A Look Behind the Scenes
Generally, our blogs focus on custom coins that share common design elements or themes we find interesting. Other times, we tell the stories of our customers and their coins, describing the process of coming up with a design all the way through using the coins out in the world. But it’s rare that we offer an inside peek behind the scenes here at the Signature Coins office.
Taking a design idea from a simple sketch all the way to a finished product is a rewarding experience that our customers take part in every day. Our artists usually don’t have a chance to work on their own personal projects, but recently one member of our art team saw an opportunity to create their own set of custom pins and keychains. We thought it would be fun to look at the design process from an insider’s perspective and see what makes the experience of creating a personal design so rewarding.
Tiffany: Crafting a Story and a Design From Scratch
Lauren Gisewhite has been a part of the Signature Coins family for the last few years and has recently completed her degree in Character Animation at the University of Central Florida. To celebrate the debut of her and her team’s senior design project, Gisewhite set to work designing her own set of commemorative pins and keychains.
The Character Animation program at UCF has a very hands-on approach when it comes to teaching students the ins and outs of working in the animation field. Gisewhite’s 2019 class was split into teams and assigned the task of creating an original short animated film to debut in their senior year. After two years of work, Gisewhite and her team have finally finished their original short called Tiffany.
The film's director, Christina Christie, said, “The film itself began as a 30-second pitch from two years ago. It’s completely from scratch, and it was inspired by the local Morse Museum in Winter Park and Tiffany stained glass.” The entire team took that 30-second pitch and ran with it. One of the characters in the film wears a special pin, and that pin plays a crucial role in the story. And this was the original inspiration to have real life pins made to go with the debut of the film.
Desi Vargas, the Marketing Lead on the team, said that the pins and keychains are not only a special keepsake to celebrate the completion of their film but also a part of a fundraising effort that will help pay for film festival entries. Their GoFundMe page has a tiered donation system, and the pins and keychains are used as incentives for donating more money to the cause. “We thought it would be really cute to have a pin that matched the pin in the film that one of our characters wears,” said Vargas. “It ties it all together, as well as the keychain being part of the logo representing the main character.”
When asked about the designs, Gisewhite said, “We’ve seen them on paper for two years now and getting to actually see a physical representation of them, and hold them, and have something that’s not only a part of us but a part of the characters … has been really cool.”
The actual designs were first crafted by the director, Christi, and the marketing lead, Vargas. For Gisewhite, her experience with Signature Coins made it easy to bring those original designs to life. “A lot of what I added was the cut-out options, the translucent paint, the glitter, giving us the option between matte silver and black nickel, and also adding the backstamp.”
The translucent paint against the bright metal plating, combined with the glitter, make these designs sparkle just like real life stained glass. “Designing the pins with Christina and Desi has been so awesome,” said Gisewhite. She described the excitement felt by the entire team when the pins arrived and they finally had a chance to hold them. “To see everything come fully together and ... adding those final touches to really seal the deal on everything and make it look beautiful has really been awesome.”
Seeing an Idea Come to Life
Gisewhite, Christie and Vargas each described their favorite parts of working on the film, talking about the unique experiences to learn, to hone their skills, to test their abilities. While they all loved different aspects of the project, they all agreed that seeing everything come together into a finished film was the most rewarding part of the experience.
“In animation, you have all these pieces to a puzzle, but don’t see the full picture until you’re ready to premiere the film,” said Christie. “Getting the pins and keychains yesterday was really exciting because our character has one of these pins, and now we have an actual pin … It looks so nice, and it's like, “Wow, we’re almost done”!”
For any customer working with our Signature Coins team, creating a design from scratch with the help of our art team is a rewarding experience. It takes time and careful attention to detail to bring an idea to life, but, just as Gisewhite and the rest of our art team know, being able to finally hold a finished design in your hand makes all the effort worthwhile.
For more behind the scenes information on Tiffany and the team behind the film, check out their pages on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you are looking for a team of artists that can help you take a sketch all the way to a finished design, Signature Coins has got you covered there.
