Creature Feature

This week in Advanced Survey of Computer Arts, our class was experimenting with Adobe Illustrator. Our two Illustrator assignments for the weekend were to create a creature in an environment, and to design a logo for ourselves. Click the two examples for more student work!

I was super excited to create my own monster in Adobe Illustrator. It just so happens that designing creepy critters is right up my alley. Some of my favorite pieces I've made have been of strange beasts. So I began to scribble out some ideas for a monster, but I wasn't having much luck. Nothing I made was coming out quite right. I looked back at the watercolor monsters I had made this summer to get some inspiration. Instead, I ended up adapting the design of a previous creature I had made. You guys might remember this little fella:

 

I loved his design too much to let it go. I spent the majority of my night doodling 'Vulp' in silly poses.

Satisfied with his design, I had to make some decisions on his color palette. A group majority voted for the swampy green colors (see number 6 below), so those are the swatches I chose. Lucky for you, I did a pin up of all the color options I had in mind.

I am lucky to have had Illustrator classes when I was in high school. Stitching Vulp together was not a hassle at all--- I really enjoyed myself. It took several hours of fussing with his environment, but I ended up satisfied with the result.

The logo assignment was a little more challenging. Rather than make a business card for myself, I decided to just make a friendly icon for my blog here, Paperstack 5. I didn't have a strong vision of the final product as I was going into the project. All I knew was that simplicity was probably my greatest ally.

I thought the icons for ipod apps always looked appealing, so I started with a square base. Originally, I had wanted to use the text from my blog banner, but the writing did not rest well along the border of the square.

I found a font (as you can see in some of the previous examples) that was similar to the blog banner script, but more legible. I was satisfied with some of the previous icons until my friends misread the title as 'Five Paper Stack.'  I decided to switch the '5' (which was still in the original script) and the 'paperstack' text. A simple adjustment made the logo read correctly.

I tested some other effects here and there, but my favorite and probably final decision is the top right in red.

There you have it!