Illustrator class poster idea
I'm about half-way into my Illustrator class at RISD and I'm so glad I'm taking it. It's not terribly difficult to teach yourself Photoshop or Illustrator, but they are both massive programs with a lot of sophisticated features and it's hard to know where to begin. This class has really helped speed up my learning curve. One of my blessings and curses is that I'm comfortable with Photoshop and the two programs are similar in significant ways and yet very different in others. When things are different, it makes it more confusing and frustrating when something doesn't work the way I expect it to (i.e.- I'm addicted to creating layers in Photoshop and have really had to change that instinct for Illustrator because it is simply designed to be used differently. I'm getting there!)
Most of our projects have been short exercises in using specific tools and techniques. They are starting to become a little bit more complex now, which is a lot more fun because we're actually designing fun pieces like posters. Our last assignment was to create an 11x17 vertical event poster meeting these requirements:
- a customized headline or title treatment
- sub-headlines
- three-threaded paragraphs of type
- drawn, traced, placed and/or blend-mode images
- patterns (if applicable)
My first plan was to make up a fake band and a fake concert event. I spent a week creating one and liked what I made well enough to bring the work-in-progress to class for a critique, but I also thought it was a boring concept and I couldn't stop thinking of other event ideas, which is a good sign that my heart isn't into it and I'm not going to create something I actually like.
My hometown of Chicago has come up a lot lately and at one point it occurred to me that I should do a Chicago event poster...maybe a blues or jazz fest? It eventually occurred to me that Chicago is a candidate for the 2016 Olympics, and I had that "Yes! That's it!" moment. I scrapped my fake band for my former city. It felt somewhat ambitious for my skill level, but screw it, I didn't sign up for classes to avoid challenges. I'm supposed to be making mistakes and learning.