Painting with words in Illustrator

This assignment was for my Typography class. We were to pick a font family and use the pen tool to select various sections of a portrait photo and insert text to illustrate highlights and shades. We used different sizes of the font along with bold and italicized characters to enhance this process. After finishing the portrait I used a sky image that I posterized to have a background.

Until my next post,
Diane

What about you?

Last fall I took a course called Communication Design at the local community college which was a fancy name for Advertising. We had mock clients and a real one too (see the post about the winter concert). For this project we were to target a specific type dog to a person in a certain age group. I picked the "older" generation (since I was the oldest student in the class). My ad focused on a older but still active dog named Ranger that was looking for a partner just like him. I used Photoshop and masked Ranger out of the original picture into one with a background that looks like the personal ads (actually it is the real estate tabloid). I downloaded the SPCA logo and color picked the blue to use it on the top of the ad. The ad Ranger is looking at says "Widowed active 60's female looking for similar aged male partner. Likes to take long walks on the beach, jog in the park and go for Sunday drives to the country. Happy to sit by the fireplace on cold rainy/snowy days." Classmates, the instructor and Rangers owner all loved it. Ranger is on a sabbatical from the neighborhood since his owner is now deployed to Afghanistan. Hopefully he'll be back in about 10 months with that old worn out tennis ball in his mouth.

Until my next post,

Diane

Another poster created with Illustrator

Here's another poster I did for of my Computer Arts classes. This class focused on advertising. Some of our projects were for the print media and others could be created for an online market. You had to have already taken the basic Photoshop and Illustrator classes before you could take this. Some folks already had taken a video class or two so they created some projects in Final Cut.

I used Adobe Illustrator for this project. This was a "real" assignment in that the school had a concert coming up and the winning design (voted by the school choir) was going to be used to market the event. We had a short turn around time (like the real world) to create a poster, a program and a post card to invite the VIP's. Once you got the concept down it was a matter of making things a bit smaller. The choir director said it was a very tough choice, I didn't win but enjoyed the project.

Until my next post,

Diane

Bottle Cap (faux) ATC

This month on the Stampers Corner Yahoo Group one of the ATC mingles was Bottle Cap. I didn't have any and asked if it was OK to use an image. I got an Adobe Illustrator file from their forum and changed it to my suiting. The base layer is paper from DCWV. The next layer was done using a Plaid stencil sprayed with watercolor. I used stamps from the Inque 262 collection on that layer and the tag. The faux bottle cap is on two layers of chipboard for dimension.

Until my next post,

Diane

Poster I created in Adobe Illustrator

Somewhere along the line I mentioned I had taken some classes towards a Computer Arts Degree. I'm not sure if I'll ever finish but I did get a basic foundation in drawing and design along with learning Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Last fall I took a class called Computerized Graphics where the end result was for print. We began with a review of Photoshop and then Illustrator and moved along to Adobe InDesign. This project was for an actual event at the school and the winning design (not mine) was used to publicize the event. Even though the films are digital in nature I chose to use a drawing that I made of a photo of an "old fashioned" film reel.

Until my next post,

Diane

My Interpretation of Freud

My first InDesign project for the Computerized Graphics class last fall was to create a book cover for the now public domain book by Sigmund Freud "The Interpretation of Dreams". I took photos of clouds and a silhouette of me and recolorized them in Photoshop. Next I used Illustrator to do the drawings of the dreams. I got a book from the library and chose a few simple symbols to create. I also added the swirls to make it seem as though some dreams escape us. I also created the Balance Books logo in Illustrator. I got the photo of Freud from the web. The text of the book and the bar code were from the instructor. We used InDesign as the assembly point for the Illustrator and Photoshop stuff.

Until my next post,

Diane

Getting specific about color with kuler

Do you know what complementary colors are? How about analogous colors, or monochromatic? One way to see these colors and many more is to look at kuler. Kuler is an online color wheel of sorts from Adobe. When you start kuler look on the right side of the screen and you'll see "Welcome to Kuler" you can click on a link to view a video demo about what it can do for you.

I need to point out two things about Kuler. First kuler requires Flash so if you don't have it installed or the current version it will prompt you to do so. Second, kuler requires you to have an Adobe ID which is really easy to set up. Watch the video and decide for yourself if it is worth it.

Until my next post,

Diane