322 - Happy Stars

Day 322. Just messing about in Illustrator showing some things to Heather Dowd, I made this little field of happy stars using the symbol tool and the symbol sprayer. Just for fun.

235 - Get a Haircut

Day 235. This is Peter, the guy who cuts my hair. Peter started cutting my hair over 20 years ago, although there were a few years in the middle where I moved away and got it cut elsewhere. Anyway, enough nostalgia, this image was made as I was messing around in Illustrator with the Trace Image options for turning a bitmap into a vector. I still don't feel like I actually know what I'm doing with this tool, but it's interesting to play with it.

187 - The Psychedelic Bean

Day 187. Messing around in Adobe Illustrator, I made this simple kidney shape using the bezier tools, and then duplicated it onto several layers, changing its transparency, size and angle to get this very lava-lamp style effect.

165 - Only 200 More days

Day 165. Although some posts in this project have been a day or two late (including this one) so far I haven't actually missed a day. At day 165 it means that I only have 200 more days to go. As predicted, this is starting to get much harder to keep coming up with ideas, but a promise is a promise.

This little graphic was made in Adobe Illustrator using the 3D Extrude tool, as well as a bit of free transform to really mess around with the natural perspective. Even on a fast computer, it's amazing how much processor grunt it takes to render simple vector text in 3D like this once you start twisting it around a bit.

129 - Angry Young Man

Day 129. After a long day at the end of a long week, I just fired up Adobe Illustrator tonight and scratched out this stylised face. I had no particular goal or idea, I just dragged a few lines on the page (with a trackpad, not a stylus) using the Blob Tool in Illustrator, and turned it into this rather angry young man.

And no, I'm not actually angry myself. :-)

103 - Getting to the Crux

Day 103. I have some exciting news to tell. Soon. For now, suffice to say I've started a company for doing some things that I'm really excited about in the very near future. It's name is Crux Learning. For today's daily create I used Adobe Illustrator to design a logo for this new company. Here it is.

The name Crux has a few meanings, and I tried to design the logo to capture some of them. You've probably heard the expression "Getting to the crux of the issue". It's means getting to the heart of things, tapping into the most important points at issue. Not dancing around the edges, but focusing on what actually makes a difference.

Crux is also the name for the constellation that adorns the Australian flag, otherwise known as the Southern Cross. In fact, Crux is the latin word for cross.

The logo is meant to represent this idea of getting to the point - the crux of an issue - with the four shapes each pointing like arrows towards the centre, identifying the focus point in the middle. It is also a stylised Southern Cross if you imagine a star in the centre of each of the coloured shapes, forming a cross that tilts to the right. As an Australian company, I liked that symbolism. The negative whitespaces between the coloured shapes also form a cross, relating back to the Latin meaning of the word. Finally, the logo resembles a flower, symbolising growth. And if you think the colours remind you of another company doing great things with technology, that's not really an accident either. :-)

087 - Jelly Beans

Day 87. This simple image was created using Adobe Illustrator, one of the Adobe Creative Cloud tools that I use less than others so I'm not as confident with it. So tonight I was just messing about with Illustrator's pen tool for drawing bezier curves and I drew a nice smooth jelly bean shape. After adding the simple specular highlight shapes I grouped them into a single object, then duplicated it four times, changing the colour of each. The colours, by the way, are based on the hex codes for Google's logo.

After making each coloured jelly bean I turned them into scatter brushes so I could paint with them. I adjusted the size, angle and scatter to be randomised, and then each time I dragged a brush across the screen it left a trail of jellybeans.

I know it looks simple, but there are quite a few core Illustrator skills involved in making this image.

034 - Wineframes or Wireglasses

Day 34. For today's daily create I thought I'd try dabbling in a piece of software that I don't use very much, so I fired up Adobe Illustrator. While I know Photoshop pretty well I've never really felt like I've got to grips with Illustrator. I just started playing around in it and worked out that I could draw a vector shape and then revolve it around its edge to turn it into a 3D object. So I drew a half profile of a wine glass, then rotated it to make a 3D wineglass. I tidied up the 2D profile a bit using the bezier tools to give it a nicer shape, and the final 3D object looked pretty good.

Then I tried to make a bottle shape the same way. Finally, I duplicated the original glass profile to make the second glass, and here you see the result.

I originally rendered them as solid shapes but as I played with the different angles I found I could render them as wireframe objects. Not only did I quite like the look of the wireframe renders, but I also liked the play on words "wire" and "wine", so went with that idea.

The bottom line is that while Illustrator is a incredibly powerful piece of software for graphics professionals, it has a pretty steep learning curve. But even just messing around in it you can come uop with some interesting ideas. I like using it but I need to play around in it more to get to a point where I feel I'm controlling it and not the other way around.