Class 1

Actually i don t have so much time to do all the homework right now but the lessons and also the works to provide really made me changing my mind and i take this as a chance to deepen my knowledge in Illustrator and taking a breake for doing something fun. So my content is fun too all about coffee and coffeebreak in between Adobe and Wordpress work.

I found a very good Illustrator lesson in a course on Udemy that i take and this lesson was about Designtrends in 2020. Its called Skeuomorphism Design. The term “skeuomorph” comes from the Greek: “skéuos” (meaning container or tool) and “morphḗ” (meaning shape). Its the developement rom Flatdesign that i really liked to a more reallistic but minimal Design. Here some nice examples

I was in use by Apple a lot but in a way that was too much . The new trend is just to give the user a kind of real feeling and touch - nothing glossy and to deep shadows shouting colors etc. Something very delicate and minimalistic. Its great for creating interactive buttons for websites and i guess i will use it a lot. For this lesson i did a button to get a coffee when you press. Decided for this project to do things that i won t use and to learn about things i will use. I just love coffee and all about it...

I enjoyed this lesson a lot and actually find myself using Illustrator quit a lot. But it took me sbout 2 years to get used to it.

Class 2

I love typography and found a nice quote for the coffee . I want to try to make this assignments for all the course like a brand to practise this too. Here is a link to the quote i use it can be found on many places and is also the title of a notebook

Good Ideas Start With Brainstorming Great Ideas Start With Coffee

I decided to make my poster a square one i have done many posters in A3 landscape or portrait and i feel its time to change if its sqare it will fit in any format in spark and in Instragram and facebook. I never did a square poster and i think in the real world it would be to expensive for print but may be once this will be a standard as well.

The font i used for coffee is a bought font that is made from coffeebeans I used capuchino round topping images instead of the o and tried to design with the font only almost no extra elements. I did many versions and tried many fonts. Most are bought ones from Designcuts for a very little price. I love fonts and before using a lot the great Adobe fonts i did buy a lot. Today in most projects i use Adobe fonts. I like the type touch tool in Illustrator the use of variable fonts and i found that working with font in llustrator when using font as an design element hs many options. The C from the coffee i did with the pent tool its a shape not a font. And i wanted it not to be exact geometric shape.

For some reason i could not save the File as image in Illustrator i had to save it in PDF and open in Photoshop in order to get an image. This is my square quote Poster:

Class 3

In general i prefer to see life classes before doing the assignment. But i am on a very tide working shedule and just now i have some space to do this course full. I really like the course , the projects and Illustrator (finally)

As i want all assignments to be around coffee i found this and i know this fits me and it fits what i have done so far. Again i started with something much to full, there was another cup on the top i added a complicate badge and more beans then i cut a lot i added a very simple badge i did with the pentool copied it three times, clipped it to solid background and background with coffeepowder, moved them a little to give it a kind of border and i added an image from a bought coffee collection and decide to choose a script font that its bought as well but for very low price from Designcuts, link is above. I think the swash going out of the frame is good it actually happens by mistake when i start to fix it i found that its much better going out. The text is doube the second one is redish dark with blur to give it a kind of glow and soften it.

Again i could not save the file as an png or tiff in Illustartor had to save in PDF and change to png in Photoshop.

Class 4

This was very challenging and i took several directions before i came up with this last version. I does not really look like me but it fits to my coffee theme i choose for all this course and my love for coffee.

I made it after i watched a lesson in an Illustratorcourse i do on Udemy right now about how to use the shaper tool, I draw according to the photo and let the shapertool correct the lines. That is a great tool! And i used the pentool that became one of my favorites lately. From working with it a lot i found that its the best to reduce the points wherever ist possible. I don t use the Curvature tool anz more instaed i reduce points and rounding becomes much easier. The curvature tool produces many many anchorpoints and to change something becomes really difficult.

i decided to make it as simple as possible because an avatar usually is very small and very simple. I used the same colors that i used before and added a capuchino topp and a splatter of coffee as a frame. I used coffeecupshapes for the eyes and organic forms, I found that i can't use the shapebuilder tool any more after making a clipping mask. In illustrator cropping is hard not like in Indesign or photoshop, took me a while to find out and still sometimes in the end i go to photoshop to do the final cropping. But in general i found my way to Illustrator and use it often. Thanks to the Adobe Edex classes!

Class V

This project i felt for the first time really good with the pentool i struggeled with it such a long time and finally i really enjoy it its amazing what is possible. Also i like the idea of minimalistic Art its good to see simple things in a world that is overloaded with information. I tried to work with negative space. For the Text i used the enveloppe tool that is great to so the text is the cup and i don t need a shape this reduces also from the information. In the beginning i had all numbers from the clock then i left only the 12 and made the Smoke shape that leaves space dor the handle of the cup. The font is a real coffeefont from my collection. I used the transparency pannel a lot as well and the blending modes that work like in Photoshop

Time is fife to twelve that is considered a critic time.... I made the 5 as roman number inside the pointers of the clock , It came out by mistake but then i thought it can be a nice symbol. I love to test Illustrator tools and work with the shapebuilder that can cause effects i did not think about.

Final Conclusion

Thanks to all the great lessons, the guestspeakers and all the students and specially to Sjaani that kept encouraging me the past two years not to give up with Illustrator. Today its an App that i don t want to miss anymore. My favorite is Indesign and the combination from Indesign and Illustrator is really phantastic.

I did a similar course a year ago therefore i felt ok to finish all the projects before visiting all the life classes. I enjoy a lot to see Tina Touli as a tutor i know her for Years for her amazing presentations as a guest speaker. Now a i see she is a great teacher as well.

Hope to see you soon again in an other course.

Thank You!