Valerie Sonnenberg
Design Challenge 1
The task was to create a series of 10 digital illustrations. The topic was non-specified. We learned the basics of Adobe Illustrator and used the design thinking strategy to ideate, receive feedback, try versions, and revise. Please click on the galleries to view full screen images.
Brainstorming
The initial work on this project was brainstorming. We created mindmaps and lists of ideas. My three ideas were robots, anxiety, and cultures of the world.
Ideation
We then did some rough sketches to further flush out ideas. I decided to run with my robots living human lives idea over anxiety and culture. I was not certain how to even illustrate culture, and I did not choose anxiety because I felt more excited about robots living human lives.
Transferring to Adobe Illustrator
The transfer to Adobe Illustrator began with image tracing a robot from the internet and editing it to be my own. Special thanks to Just Colorings for the original image.
Sketch-ups
The next step was to create initial drafts of the images in Illustrator. I chose the 10 best/funniest ones from the ideation phase.
Color and backgrounds
Labs 3 and 4 were a study on how to use Illustrator and apply color schemes. 16 photos, 8 image traced and edited and 4 that were edited with color, then a background. Finally, the last 4 were drafts of varying color schemes and designs for the final deliverable.
Final deliverable
After testing varying ideas, colors, and designs, I am proud of the final product of 10 colored illustrated photos.
Conclusion
Overall, this project was a good introduction to Illustrator and design thinking approach. Avoiding the urge to jump straight to the final draft and instead work through ideation phases and getting feedback at every stage was very valuable and turned out to produce an even better final product. Critique is most useful when in the process, not after the process is finished, and this approach led to new insights. While it is more work to go through each phase of the process, I believe it is worth it.
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Pertaining to this project specifically, the mindmap brainstorming allowed for many crazy ideas that would eventually be narrowed down to the good golden nugget. I started with 3 ideas, and at the end of the brainstorming phase knew I would focus on robots. Then, by the end of the prototyping (or the sketching) phase, I knew robots trying to do human activities was the most effective. Putting the drawings into Illustrator further refined them. Labs 3-4 exploring color and backgrounds allowed for exploration of how I wanted the final product to look, and without that extra amount of thought my pictures would not have looked as finished or nice. Finally, wrapping the whole project up was far easier as I already had a plan and knew how to execute it, all due to the previous steps.
Along the way, my TA Daniel and several of my classmates gave me feedback on what was working and what wasn't to steer me in a direction of success.