CORE2291 Design Lab 1: Project 2
Illustrator Techniques
Project 2: Illustrator techniques required me to get to know Adobe Illustrator by recreating the Coca-Cola logo and designing two themed patterns for Coca-Cola. The deliverables include the Illustrator AI file of my Coca-Cola redraw, the Coca-Cola tracing image, and the Illustrator AI file of my pattern designs. Through this project, I was able to grow more comfortable and experienced using the pen tool. I also gained a more thorough understanding of the shape builder tool and Adobe Illustrator's pattern creation capabilities.
Illustrator techniques
Firstly, I set up my document with my reference image. Then, I gathered my swatches from the image and organized them in my swatches panel.
Next, I traced the Coca-Cola logo with the pen tool and added the trademark text with the type on a path tool.
Here we see the Coca-Cola logo ready to be colored and formatted correctly.
The Coca-Cola logo has been filled with pure white and no stroke setting. I then used the shape builder tool to cut out the gaps in the type as well as merge complex shapes into cleaner forms.
To finish up the image, I created the simple circle with the eclipse tool and added a gradient using the swatches I created earlier. On the rightmost Artboard is a copy of the trademark type to permit easy edits if needed.
The final Coca-Cola logo. An alternative red and white logo was created for versatility.
Visual Exploration Pattern Design
Pattern Design
I decided to go with the theme of retro movie theaters. Here are some sketches of pattern elements and color exploration. I took inspiration from retro drive-in signage, movie theater carpets, and the vintage ads that would air before films.
After deciding on the color palette, I used Procreate to experiment with different motifs and shapes that I believed would work for a pattern. I stuck very closely to this mock-up when creating the vector art on Illustrator in the next step.
Here is the cleaned up vector art and pattern in Adobe Illustrator.
Next, I took some of the pattern elements to create a new composition with a limited version of the color palette. Before finalizing the patterns, I made some edits to motif sizing and spacing to better the composition.
Pattern one encapsulates a night out at the movies with the moon and star motifs.
Pattern two is more simplified with a minimalistic version of the color palette.