Expressive Typography

Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.

For this assignment we had to use new techniques to turn letters into shapes, and shapes into letters, which we will use later to create our logo designs in the next project. We followed the assignment on our teacher's blog, MrBoothby.net. We did 4 examples for each, though I did 5 for the figure-ground reversals and symbol replacement and 7 for the ligatures because I was unsure of previous ones, or I just wanted to do another. We did stacked text, for which I typed my word then created their outlines and ungrouped, making them separate shapes. I then moved them so that they were touching and made them one shape, then made copies and rotated them until 4 copies were stacked on each other. I made them one shape using Pathfinder and Expand. For figure-ground reversal I typed out the alphabet then made a rectangle. I made each letter a separate shape placed them so that they were touching within the box. I used Pathfinder-Add-Expand to make them all one shape, then I could go back in and fill in spaces and cut out negatives of other letters I didn't use. For symbol replacement I searched for pictures of objects with white backgrounds that resembled letters. I decided to make a theme of colors, so I used shapes that resembled the letter and were the same color as the word. I would place the picture in Illustrator and use Live Trace to make it a shape. Then I would place the object where I wanted it, delete the background and group the whole word together. For ligatures I first had to pick words that had letters that could be connected in different fonts. To think of words to use I first typed out the alphabet in certain fonts then decided which letters I wanted to put together and then what words to use.

Tools I used:

• Pathfinder
• Text Tool
• Place
• Live Trace
• Expand
• Create Outlines
• Ungroup
• Group
• Gradient
• Patterns

My personal evaluation for this assignment would be a 10/9, participation/product. This is because I worked hard on each part, but I had trouble with the figure-ground reversal, and so my examples of them aren't the best.

AI Vectordiary Days 8-12

Tutorial Days 8 - half of 9

 For this assignment we had to follow the tutorial we had previously followed, Vectordiary, through days 8-12. The first day was difficult because we were getting used to using the brush tool to create the pear and then the A. It was fun to play around with the borders and strokes, then the colors and shapes. Other than getting used to the brush tool, Days 8, 10, 11, and 12 were fairly easy. The most difficult day overall was Day 9, because that was the day we did the old key. We had to do the most on multiple shapes that we had done so far in order to create the key. For the most part it was straight forward, but getting used to the order of what you had to use was difficult.

Tools I used and for what:

• Brush tool: pear and A
• Rectangle tool: all of the rectangles in all the days
• Circle tool: all of the circles used to illustrate all the different options
• Star tool: the stars used to illustrate the point options
• Border, Color, Transparency, Gradient, and Graphic Styles Windows: all of the options shown in the stars and circles

 For my personal evaluation I would give myself a 10/9, participation/product, because I completed the assignment in a timely matter, but some of the tools I think I might have misused because they didn't appear the same way they did on the Vectorydiaries blog.

Tutorial Days 9-12