During the entire first half of 2013 I've designed virtually nothing. And I call myself a graphic designer? I had an excuse, though. Working 24-32 hours per week, mostly in the late nights/early mornings really swiped all of my design time. Plus, wouldn't you rather play in Disney World than sit in a room and design something? Yeah, me too!
I've worked out a remedy to this situation, though. Over the Summer I will take on design challenges. For each challenge I'll have two days (give or take). The challenges I'm used to have typically come from my classes, with the teacher of the class assigning the project and giving specific details. This blog post and this blog post are examples of the projects I've been assigned for my graphic design classes. Rather than a teacher giving the challenge, I've decided to give it a random spin. I made a numbered list of things to design (i.e. a postcard, a book cover, a brochure, etc.) and a numbered list of themes (triangles, museum, coffee shop, train, etc.). For each challenge I'll pick out, via random number generator, an item from the "things to design" list and an item from the "themes" list. Then I'll design something based on those items!
The first challenge is "postage stamp" and "elephant". I made some sketches - probably not enough, that's something I need to work on - then picked one and created it in Illustrator.
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| Elephant sketch. Aww, aren't they cute? |
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| Finished design. |
It was great to stretch my design muscles a bit! Overall I like how it turned out - I think the top elephant's ear could use a little tweaking, but I can't pin down how to tweak it. Maybe the right edge needs to not be so straight. I did "cheat" and grab a pre-designed postage stamp border from the Internet. It would have taken forever to make from scratch!
Want to join in the fun? I'd love to see what you can come up with keeping within the "postage stamp" "elephant" parameters. If you have a blog let me know if you post your design challenge response! If you don't have a blog, why not post a picture of your creation on the Designed to Create Facebook page? Design on, friends!
I like your stamp.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteWell this is an interesting "challenge".
ReplyDeleteLet me see...you want us (who are not in your class) to design a postage stamp with elephant as the theme? Then go to your FB page to post it.
We in the blogger world are used to seeing you do Zentangle things so this is a little bit of a stretch for some of us. Well, not really, as many of us are artists before we were tanglers. I will give this some thought. It might be helpful Zach if you gave us a deadline. All challenges should have a deadline so we know when to go and look and see all the submissions. Right now I am thinking of a Zentangle Elephant Stamp.
:0
You got it, Ginny!
DeleteGood points on the challenge. I guess I was just putting it out there as an informal challenge, and if anyone was inspired by it they could show the results. Thanks for submitting your elephant stamp on the Facebook page - I really enjoyed seeing it!
Love the stamp! I've been doing a lot of ATC swaps and I'm swamped right now, but I hope some folks will take on your challenge! Good to see you creating!
ReplyDeleteThank you! ATCs are fun, aren't they?
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