Vectorized Combinations

1.Project Goals
The overall goal is to have 15 finished Mark-up combined icons.

2.Final Icon Grid

3.Final Icon Creations

War/Economy

War/Internet

Education/Innovation

War/Education

Cooking/Innovation

Economy/Cooking

Economy/Education

Innovation/War

Internet/Education

Innovation/Economy

Innovation/Internet

 

Economy/Internet

Cooking/Internet

Cooking/Education

4.Reflection
My thoughts on this project was that it was a long process, but I'm happy with the way most these icons came out. The hardest part to this project though is combining them to fit and complement each other.

5.Favorite and Least Favorite
My favorite icons would be cooking/education and innovation/war. I worked on these longer than most of icons and I'm extremely satisfied on how they came out. My icons I dislike is cooking/innovation and war and education. It was frustrating to get them combined and tweak it to look nice.

Combining Icons grid

Project Goals
Our goal is to combine the six icons into 15 different combinations.

Process
As with the previous post we start off brainstorming. Its much easier to do this with a group of people and discuss different ways of combining each icon. Again with each icon combination make a set of ten or more thumbnails. Ounce you have those combined icons in roughs scan them in at 600ppi in grey-scale and clean them up in Photoshop. You can vector these cleaned up files in Adobe Illustrator to make your mark-ups.

Icon Creation

Project Goals

Our goal is to have 6 finished icons on six subjects in gestalt forms. 

Design Stages

We first start brainstorming on the six subjects by writing out key phrases, or words that relate to the subject. Second them out as thumbnails roughly and not too detailed. Do about ten or more for each subject. Then pick one of the thumbnails and create the rough. After you're done scan them in at 600ppi in greyscale. We can get into Photoshop and clean up our rough and make the comps. We can save these comps as bitmap since they will be only black and white.
Icon Thumbnails

Icon Adjusted in Photoshop

Cooking

Economy

Education

Innovation

Internet

War

Layout Stages

Step 1: Brain Storming
Before anything that involves a computer or a sketch you write first. Write thoughts or details about what you are going layout and the idea behind it. By doing this first step it'll help to narrow down which ideas are great and others that are not.

Step 2: Thumb Nails 
Thumbnails are the doodle versions of your brainstorming thoughts. They are not meant to look great yet, but it gives you a visual of what your idea will look like. This helps to narrow done which ones you know you like and don't.

Step 3: Rough
You can begin working on the computer for this step. This is the singled out ideas from your thumbnails but blown up. It's gives you a visual of what your mark-up could look like.

Step 4: Comprehensive (COMP)

A comp should basically be what you're mark-up is going to be; may lack some details depending on what you're doing.

Step 5: Mark-Up

A mark-up is the finished product of the idea process. It has all the details you may not have added in the comp. You should have a delivery file (a .jpeg or .png depending on the receiver) and working file (any file that you have saved for possible future reference or emergency) ready now that to you are done.

Design Stages

The Step 1: Brainstorming 
Before you start any project you need to think it out. The way you do it doesn't really matter, so long as you run them someone or a group to see whether or not your idea is ok to go foward with.

Step 2: Audience
After you have the concept or idea down start thinking about the poeple who can understand it. Are you aiming for the younger crowd or maybe those in your age group? Is the message clear enough? Having an outside perspective may help to narrow or widen your thought range.

Step 3: Clear Idea
This step is probably tough for some  poeple, because you may understand what your concept is but maybe others don't. The best way is to talk this out or show others and ask then questions to help your idea to be clear. If you were not able to get your point across its ok to go back to step one and buffer out another idea.

Step 4: Simplify
Ounce you've got that clear idea make it simple. Strip it down to the bone and don't make it too complicated. Make sure your idea gets to the point.

Step 5: Bottom Line

Now the last step is basic. What was the point of the idea ? What did you accomplish and why? If you can answer these above questions you did good, but if you can't you may need to go through this process again. There is no point to your idea or concept if you can't make your point.