DesignSchool.ca Welcome - Click to return to the home page

Semester I

Semester II

Semester III

Semester IV

HOME Contact Alain About the Site Policies Video Tutorials in your browser Video Tutorials in iTunes R.G.D. Ontario

SPECIFICATIONS

  • Produce a series of four post cards. With or without bleeds.
  • Design for two spot colours.
  • The Illustrator files in which you built your artwork (in a named folder)

HEADS UP!

  • Please try to avoid clichés. Avoid simply plastering the Mona Lisa or the Vitruvian Man in the middle of your post cards. You need to design with a higher level of sophistication and abstraction. You can 'hint' at da Vinci's art and era without being so obvious.
  • No photos are allowed in your final work—only vector art and type.

During today's class:

  • You'll be introduced to this assignment
  • We'll also do a short tutorial on Live Trace and Live Paint.
  • We'll take a walk through the Effects and Appearances functions in Illustrator.

Da Vinci Post Cards

Leonardo da Vinci is a 21st century inventor. Your job is to promote the unveiling of his invention with a series of post cards. This will require use of creativity and technical proficiency.

Project Highlights

  • This project is worth 20% of your final grade.
  • You will use all your skills and creativity to design a series of post cards based on a 21st century Leonardo da Vinci, inventor, designer.
  • The technical focus of this assignment is Illustrator's Live Trace & Live Paint.
Da Vinci

Assignment

Your assignment is to design a series of post cards to promote Leonardo's latest invention. You must link Leo's mind-blowing genius and style with a twentieth century bleeding-edge design aesthetic.

Leo was much more than a painter. He was an engineer, a scientist, a sculptor, an astronomer and more. You need to choose a very specific object that he worked on and promote the unveiling of that object.

As an example, DaVinci designed a rudimentary helicopter. You could have him take on the role of a modern-day Burt Rutan. In this case, you could be promoting his design of the helicopter and moreover, you could sell tickets for the first vertical-lift flight in the world.

davinci_helicopter
DaVinci invented this helicopter. That means that you could Live Trace the modern helicopter to use in your design.

Examples

These are design samples of the modern, two-colour look we're going for. We're looking at something really graphic.

davinci_postcard_examples_2
Slideshow

Assumptions

  • Leo is an avant-garde inventor.
  • He lives in the 21st century.
  • He creates breakthrough designs of never-before-seen objects.

The main purpose of this series of post cards is to promote Leo's invention. You'll need to really ratchet up the style.

Since this is a promotional series of post cards, it will need to contain some promotional text. You'll need to write this. Keep it short. Imagine someone receiving your post cards in the mail. It only takes someone a maximum of two seconds to decide whether they're going to read or chuck your cards. Avoid bullet lists. If you want to see really well written promotional text, just sidle on over to Apple's site. It's chalk full of zingy copy as an example.

Make sure you include all the usual contact info which would be on post cards. There needs to be a way to contact Leo.

Sources

For this project, the focus will be on Live Trace and Live Paint. You can acquire imagery from anywhere. I suggest Google Images, Flickr, The Stock Exchange or any other source on the Web.

You can create your own art, if you wish. You can draw in Illustrator. You can scan photos—your own, or from any publication. Again, make sure the quality is good.

The copy (text) for your post cards may be "influenced" by something you read online or elsewhere. All I insist on it that it is error-free and appropriate to the piece.

Software Skills

Typesetting
Use the skills you've learned to date in Typography class to set well laid out text. Make sure you set words as point type and paragraphs as area type. There won't be a lot of type on your post cards, so any problems will really show. Attention to detail will be important here.
Illustrator Live Trace & Live Paint
We'll do a practice at this during the first class of this assignment. Your main image will be live traced and painted.
Illustrator Live Effects
Live Effects are meant to be used with the Appearance and the Graphic Styles palettes. They're key to creating editable effects.
Adobe Kuler for colour selection
Your post cards should be really graphic, like the ones shown in the slideshow on this page. You want to use Adobe's Kuler colour selection tool to choose a very limited palette.
Set up files for two colour production.
We'll need to keep production in mind from the outset of this project. It will need to be set up properly to be printed on a press.

How to Get an "A"

The goal of this assignment is to bring together all the skills you have learned to date -- not only in Computer Graphics, but across the board. This assignment includes layout, type and software skills. You will need to demonstrate proficiency in all of these. The subject of the post cards is fairly open to interpretation.

That said, you will be graded based on:

Visual appeal:
Your post cards must contain visual elements of Leo's 15th century accomplishments combined with today's cutting edge aesthetics. It's Renaissance meets Wired Magazine.
Integration of software skills:
Your layout will be executed in Illustrator.
So, your Illustrator document will contain well executed typography. Skills learned in Typography class must be applied. Your files must be delivered in an organized fashion. I want to see all the files relating to this project. Make sure you work in an organized way.

Deliverables

davinci_postcards_deliverables