Due to the nature of drawing a metallic, 3-d effect iPod, this week's assignment required lots of gradients.  This also meant, lots of layers!  It took good management throughout the project to keep the layers panel updated with names.

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To begin, I set up the Guides & Grid. The first shape was a rectangle.  This was duplicated 4 times and different gradient properties applied to each.

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Challenge - The readability of the notes left a lot of confusion for me. I found the steps difficult to follow at times and as a result, I used my own interpretation of the commands so that I could keep moving forward with the assignment.

An example of this is Step 1, copy the rectangle 4 times.  It is not clear what to do with these copies.  I stacked them on top of each other hoping this would work.

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For the button, I drew a circle and used the Offset Path tool.

Step 4 required another, smaller rectangle for the screen of the iPod.  Using the Direct Selection tool. I rounded the corners and then according to the notes, was to go to, Object>Expand Appearance. Unfortunately, this was in shaded text in the drop down menu, so not available for me to use.

 

To create a small panel at the top of this screen, I drew a narrow rectangle and added it to my screen.  The notes stated Pathfinder>Intersect but when I attempted this, a prompt appeared saying 'No results'.  Instead, I drew the panel manually, sizing it by eye, placing in position using guides and then using Direct Selection to round the top corners.

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Next, was the Type.  The iPod screen features several words which were easy to create.  The specified 'Chaparral Pro Bold' for the arrows was not on my computer so I chose a close alternative.

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The small battery was easy to draw following the same commands as previous steps.

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Success - Usually I draw triangles using the Star tool.   In this assignment I learned a new way, converting a Rectangle into a triangle using Direct Selection, then Object>Path>Average (Both).

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All that was left was to position the various elements on the iPod panel.  I was impressed with the 3-d effect on the finished composition.

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