Alphabet Soup Illustrator - Final Outcome

From the experiments I have made on the letter a, I put together my final A1 poster.

For the printed poster, I got it done in the digital print room on A1 tracing paper.

Alphabet Soup Illustrator - Experiments 3

Here is some more of my experiments for the Alphabet Soup Illustrator brief.

Alphabet Soup Illustrator - Third Session

These are the notes that I made from the third and last Illustrator Induction. In this session we learnt how to save a document for either screen or print.

Preparing For Print

When setting up a document for print it is important to first check 4 things:

• Document/Artboard Size - for this brief that is A1 (594mm x 841mm)
• Resolution - print 300ppi, screen 72ppi
• Colour Mode - print CMYK, screen RGB

If a colour is not in the CMYK printing colours it is called 'out of gamut'. The way to see whether a colour right to use in Illustrator, you can check by looking on the 'Colour Picker'. If the top box at the right of the pallet has a triangle warning above it then it isn't the right one.

• File Formats - certain file formats are suitable to save when the image is intended for print and others for screen.

The file formats that are saved for print are called 'lossless' because they are uncompressed. File formats that are saved for screen are called 'lossy' because they are compressed.

File Formats

The file formats that are used for screen are

• .jpeg
• .png
• .gif

The file formats that are used for print are

• .Ai - Illustrator file
• .Psd - Photoshop file
• .Ind - InDesign file

These 3 are software specific formats. They are good to use when working on something, but not when sending off to the printers because

  - someone else could edit it.

  - someone else could steal it.

  - the printers may not have the right software to open it.

• .tiff
• .ps
• .pdf - portable document format
• .eps - encapsulated postscript file

The bottom 2 formats are the 2 main industry file formats used when sending them off to commercial printing.

Alphabet Soup Illustrator - Experiments 2

Alphabet Soup Illustrator - Experiments

I was practicing some of the skills that I have learnt from the Illustrator Induction sessions we have had and decided to create some my possible manipulated letterforms to use for my finals.

I came up with an idea to manipulate certain body parts into a lowercase g. I wanted to keep them simple and followed the brief with it saying we can use just one colour, so I used the same within each (where needed).

Here is the letterforms I just created and experimented with.

After looking back over the brief that I am using to respond to with these, I am not sure if they would work well in response to it because I don't know if it has to relate to the Alphabet Soup Part 1 brief we did. So I asked Amber and she said it doesn't, and we can literally do what we want for this so long as we end up with the 26 manipulated letterforms. I showed her these experiments that I have done, and she said they are good, and to maybe try as well as this to push the actual letterform as far as it would go as well until it is only just legible. 

So, before I make more of these or try something later, what I first need to do it to work on manipulating the actual letterforms and pushing their boundaries, and go from there really.

Alphabet Soup Illustrator - Second session.

In this session we learned

• more about the pen tool.
• how to make shapes to produce letterforms not using the pen tool.
• how to scan images to trace on illustrator.
• how to fill shapes once drawn using pen tool using colour/patterns.
• how to create own patterns to use.

Because I know what I am like for loosing things, I am going to type out my notes I made from this session so just incase I come to needing them again I know where they are.

To scan...

Scan images only using 'Image Capture' - it can be used for everything.

  - before actually scanning you must check the settings for the scan, because if not it will scan for screen.

      - open settings.

      - change resolution to 300 (for print).

      - save file to user work.

      - change format so that it saves as a .tiff.

      - always do overview before scanning to select areas.

      - then scan.

Open scan to use in Illustrator...

The image that is scanned always saves as a bitmap image, and it needs to be a vector.

  - to start, open Illustrator and set up a new document.

      - file - new document.

          - set profile to print.

          - set colour to CMYK.

          - set resolution to 300.

      - when opened a new file, go to...

          - file.

          - place.

          - select the scanned image.

Trace a scanned image on to Illustrator...

Before starting to trace the document needs to be set up properly.

  - click on the layers panel on the right side of the screen.

  - create a new layer.

  - lock the background layer (which should be the scanned image) and
    double click on it to change the dim to 50%.

  - rename layers to appropriate names.

  - zoom really into what is being traced.

  - set up the colours properly so that the line colour is black and the fill
    colour is set to transparent.

  - use the pen tool to draw round the image.

Here is my letters that I produced while tracing on Illustrator using the pen tool.

Create not using pen tool...

For this we use the shape tool from the pallet on the left.
  - select the elipse shape.
  - start drawing from center point by holding 'alt' key.
      - use selection tool to change and move paths and angles of the curves until achieving right shape.
          - basically draw with it then use white arrow to alter paths to make right shape.

Here is the shape I produced using this technique.

Fill...
Select the shape you want to fill and change the fill colour to what you want it to be.
  - on shapes with counters (like my Q), it colours in all the area.
  - need to use the counter shape to cut out of the outer shapes fill.
  - to do this you use 'Pathfinder'.
      - go to the window drop down menu at the top of the screen.
      - select path finder.
          - have the counter shape above the outer shape.
          - select both shapes together.
          - press the 'Minus Front' button on the Pathfinder menu.

Here is how my Q looks after I filled it.

To add colour...

To do this you can either,

  - use the colour bar on the right (CMYK).

  - or the swatches bar also on the right.

      - in swatches you can choose category for colours.

      - use colourbook.

      - it also has patterns.

          - lines.

          - dots.

          - etc..

Can make own pattern to use...

When ever you do this it should always be done within a square.

  - set the fill colour of it to white.

  - do the pattern within a big square then when it is done, make it smaller.

  - delete the existing swatch colours in the pallet.

  - then drag over the square into the pallet, and this now works to fill shapes.

Here is a pattern I made to use.

And here how it looks on the letter Q I made.

I carried on experimenting with this for the rest of the session creating a few more patterns and using them on the letter Q I made. Here is the ones I did.

Alphabet Soup Illustrator - First session.

For the first induction into illustrator, we were given a task to use the pen tool, and get is used to the way/how it works. Here is the worksheet we followed.

Here is the results I got from following the worksheet. 

After this, we went on to manipulating existing letterforms by altering the paths of the letters using the pen tool. Here is the ones I did.