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.

typetwo. change one thing. final.

Here is the screen shot of how my poster looked on the front page! It was exciting to see it up and everyone who accessed the website at that time saw it as well. Will I win? Absolutely no clue, but this was definitely an enjoyable project to do nonetheless. Below is bigger version of my final poster.

So this is the final product. I'm rather pleased with this poster seeing as I started this entire process with this:

The initial idea was definitely there, but everything about it just wasn't anything absolutely stunning. With revisions, revisions, and more revisions I finally came up with the final design. Yes the aesthetics of the poster are just that, aesthetics, and doesn't help push content or meaning further, the poster just didn't feel right, or complete with a solid color or even a gradient background that echoed the colors of the paper. I realized once i finished this poster how much I despise 100% digital work without any sort of hand-made quality to it. This was a nice process to be able to spend such a long time on one poster. There is so much that goes into posters that I never fully realized. It's pretty dang difficult to make a shnazy poster and I have so much more respect for the greats who have come before me who have made such amazing posters.

sources: aiga blueridge poster clash website.

viscomtwo. icons. reflection.

I started out this project with a fairly good mindset as to what I wanted to do. I went ahead and chose something that I knew pretty well having swam on the boys swim team all four years of high school. I have a pretty nice understanding of how everything works and I also have a love and a passion for swimming so why not combine two of my loves in one project?

At the beginning of the creation process of the icons I was having a rather rough time making my objects less drawing-esque and more iconic. For some reason it just didn't fully click in my brain but once it did I whipped out a nice set of eight different styles of icons.

I loved the continuous line set. Not only was it a style that no one else was doing, but it also fit my story. Having my story be all about the swimming race and then having all my icons be one solid, continuous line fits magnificently perfect. However, the icons themselves are still not perfect and I more than plan on going back to them over the rest of the project to keep tweaking them, improving them, and even adding new icons to them.

I would say the starting block is definitely my weakest icon, as Jamie pointed out to me. All of my other shapes, for the most part, all have a solid form to them, not a lot of white spaces jabbing into them like my starting block. I will hopefully find a better starting block to reference my icon for that object to get it more solid like the rest. I would also love to have all these icons be as slick and smooth as the whistle. The whistle was my first, and still the best, icon of this set. It was the one that really set my direction into production.

viscomtwo. icons. going for gold.

My icon set, is about a swim meet. The objects I chose for this project were(in order from left to right in the image below) jammer(swim suit), cap & goggles, starting block, whistle, stopwatch, towel, medal. Below are the icons at 1/2 inch scale.

While thinking about how I wanted to draw my icons I had many different ideas. Everything from geometric shapes to cut outs. However, when it came down to choosing the route that I wanted to go with, it was without a doubt the single line route. My story revolves around a giant pool of water so the concept of having all of my objects made up of one continuous, fluid line made the most sense. I wanted to reference water and fluidity of it through that aspect of these icons.

Here is the linear process of my stopwatch.

Larger images after the jump.

desqtaup. one.

bulgarian stamps.