Create abstract art, unique to you!

While surfing, I came across this company http://www.26gallery.com/ which features some really cool abstract pieces of artwork, but what I loved best was how it was created, they are the profiles of 3-d letters which have been lined up side by side. Inspired, I cracked open Adobe Illustrator to see if I could replicate what they are doing here.

Open Adobe Illustrator, I was working with CS3. I started with my initials BJPL set in Times Roman. Each letter should be in an individual text box. You might want to play with the font to get the gradient and shape you like best. Select a color of your choice

Next, select your type using the arrow (Selection) tool and choose from the menu: Effect -> 3D -> Extrude & Bevel making sure that your "position" is set to "right" Adjust your depth to be as wide or narrow as you wish, and if you click the "preview" box, you can see what kind of changes you are making and adjust to get the desired look.

You will need to align them side by side manually.

Finally, if your font has ascenders or descenders you will need to crop them off.

Viola! Abstract art!

Now, what do I do with it? You could set it as your desktop, print it and smack it in a frame, or to really give it an artsy feel, have it printed on canvas and stretched over a frame. I would recommend using a service like FargoKids to get an economical quality print in a variety of sizes.

If you wanted to shake it up a bit, you could bring it into Photoshop and run a filter on it, this is what the "glowing edges filter" looks like.

Need Chocolate?

So....in a very short time, we are racking up the page views and unique visitors and to my surprise it has been suggested that we create some Chocolate wearables, who knew!  So, I thought who better to design them, but YOU! So, here is the deal, we will use an online print-on-demand service to produce and manage orders, we just need your designs. Lets shoot for Monday, March 10th for a deadline. Parameters are only that the web address be included in some fashion and all designs must be "G" rated. Selected designs will receive a free wearable.

Animal Instinct

While I was teaching graphic design, one of the lessons that I was trying to teach was Kerning (spacing between individual letters). To try to get students in the habit of looking at type as shapes instead of just letter forms, this is an exercise that I had them complete. Construct an animal form out of a typeface. Often times, you will get a certain "feel" from a typeface, what is it saying to you, what kind of animal is it?

This is a sample I used to illustrate the lesson. What kind of animal would you create? Is there a font that "feels" like an animal to you?