Okay here is the question:
What does a designer do?
What do you think a designer does?
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What does a designer make ($)?
This is the all important question, how much money am I going to make? Well the most recent survey was done by Aquent and AIGA in New York. The money is in American dollars but when you convert it to Aussie dollars it's much the same as what we can expect in Australia.
© 2009 AIGA | 164 Fifth Avenue New York NY 10010 | 212 807 1990
The next graph shows the ups and downs of the industry over the last few years. You can see what a slide we've been on since 2007. Hopefully that's coming to an end now. Unfortunately it's always design that seems to go first when the economic purse-strings tighten. Honestly, it's crazy - "We're selling less product so lets make our product look really bad and undesigned..." - what exactly is the thinking there? They can't expect to sell more if their products are undesigned and ugly. In times of downturn you need to make your products stand out even more - literally jump off the shelf.
© 2009 AIGA | 164 Fifth Avenue New York NY 10010 | 212 807 1990
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How long is it going to take?
This is probably the question you're more interested in: how much longer do I have to be in school? Well firstly any art school is going to be a whole lot different than high school, secondly you don't need to turn up all-day every-day.
At Billy Blue there is a three year Bachelor of Applied Design, two years if you fast track it. That breaks down to six full time semesters, and when I say full time, it means at most a 4 day week and no more than six hours a day. There is a range of courses you can join; Branded Fashion and Residential Interiors are coming on soon, watch this space. Add to this is the chance to do an extra year and get a double degree in one of the above and there's your answer = 3 years for one degree, 4 for two.
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What are we going to do today?
Today we're going to be looking at mainly Communication Design and one of the programs it involves. Adobe Illustrator is a staple program of the design industry and you'll be using it in whatever field you decide to focus on. Today we are going to look at the basics of this program and finish the day by answering a brief, primarily using Illustrator.
Briefs are what we are given by clients in the industry. They tell us what the client wants, when they want it, and what the budget is. In Billy Blue our students work on industry realistic briefs, ones that you might get when you leave college. It's easy to do because all of our lecturers are working in the industry - it's one of pre-requisites of becoming a lecturer at Billy Blue.
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Part 1 Compound Shapes
A compound shape is editable art consisting of two or more objects, formed together to create a new shape. Compound shapes make it easy to create complex shapes because you can precisely manipulate the shape mode, stacking order, shape, and location for each path included.
See if you can make the well known icons below with the least amount of shapes possible. Really think about what can be seen and what can hide behind other shapes. On the first two you shouldn't have to use pathfinder at all (the only reason you would is to cut down the amount of shapes).
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Part 2 Pen Tool
Illustrator really starts to open up when you learn to use the Pen Tool (P). The Pen Tool brings all the freedom of drawing with the added benefits of technical drawing. It's a little hard to get at the start but once you get the hang of it you'll be flying - so stick with it. Let's start off slow, with just some straight line exercises.
Now lets make it a little harder and introduce some curves.
Time for some revision, remember it's all obvious - it just doesn't look like that at first. Spend some time before you start drawing working out how it was done.
Now lets trace a famous logo. I'd like you to convert this old logo into the new version. Start with the easy part (the leaf) and then move onto the fruit.
Now lets put it all together - compound shapes and pen tool, how quickly can you put these vases together using a mix of techniques. Remember the quicker a designer is the more they get paid, so becoming speedy is important.
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Vector inspiration
Get good at vectors and you don't have to just do the straight photo trace like we did in this class. You can start to bring your own style into play, just like in traditional drawing. Look at these examples and how they used their quite unique styles.
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