Week 1 - Logo
Had a blast re-imagining the Starbuck's logo. Somehow, I knew I wanted to do this one, but the real challenge came with what to replace it with. I decided to go with the old school Nintendo Power logo. I then grabbed a new illustration of Mario and used the Image Trace effect in Illustrator.
I started off recreating the Starbucks logo with basic shapes. Had to use the peen tool to do the siren. Used the Type on Path tool for the text. Used Myriad Pro for the font.
My final file has the original logo, the illustration of the logo and the final alteration.
This was a bit time consuming for me, but I enjoy pushing myself in Illustrator, even if it was just a few basic edits.
Week 2 - Typography
This was a fun little exercise. Learned a few new tricks with the video tutorial. Was really surprised that when I sampled a color of an existing font to use it for another font with the eye dropper tool, it sampled/replace the font and not the color. Was not expecting that to happen at all.
I started out with a Tabloid size page and then cropped it to fit art board. Had tried adding a map of Brooklyn in the background, but it looked too busy. Instead, I changed it so the poster had a solid background color and a color box at the bottom for the event information.
COYI Revision
I re-did the assignment following the actual quote parameters. This is a quote from a Tori Amos song called Cool on Your Island. I basically used the same idea from the video tutorial poster, but I added a drop shadow to the letters and made the background a dark solid color.
Week 3 - Complex Graphics
I truly enjoyed this session. I ended up doing a profile illustration of a pterodactyl, so I didn't get to try the fancy bear split effect.
I had originally played with some clouds and some motion blur, but wasn't too happy with it. Felt too busy.
So, I went back to simplicity. Added the background color in the end with the drop shadow effect. I like the late 80's color theme.
Week 4 - Avatar
This was fun but not my best work.
I think my hair came out pretty funky, but i like the lines on my face. Attempted to do the 5 o Clock shadow, but that didn't turn out too good. I found that I worked best at making all the components individual layers.
I like the 2 art board trick.
Week 5 - Minimalist Poster
Definitely feel like i have a better grasp of the pen tool by now.
Was trying to recreate the poster for Nightmare on Elm Street 3.
I liked how the characters in the foreground came out. Felt like the Freddy Krueger looked too cartoony for my taste. Wanted to make him darker, but he looks just plain weird. I also moved the heroes below Freddy to reveal more of his face.
Final Reflection
I was surprised to learn more from looking at my peers' work. The course was well structured, but the majority of my inspiration came from looking at other people's work. I think this is one of my favorite things about the Adobe EdEx courses.
Wish I could fully master that pen tool. But, I definitely feel like I have a much stronger grasp with it and some of the newer tools.
The live courses were very insightful as well. I like the balance of the video tutorials and live courses.