Digital for Non art majors
Art & Design
Project 1 Sec 01
Objective
To become familiar with the creation
and manipulation of simple objects,
and with selecting, grouping,
duplicating and alignment, by
arranging those objects within a
rectangle to produce a strong design/
composition.
Procedure
Begin by creating a new document in
Illustrator. Go to View and make sure
that Print Tiling is checked. Use the
rectangle tool to create a rectangle
within the dotted lines. Use the
properties pane to set the fill color of
the rectangle to none and the stroke
color to black. Use the rectangle and
ellipse tools to create circles and
squares of various sizes. Hold down
the shift key as you create the shapes
in order to constrain them to squares
and circles. Make some of your shapes
black by selecting black as the fill color
and none as the stroke color in the
preference pane. Make other shapes
white by selecting none for the fill
color and black for the stroke color.
Create a mask: Select the rectangle
around the print tiling and bring it to
the front (under the arrange menu.)
Select all (Command-A) and select
object>clipping mask>make. You have
now turned the bounding rectangle
into a mask for the other objects.
Together they form a clipping group.
The bounding rectangle has also lost
its stroke color. To select it, first select
none, then use the white arrow with
a plus sign (the group selection tool).
Use it to select the bounding rectangle,
then give it a stroke of black. Every
shape that you create by duplicating
(copy-paste in back) or resizing or
otherwise altering an existing shape
will be a part of the clipping group.
Select them using the group selection
tool. Any new shape you create using
the rectangle or ellipse tool will not be
a part of the clipping group. Therefore,
you should create all of your new
shapes by copying existing shapes.
Aesthetics
Consider grouping as an organizing
principle. Grouping occurs through
similarity of size, similarity of shape,
and similarity of color. It also occurs
through alignment. A single shape can
be part of more than one group. Use
this to create a dynamic flow through
your design. Try to see how innovative
and surprising you can be within the
somewhat severe constraints of the
project requirements. Use open space.
Use contrast of scale.
Requirements
Use only black and white circles and
squares. NO OVERLAPPING. Five
printed roughs will be due FEB. 3
You should make them significantly
different from each other. We will
discuss them as a class and select one
to refine. Three refinements will be
due FEB. 10