Illustration - Space Cow Poster

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This week, I knew I wanted to do something fun and cute, with a light, pastel color. Flipping through my sketchbook, I found the perfect doodle candidate to transform into a digital illustration. This adorable cow exploring space was an excellent learning opportunity.

I wanted to try a new technique I learned this week in a tutorial. The Variable Width tool allows me to control the width of a stroke, allowing for a natural, hand drawn look. I really like the effect, and the tool is pretty easy to get used to. This is definitely a tool that I will make more use of in the future. Overall, I’m quite pleased with this project.

1 DAY Challenge - Typography Poster

We all hit a creative block, and there’s no finer cure than setting a deadline for yourself. I went digging through my list of quotes for typography projects, and one in particular jumped out at me.

“The meaning of life is to give life meaning”

— Natane

This quote is one that I have been saying a lot lately, and I am glad I finally gave it the design it deserves. I have wanted this quote as a canvas print, and I challenged myself to create the design, start to finish, in one day. Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with the design, as you can see in this mock up. I have sent the design out for printing, and will post an update when I get the final print.

To start with, I typed out the entire phrase, and started looking for a font family. I knew I wanted to keep the typography simple, and by choosing fonts from the same family they were sure to go together well. I settled on Acumin Variable Concept for the variety of fonts available in that family.

Because ‘life’ and ‘meaning’ are the main focus of the phrase, they are given the most visual weight. I wanted to emphasis the parallels of the phrase, and used the physical alignment of the words in order to do so.

This was a fun project, all in all. I enjoyed the time challenge, it demanded snappy choices and strong direction from the start. These are important skills for a designer, and practicing this with a one day project is great experience to bring to other projects.