Jamie explained that most of us were really close to our final sets, we just needed to tweak a few more things. Further, we are now moving into color explorations.
Before I started on color exploration, I had to revisit a few of my icons. The barn didn't fit in because it didn't have the same purposeful elegance as the others. It was still too childlike. I also had to fix my cow, not because it wasn't good, but because it was too complex. My cow had 5 lines, instead of 3-4 like my other icons.
I struggled with simplifying the cow. I could remove any of the existing lines because then it'd look more like cow tipping. I decided to make 3 complex lines. With the barn, I added a silo. After reviewing the barn with a peer (Jessie Ren), we both felt that the barn still needed the iconic "X" to communicate. I also decided to connect the silo to the roof because without the connection, it looked like an odd series of lines.
After fixing my icons, I began analog color sketching. Our task was to exploit different kinds of coloring processes, such as fill, additional details, or framing devises. To be honest, I was "upset" at the thought of adding color to my set because I revel in its simplicity. But once I got started, I could see the possibilities while still keeping the original sprit intact.
Jamie took a look at my initial analog sketches in class. She seemed please with some of the different options I had already come up with. The blue underline signifies successful explorations. So far, my favorite is the colored outline with a single element within the outline called out with a lighter color.
We also had to produce color swatch studies to figure out a good color palette for our sets. We used the eyedropper to pull a single color out of an image from our books (first project).
Color has been one of my biggest challenges for all my projects in all my classes. I used to be the kid who wore orange and red together to school, thinking it was the same color. I'm guessing my problem starts there. The color guide in Illustrator does help, but I feel like even that tool doesn't pick the best colors sometimes. I'm glad I have peers who are "color magicians" to look up to and get advice from. For my icon set, I enjoy the idea of using a red and a dark brown.
For Monday, we have 10 digital color explorations due, as well as our newly revised icon sets in black and white. We have a guest critic joining us who Jamie referred to as a "Vector King", or something like that.
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