I was commissioned by a friend to create her wedding invites for her upcoming nuptials taking place in Sicily. We decided to create a map as well as the invite and information booklet to add a personal touch to her special day.

Following 2 tutorials (Francesca Guasconi and Tom Froese) we selected important locations to highlight and we saved these on Google drive:

 

Required locations:

1.  Catania Fontanarossa Airport- closest airport to wedding venue. Represented as an aeroplane
2. Vizzini- this is just to show the where town centre is located.· Represented as a landmark     
3. Farmhouse A Cunziria- this is welcome drink location, would like to point it on map but maybe not as big as wedding location venue. Represented with wine and olives
4. Castello Camemi- Wedding venue.· Represented as the building   
5. Port of Pozzallo- Ferry from Malta. Represented with an anchor and ferry illustration
6. Caltagirone- this is just to show the where an alternative town is located.· Represented as a landmark

 

Additionally, I decided to also include the following:

1. Mount Etna - the most famous Sicilian landmark
2. Luzzu boats - traditional Maltese colourful boats (the couple are from Malta)
3. Deckchairs  - to represent the coast and beaches
4. The Triskelion symbol - iconic to Sicily and Sicilian culture
5. Compass - to add a more 'map like' element
6. Lemons - very Sicilian and thematic to the wedding (see wedding invites)

Illustrations:

I created separate outlines using an fine tip black ink pen and adding shading details. Then highlighted the areas I wanted to be filled in with colour.

Faber Castell watercolour pens and watercolour paints were used for the illustrations (I mainly used watercolour pens as I found these easier to work with)

Once I had these, I scanned them in and combined them on Photoshop to create the final versions. I downloaded dry Photoshop brushes and watercolour Photoshop brushes and also made use of the blur and smudge tools to further blend the elements together.

I also adjusted the opacity to 80% for all the images so they blended with the background better.

 

1. Catania Fontanarossa Airport

2. Vizzini -

Vizzini was the first attempt and I tried to create the outlines using a nib pen with ink in a pot, I found it messy and difficult so from then on, I stuck with pen

 

3. Farmhouse A Cunziria

When I scanned this illustration in, I realised it was too dark, so I lightened the image on Photoshop and used some of the watercolour Photoshop brushes to create a light purple colour. I used the blend tool and additionally made a label to break up the darkness and add a sandy tone that linked this illustration to the colour pallette of the map.

 

4. Castello Camemi

 

 

5. Port of Pozzallo

6. Caltagirone 

7. Mount Etna

 

8. Luzzu boats

 

9. Deckchairs

Initially I made these blue, but then changed to red to bring in some of the subtler colours and to contrast well with the cooler green/blue tones of the map.

 

10. The Triskelion symbol

 

11. Compass

 

 

12. Lemons

 

I used the same illustration of the lemons from the invites I created and traced an outline to fit with the other illustrations. I created lemon trees too and then recoloured the lemons to be pink for cherry blossom to add another feature to the map. 

 

CLIENT FEEDBACK:

My initial map in terms of layout looked like the below: 

I was happy to take some creative liability in terms of the locations, although they did correspond to the Google map, the client wanted the locations to look closer together. I therefore did some amendments to the following:

• Text: the hand drawn text looked quite clumpy when put together, so I substituted this for a font we will using for the wedding invites
• Location positions: as detailed above, the locations on my initial map were more spaced apart, I amended these as per the clients wish to be closer together and adjusted the decor to fill the space
• Title colour: I liked the red but when placed next to the invitations, it made more sense to be a yellow/white combination. I achieved this using a dry Photoshop brush

THE FINAL MAP:

 

THE SET: