Sarah's
e-Portfolio
Vector Logo Projects - Week 1
Illustrator
1. RSS FEED LOGO
This duo of vector icon assignments used simple but informative steps. The first of which was the RSS Feed icon.
It started as a rounded rectangle with a stroke and gradients.
To create the arcs of the logo, I drew a circle and using direct selection tool, highlighted 2 specific points to delete and trim the circle down to a quarter. Following that, I copied and pasted to create the second arc shape.
Success: To complete this stage, a small circle was added to the intersection using guides as markers. In the past I hadn’t used them very much, but I found the rulers/guides to be so helpful keeping the design neat and aligned.
On my first attempt of Step 6, I deleted the wrong part of the circle. I had grabbed the wrong points of the circle. When I realised my mistake, I deleted it as per instructions and was left with the correct quarter cut out.
Challenge: For the next stage, I used Object > Expand to change these stroked paths (arcs) to complete shapes. As I progressed into the latter part of Step 9 I had difficulty applying the grey-white gradient to the quarter circles. It was creating a strange shape instead of colouring the arcs. I spent time trying to rectify this but, in the end, I had to undo Object>Expand in order to apply the gradient.
For the final part of this assignment, I copied the inner rectangle, filled it with white and reduced the opacity to 15%. I then drew a flatten oval shape over the top half of this rectangle and using the Pathfinder menu, chose Intersect Shape Area. This gave the appearance of a sleek, shiny finish to the icon. 2 more shiny highlights were added to the top right hand corner to finish off the logo design.
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Screenshot showing my challenges at Step 9
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Finished RSS Feed Logo
2. MEDIA PLAY BUTTON
The second assignment in this series of vector icons, was a Media Play button. I started by activating the Smart Guides in my view menu. Then, after drawing a circle, I applied a gradient using the specified RGB colour specifications.
In Step 3, the circle was selected and I changed the offset values as per notes.
Challenge - When Step 4 specified a linear gradient for the smaller circle, the entirety of the circles filled with colour. I returned to the previous step because I thought I may have applied the offset incorrectly, but despite my efforts, I could not remedy the issue.
After grouping the circles together, I drew a star, using the down-arrow to reduce the number of points to 3. Holding down the shift key, I rotated the now triangle shape into position, in the centre of the circles.
Using the eye dropper tool, I clicked on the blue gradient of the largest circle to duplicate it's specifications. The gradient angle was then changed to 90 degrees.
With the triangle selected, I offset this (Object>Path>Offset) and changed the gradient angle of the smaller triangle for contrast.
For Step 11, I drew a rough rectangle to cut across the triangle. With both shapes selected, I went to the Pathfinder panel and clicked 'Subtract from shape areas'.
Success - By working with the tools more, I can see a pattern in how I need to lay out my workspace. For example, in step 11, I already had the Pathfinder panel active so there was no need to go up to the Windows drop down and scroll down looking for the panel, it was already part of my workspace and saved me time. Other panels I am beginning to use more frequently are appearance and gradients.
For the final step, I filled the newly formed triangle with a linear gradient in black and white, then changed the transparency to Screen Mode. This resulted in a nice reflective, almost 3d finish to the logo.
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