas for the ghosts, they weren't colored. As I brainstormed these ideas more, I decided I wanted to add color to make them more interesting to look at. Adding color was difficult, because I still wanted the ghosts to seem see-through. I didn't want them to look solid. Eventually I settled on adding a blurred white center to each ghost with a slightly colored rim.

Once I had done this process, I was left with three stickers that I was proud of, but I knew there was still room for improvement.

After talking to a lot of people about my stickers, I was told to think about how the different elements in my stickers interacted with each other. There were tangents in every sticker. The other piece of feedback I received was that even though the thick black outline on the ghosts was an interesting part of the design, the other elements weren't exactly benefiting from it. I agreed. Even though the edits from my first draft to final draft were small, editing those tangents out and changing the outlines made a positive difference.

When I print these out, I'm definitely printing out a few to stick on my laptop. They are the exact kind of stickers that I was hoping to design when I took on this project: full of puns, morbid humor, and a bit of cheesy romance.