Hey, Go Make Me Something! (Toy Plane Edition)

Our assignment this week in Visual Design was to take this picture of a toy plane:

and make something new and creative. The plane made me think of the WWI era, so I decided to make a WWI US propaganda poster:

I had a lot of fun with this project. I learned more about the trace tool in illustrator (I messed around with the tools, but it started with the 6-color preset). I also used my knowledge of the pen tool, blending modes, and effects to create this poster. Overall I'm proud of how it turned out.

From Crappy to Snappy

This week in Visual Design, our assignment was to take a mediocre design and create a new one. I chose to redesign the logo for Brevard Archers, a local archery group whose competitions I frequent. Their current logo is shown below:

It's not terrible, but there are a few problems that I have with it. For one, the eye on the deer looks unnaturally large and cartoony, in contrast too its overly intricate antlers. The target is obscured by these antlers, and it personally took me a while to recognize that the circle and the u-shape were meant to resemble a target. I hoped to fix these issues with a new design:

The new design still has the deer, however it has simplified and the eye removed. I decided to get rid of the target all together and instead have crossing arrows to represent archery. Instead of using the full group name, I went with the initials to emphasize the simplicity of the new logo.

Welcome to London

This month in Visual Design our assignment was to create a simple, 3D map in illustrator of a city of our choice. I chose the City of Westminster in London, as I may be visiting it soon. During the assignment, I learned quick shortcuts to skew items, as well as how to create three dimensional objects. I had to get creative with some of the buildings (namely Big Ben, the London Eye, and Westminster Abbey), as they lacked traditional rooftops. This assignment taught me how to improvise when you are faced with an uncommon problem. The finished result is shown below:

POP!

This week in Visual Design we learned how to create pop art of ourselves in illustrator. I learned how to make a pattern and how to change the style of a stroke. I had some issues figuring out how to make the pattern, since the tutorials were not very clear. After a bit of searching, I figured it out very quickly on my own. This project taught me how to solve a problem on my own as well as some very helpful techniques which I hope to use in the future.

Before:

After:

Don't Feed the Trolls

This week in Visual Design we were given a tutorial on how to create a troll in illustrator. The troll is a play on internet trolls and those from fantasy, as shown below:

In the original tutorial, the phrase "YOU SUCK!" is meant to go over the troll's head, however I was unable to download the font. The project was fun, and I learned a lot about creating brushes and swatches as well as using the transparency window.

- Emily Hazen

Logo Project

This week in my visual design course we were required to create logos for companies. We were only given the company name and could not communicate with our "clients," as this was just an exercise in designing and creating logos. Below are my creations for the companies "Momma B's Bakery" and "Vero." Momma B's is simply a bakery, and Vero is an eco-friendly water bottle company. I created several logos, but these were my favorites:

 

The assignment specified that the logos must look nice in any color, especially black and white. Here are my logos in black to show that they are not restricted to their corresponding colors:

 

 



I created two other logos, but I decided that they were not quite as good as the ones featured above. Here are my scrapped ideas presented below:

- Emily Hazen