We recently partnered with Bounty to support emerging artists and designers in a national design competition. The ask? Design a graphic for a new Brit + Co and Bounty paper towel collection themed A Clean Fresh Start, which launches this month. In this creator spotlight series, we are featuring the winners of that competition to learn more about their inspirations, their design process, and their winning Bounty design. Read on to meet…
Clara Sasiene | Gumption Road Creative Co. | Santa Fe, NM
What are your design inspirations? My design inspirations really come from everywhere: tiles, murals, local business logos or buildings, food (especially dessert), fashion, landscape, etc. I love to travel so anytime I'm in a new place I have a lot of fun looking at things through that design lens. I also love antiquing and have a small collection of print paraphernalia, like old magazines, old ads, vintage matchboxes, plus art and books. I do look for inspiration online too (mostly on Pinterest or Instagram) but try not to rely on that too heavily to keep my work fresh.
Tell us about your design process. I wish my creative process was linear but it rarely is that straightforward. It often depends on the scope of a project, but the first thing I almost always do is make a list of the knowns/requirements. I'm the kind of person who makes lists for my lists so this helps me feel like I've set a baseline or boundaries for a project and can brainstorm from there. Next step is research and inspiration where I usually create a Pinterest board to collect different possibilities and ideas.Branding projects are one of my favorite things to work on. After the research and inspiration phase, I use the brand adjectives to narrow down brand elements like colors and fonts, then look at logo ideas, brand marks, patterns, etc. The key for me is defining brand adjectives and aligning the work with a brand persona or character. That makes it much easier to decide on direction throughout the process by asking, "Does this look/feel/sound like <character/persona>?"
For illustration projects like this one, I finished the inspiration phase and then really just started drawing. I had a good idea of the direction I wanted to go based on the prompt and knew I wanted to stick to my natural design style. In the end, I had 17 different artboards going but felt most passionate about four designs. I kept playing around with my work and ultimately chose the two that felt most like me, that answered the prompt the best, and that I thought would translate to paper towels the best.
Tools and platforms that help me be my most creative self...For me, this spans the digital and physical gamut. It often depends on the project and what direction the client wants to go, but usually I look through my archive of books and old print stuff, at Pinterest, through my saved Instagram collections, and look at brands/creative work that has a similar feel to what I'm trying to create. This really helps me to piece a lot of things together to create something new, unique, and exciting.
As far as specific design tools go, I use Adobe Creative Cloud almost exclusively and work in Procreate when I want to hand-draw something. I'll also look at creative asset websites like Creative Market for direction on a project and general ideas.
How did you get into illustration? I've been a graphic designer for almost 10 years and have never been any good at drawing. I have always been so jealous of that skill in others and wanted so badly to be able to illustrate beautiful things like them. I'm still mostly terrible, but a few years ago I decided to just go for it – I bought an iPad, downloaded Procreate, and started watching tutorial after tutorial. (For some reason that felt easier than traditional pen and paper.)
What are three IG accounts you love? It's so hard to choose just three! Here are my top favorites: @oliviaherrickdesign, @malikafavre, @missmelodymiller, @nationalparkservice, @amauryguichon, and @charlyclements.
How do you know when a piece of art, like your winning Bounty Paper Towel design below, is “finished”? The simple answer is: when there are no more changes I want to make and everything feels harmonious. It's rarely as straightforward as that and often depends on the scope of the project, but most of the time I get to a stopping point where I feel like I could keep going but don't want to overwork it. The thing I have to remember is to not get too caught up in the minutia and sometimes the best thing I can do is just walk away for a while, then come back with fresh eyes, especially when I'm feeling stuck. It's like when you say the same word over and over again and it loses all meaning; after staring at something for so long, it's easy to get lost in the details and overwork the piece. At some point, a piece usually just feels ready and I have to resist the urge to keep picking at it.
What will it be like for you to see your design on a Bounty paper towel at your local store? I think seeing my design on Bounty paper towels at the store will feel like a really great fever dream -- totally surreal and just incredibly exciting. I'm sure I'll be the annoying, squealing with joy, crazy lady who makes all the other shoppers look over and wonder if I've forgotten to take some sort of medication but I won't even care because it will be a moment of pure joy and happiness. Then I'll ask my husband to take dozens of pictures of me next to the paper towels, holding the paper towels, cuddling the paper towels, and people will think I'm even crazier and it will be absolutely wonderful.
Be sure to look out for Clara’s winning design wherever Bounty Paper Towels are sold!