Abigail's Digital Portfolio Blog

 Inspiration Page:      I came across a creator on YouTube that designs logos. His name is Mohamed Salama and he makes logo design tutorials. I found one that I especially liked and I watched how he went from a sketch to an actual design on Illustrator.      There are a couple things I like about this design and his tutorial. First of all, I like the overall sleek design that looks simple but still has visual interest. He does this by using the curve tool and gradients. I found it very helpful that he showed how to use the curve tool, and now I feel more confident using it in my own work. Another thing I liked was his use of gradient. The gradient by itself looked good, but the design was taken to the next level when he added the "shadow" gradient one the bottom side of each curve. The shadow made the overall design look more visually intriguing and gives a sense of depth, making this design almost have a 3D look to it. I thought this was overall ...

Reflection Page:          I recently finished redesigning the Science Olympiad Club's logo that I was asked to make. Now that I have the final versions for each shirt style (white hoodie, black t-shirt, Mountain View shirt, Eagle View shirt), I would like to reflect on the process; what I liked and didn't, and challenges along the way. white hoodie black t-shirt grey mountain view shirt red eagle view shirt           Overall I am pretty happy with how this design came out. It was definitely a new experience and I had to learn how to use the basics of Illustrator to make the design. Considering this it my first time making a logo, I would say I did pretty well, but there are definitely things I could improve on.            During the process of making the design, I should have given my client more initial sketches to choose from to make sure that I was capturing the logo they wanted. Having said tha...

  Investigation of Logo Design:           This week I wanted to look at some tips for logo designing to increase my skill with creating logos. I came across this video on YouTube that looked at a few "bad" logo designs and critiqued them, explaining what was not working in the design.                     The video talked about four key parts that are important in an effective logo: Form Function Aesthetic Application Form: Refers to how the logo is technically made; how does everything lines up? Is the thickness of the text appropriate? Is the kerning correct? etc. Function: Refers to how well the logo represents the company, event, group etc. This could be related to how the colors reflect the desired emotion of the company or if the logo creates an image that memorable to the viewer and correctly displays the purpose/ideals of the company. Aesthetic: Refers to the theme/vibe/pallet of t...

Progress with the Science Olympiad Design: Here is this week's progress with the design I am working on. I have included several pictures that show the progression of the logo, and descriptions of what I changed in each.           These are the original sketches that I came up with. I had two variations. One with both of the eagle's wings spread out, and one with only one wing spread out. I was also going to add the geometric shapes to the eagle with one wing spread, but my client seemed to like the one with both wings spread better.           Here is another sketch of the design, but this time I added a small space between each of the shapes. I also made the wings proportionate to the best of my ability.         Next my client wanted to see what it would look like with color, so I used an app on my phone to digitally trace over the picture of my sketch and fill the shapes with color. I tried ...

  An Investigation on Graphic Design      This week I looked at a book that dived into groundbreaking ideas in graphic design. This book by Steven Heller and Veronique Vienne titled 100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design,  gave details about important concepts in graphic design that were influential and are still used today. While I was going through this book, a few things stood out/intrigued me, and this is an overview of those things. Calligrams (pgs. 62-63): One of the pages that interested me was on calligrams. Normally, text is pretty straight forward and linear; Its change in appearance is minimal throughout design. However, a calligram bends and manipulates text into  an image. One example shown to the left is a design for the history of Coca-Cola, and the words are bent and enlarged to represent a bottle. Found Typography (pgs. 82-83): Another section that fascinated me was on found typography. This is the idea that you can take everyday object...