I am inspired after reading the intriguing illustration guide by Molly Bang. She asks some thought-provoking questions to let readers understand her intention and think of more possibilities to design the same scenario. Even by using 2D shapes, we can create a sense of depth. I am more aware of the importance of proportion of the shapes and use of color in my design work. Her demonstration of the principals is super helpful and will be something I’d go back to for reference and inspiration. I also appreciate that there’s an open-notes quiz part to test whether I truly grasp the principle.
The chapter of “Point, Line, Plane” offers me a more in-depth understanding of the topic and reinforce what I’ve learned during the lecture last week. It’s also interesting for me to learn about some exercises designers do for their training such as the spatial translation project. I think for me, texture is the hardest for me to utilize — how do I use only shapes and colors to create different textures?…I have some answers now — using different layers of different shade, tint, and saturation of the same color. The use of typography to create texture activity answered my question and it’s so cool to see different artworks. For my future design, I’d like to try more use of near complements color since I was mainly using complementary or analogous colors in the past. Finally, I was amazed by how drastic the effect can be by filling colors differently for the same pattern. I wonder how to create patterns using illustrator and let them fit together seamlessly and how to do it using p5.js, which is something I am interested in exploring more about.
Assignment — CONSTRAINTS
You must use Adobe Illustrator
You must use 4″x4″ squares for your compositions only.
Your substrate\artboard size must be letter size.
You can only use the three basic shapes: circles, triangles, and squares\rectangles (no pyramids or trapeziums or hexagons etc.). You may however play with their line\boundaries, texture, color etc.
You may only use a total of three colors throughout your narrative apart from black and white. You may use less than three colors, but you cannot use more.
Stick to the plot points that are necessary for us to follow the story as readers.
You may include, if you wish, a single line of text that tells us something about what is happening in the frame.
I chose to illustrate the story of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” by the brothers Grimm. I combined the story using the Grimm’s original version and Disney’s version. I really like the ending of the original version, which is not the most unknown one (so I will not spoil it here :)
On the left is my sketch for the story. I decided to use three colors — purple for the evil queen, yellow for the crowns of the royals, and red for both the evil queen and snow-white’s bowknot for her hair. At first I used blue to demonstrate tears but then due to the restriction I feel like using yellow would be better to show different characters.The original story linkhttps://www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/grimmtmp/042.txt
Emotive Composition
I really like the emotive composition exercise in which I can practice using three basic shapes including rectangle, circle, and triangle to depict different emotions.
Here is my final work demonstrating five different emotions including joy, misery, anxiety, fear, and tranquility.
Here are my sketches before using Illustrator for the final work. I really enjoy trying different ways to depict emotions from an abstract view.
This is my first time officially using Illustrator and thanks to professor Ahmed’s step-by-step tutorial, I am able to make something I enjoy looking at. I think I still need to get better at working with guides and multiple layers. I also noticed that it’s hard for me to rotate a triangle when it’s small and sharp since the rotational arrow just doesn’t show up for me... I still have some questions for the alignment tool but in general, I am more comfortable using Ai now. I am looking forward to learning more functions of Adobe Illustrator in the future.
