viscomtwo. icons. two-color studies.

update. I've been talking to a lot of different people from the other section about this stage of the process, adding the second color. If you're lookin' at this blog post to see what I did, lemme give you this advice: do not let the color change the icon. Instead, let the second color add to the original icon.

So we have now entered into the beginning stages of adding color and a second layer of information to our icon sets. Above are the ten different styles of color I tried out. Clicking on the images give you bigger versions. With my icons, I had issues with coming up with ways to add a second color to my one-color icons. My entire object is one continuous contour line that makes up the entire object and because of that I had to be creative with ways of adding that second color. Some ways worked better than others. Each set of styles are labeled a-j and each set is the horizontal row of whistle, suit, and medal.

Sets a, c, f, and i are the four sets that Jamie picked out as being the strongest of the ten. With those four in hand I will continue my two-color process forward. Though with sets a & f she wants to see two different versions.

Sets b, d, e, and i all had issues because of the way I added that second color, it ended up closing up the continuous line and really took away from the overall feel to my icons that really made them strong so immediately we crossed them off the list except for i. I will redo set i but just pull the line away from the icon so it's still close to it but actually touching the icon itself.

I like the style of set j with the offset icons but it really is just too distracting from the icon itself and Joseph put it best: drunk swimming.

I really liked set c a lot, so I actually ended up taking it further. My original concept behind it from the very beginning was to make those splatters with watercolor and then scan them in and take the outline of the shape and apply it to the icon. Here is one of those watercolor tests:

So I scanned in three sheets of these and then picked out the most successful splatters, those being the most compact and iconic splatter shape. With the three best picked out I applied them to the vector icons:

So I applied them to the icons but through feedback, and my own observations, with the way I went about making the splatters they went too far into paint and ink splatter and less into water splatter, or puddle of water. I really like this direction and all of my icons have open white spaces for me to be able to apply this affect to. Plus, I love the aesthetics of the water color and it is a nice effect that I would be able to implement later on in the series. And that isn't to say that I can't apply the watercolor to my icons if I don't end up going down this route inevitably, it's a nice concept that fits well with my icons overall. This is what I was getting at in my latest type post about texture reenforcing meaning and giving additional meaning to what is already there.

All-in-all I have some very solid roads to go down and choose from for this part of the project and that excites me a lot. From here on out I love these two-color studies digitally.