Like many of my personal projects—this one began with a random piece of design I saw out in the world and wanted to make my own spin on. This time it happened to be a vintage inspired Halloween luminary in someone’s home decor video. I married that concept with a desire I’d had for a while to create something involving Universal’s Classic Monsters. The general vibe of my decorations is Autumn harvest festival of the past and these lanterns will continue to build out the vintage whimsy while also adding a more spooky set of characters. I tend to be excited about Halloween most of the year so this project is still a bit in-progress as I plan to go about the actual printing + construction of these finalized designs a bit closer to the season.
These will be printed on card stock with the areas currently filled with yellow cut out. A tea light will then be placed inside each completed lantern to make those cutouts glow and flicker. Each character has a consistent set of main features cut out (eyes + mouth) but also has unique smaller features that add to their look set to be removed. I aimed to create a sense of balance in terms of amount “cut out” across each of them and was also sure to maintain a separate balance of printed design elements and strokes with what was to be cut out on each one individually.
Packaging
Just as I did with my previous Halloween project, I decided to make some faux packaging for these lanterns. One of my visual references was Ben Cooper masks and their packaging, so I decided to pay homage to that by including a cellophane cutout that allowed you to view the “product.”
References & Inspiration
While the idea for the project as a whole came from some 1940’s inspired World Market lanterns, my visual inspiration was that of Ben Cooper masks and their packaging from the 50’s - 70’s.