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Illustrator – First Time Learning Experience

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The Day before the second group consultation(3 compositions were due), I camped the night at ADM, looking at Illustrator tutorials and trying out my designs on Illustrator. I was so tired and upset that day because I had three lessons from 11.30 to 6.30, had a fight with my parents on skype, and I found out that my favourite childhood game, Club Penguin was closing down in a month :'( HORRIBLE DAY. All I wanted to do was sleep, but my brain told me ‘JIAYOU’ and I braved the night at the 4D Mac Lab hahaha.

After watching some tutorials on youtube, I started trying out the pen tool and fill tool on Illustrator, and it was actually so much fun!! It was so much easier than photoshop, and I loved the interface! I could create 4 artboards on the same canvas and simultaneously work on all 4 compositions. And working with the layers was so much easier on Illustrator! It was so easy to be organized. However, as the night progressed, I was super tired and wanted to give up. Then I started playing Club Penguin as a stressbuster hahaha. You can look at my Instagram Story from that day to understand my experience better.

(Click the image to get a better view!)

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Illustrator – First Drafts

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(Click on each of the individual gifs for full size view!)

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Test Prints

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I took two types of test prints at the printing shop in North Spine – photo print and normal colour print on thick paper.

The photo print gave a good resolution, however the colours were completely different – they were glossy and flashy.

The normal colour print relatively had more accurate colours as the digital version, however, it was not very high res, and overall unsatisfactory.

Important Observation: In the test prints of the first composition, the the dark blue computer screen was camouflaging with the black cracks, and the initial ‘K’ of my name could hardly be seen. Hence I would have to make all the colours brighter, so that when printed, it resembles the expected color palette.

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Group Consultation -2

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In the second group consultation, I reviewed my progress with Prof. Joy, Carol, Irene and Melissa. They liked the minimalistic output got from Illustrator and gave me some more suggestions. Prof. Joy felt that the arrow was out of place in the second composition. Carol suggested to have the bulb cracked with filaments showing from inside. I was not happy with the sparks in the final composition, because the black cracks in the bulb looked really tiny and ugly. They suggested that I remove them. I was also confused as to how to incorporate my letters and the symbol of failure in my third composition ,i.e, Graphic Designer. Irene suggested that I could jam Elsa’s hair in the printer to bring more interactivity with the hair and the machine xD Joy suggested that I could use the cracks in the 1st and 4th composition as a recurring motif perhaps in all my compositions.

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More changes/ tweaks

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I made some more changes after the suggestions from the group consultation and my own observations:

• I added a dual tone background to all the compositions to add depth, because it was too flat compared to the elements in the centre which had shadows and highlights
• I made the computer screen in the 1st composition light grey, so that the black crack (‘K’) is more visible when printed
• I removed the arrow in the 2nd composition and made a new design where the bulb was broken and I had my initials in the cracks
• I did not jam Elsa’s hair in the printer for the 3rd composition 😛 I didn’t do that because I wanted all my compositions to be consistent, and there was no interaction of the hair in the others. Rather, I formed my letters by showing the paint wearing off from the printer, and ink running all over the paper in cracks to show failure. I also added a semicircle mouth in the ‘face’ to show a miserable expression to make it less static.
• In the 4th composition I removed the tiny black cracks in the bulb and also removed the additional cracks in the lamp stand, because it was too noisy
• Hence, I incorporated cracks in all my compositions as a recurring motif to
  • represent my name as initials – A,F,K
  • show the nature of fragility and failure of the future of women in their careers.

 

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Illustrator – Final Compositions – All layers

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Here is a complete break-up of the entire process of building these compositions. If you like, you could click on these GIFs to get a feel of the process right from the primary step of setting the colour scheme, to obtaining the final result.

Composition – 1: CODER

 

Composition – 2: ENTREPRENEUR

 

Composition – 3: GRAPHIC DESIGNER

 

Composition – 4: ANIMATOR

 

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Final Prints

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I finally printed my compositions at Unimax in Jurong Point which gave me an excellent output in terms of colour and resolution.

I also mounted my pieces on a white corrugated plastic sheet, which added a very sophisticated and edgy look for my presentation. It helped compliment the depth in the designs as well. I chose to curate my work as a simple 2×2 layout as it gave a wholesome and symmetric feel to the overall composition which worked with the simplicity of the individual compositions.

 

End of my WIP posts!!! Phew! Documenting is hard xD

See the Next Post for a complete summarized analysis of my Final Presentation! 🙂