My first assignment for my Vector Graphics class was to design twelve related icons about anything I wanted. Now, I am going into this with very, very minimal experience in Adobe Illustrator. I’ve messed around in it a couple times, but other than that, I’m about as amateur as you can get, so this task was a little daunting for me. I wracked a couple ideas around in my brain, and finally settled on designing an icon set for the horoscopes–Gemini, Leo, Taurus, etc. I’ve always been embarrassingly interested in stuff like this. I’ll check my horoscope from time to time (I’m a Gemini) just for fun, and I decided to indulge in this weird hobby of mine.
SKETCHES
I first started by taking notes of the different horoscope signs. I also learned while doing a bit of research of all the symbols, that each sign has its own elements attached to it as well, and I wanted to somehow incorporate that into the design as well. I then started by sketching out designs for Libra, the scales; Cancer, the crab; Sagittarius, the archer; Pisces, the fish; and Aquarius, the water-bearer. After sketching out some starter designs in my sketchbook, it was time to dive in to the computer.
DRAFT
I was really pleased with how my sketches turned out, and I wanted to keep a hand-drawn element to my icons, rather than them having incredibly clean lines and leaning more towards the geometric side. I uploaded images of my sketches into Adobe Illustrator and used the Blob Brush tool to trace the sketches that I drew. After tracing all of the sketches into Illustrator, I then added color, but I didn’t want the colors to be too bright, so I leaned more towards desaturated and pastel shades. I also added Gemini, the twins, to my draft as well. However, since I needed twelve icons, it was back to the literal drawing board.
SKETCHES AND DRAFT PT. 2
I finalized my sketches for the rest of the icons–Capricorn, the sea-goat; Virgo, the maiden; Scorpio, the scorpion; Leo, the lion (and my personal favorite); Taurus, the bull; and Ares, the ram. I then jumped back in to Illustrator and did what I did with the past icons by tracing them in with the Blob Brush tool to keep the same style as the first six.
After looking at these sketches drafts of the icons, I still felt there was something wrong with them. I then remembered the notes that I took about the signs and how each one is assigned to an element, and I decided to add those as a background to the icons to give them a better sense of unity.
After designing the backgrounds, I finally went in and did some minor adjustments to the icons. I made the strokes a little thinner, changed the colors of the detail lines within the icons (the scales of the fish and the handles of the water jug), and then added the backgrounds to each icon.
FINAL
As you can see, I changed some colors, like Virgo’s dress, changed the colors of the detail lines so they didn’t look so heavy and bogged down, and simplified other parts, like the gem at the top of the scales.
I am still so proud of these, even after looking at them after a few weeks of designing them. If course, there are still things that I would go in and change and fix–you’re never truly satisfied with what you’ve created–but for a first dive in to Illustrator to work on a large project, I’d say I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
