When I first was assigned this project, I was pretty excited. I had so much freedom, I could choose any topic I wanted to, and use either Illustrator, Photoshop, or Flash. I never even considered using Flash, since that program is an abomination. It was now down to Photoshop and Illustrator: I went with Illustrator because I remember it being pretty versatile, and I had already used Photoshop a lot more than it. It was time for something fresh. I figured that I wouldn't need to review any tutorials over it, since I retained a memory of it for the most part, and could look up anything during the project if I needed to. I decided on confronting the problem of bad diet in youth because my dad had recently mentioned it to me, and because I do believe that it is a pretty big problem.
Plan
Once I had decided to confront child obesity, I brainstormed up a couple of ways that I could help and that could incorporate Adobe Illustrator. I decided on a food pyramid, since it seemed to be within my skill range and also capable of curbing down on the number of obese children. I looked up an image of a food pyramid to give me an idea of what I should be aiming for, and drafted up a quick sketch myself, which is now on my design specification. I knew that it had to be visually appealing to younger kids, and that younger kids usually like brightly colored things, so I chose to color my pyramid with the colors of my rainbow. I thought of a few pieces of food that I could use to represent each area of food that kids should try to incorporate into their diet, and then got started working on the pyramid.
Create
At this point, I was finally working in illustrator on the food pyramid. I started with the basic frame of the pyramid. It was simple enough: three bold lines forming a triangle. I then used the line tool again to divide the pyramid into six vertical sections of unequal length, which I adjusted to match the proportions I had come up in my plan. Next, I needed to color in each section (according to the rainbow). I thought this would be very easy, just a few clicks of the paint tool. I soon realized that Illustrator had no paint tool- that was on Photoshop. So I painstakingly began coloring in wit a tiny brush tool. After about 15 minutes of this, I was only half way done with 1 section. I got mad and used the direct selection tool to grab individual corners of the paint I had already put down and stretch them to the corners of the section, filling in the space in between. Using this method, I tidied up a bit, and finishing coloring much faster. I also filled in the background with black. Next step was easy: I just used the text tool, picked a fun font, and labeled the image and each section appropriately. I even went the extra mile and a text color complementary to the color it was being placed on. Next step was the most time consuming. I had to fill each section with foods. I chose 3 per section (except oils) to look the most informative without being to cluttered and distracting. I first tried taking an image from online, saving it onto the desktop, dragging it over the Illustrator icon, and then using a lasso tool to get it onto my image. Sadly, this only really works on Photoshop. By this point, I was wishing I had decided to use Photoshop. I googled my problem and found that I had to use the "Place" function. It basically allows you to pull any saved image onto your Illustrator document. Using this, I hunted down a bunch of images, re-sized them, and placed them on the pyramid. Finally, I was finished.
Evaluate
In the final analysis, the creation part of the project can be viewed as a success. If it were to be made into a sticker and stuck onto the binders of youth, they would be reminded of what constitutes a good diet, and stay healthy. The image turned out quite well. It is neat, colorful, interesting, and informative. Considering the short amount of time I had to work on this project, it is quite good. Overall, this project was pretty enjoyable. It was less artistically intensive, and more technical. A few problems did come up, but I resolved them in creative and innovative ways, making me feel like more of a boss while at the same time advancing the project. If I could have done one thing differently, I would have used Photoshop. It is a bit easier to use, but in the end, it isn't too big of a deal.
Final Product
Here is what I came up with.
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