Illustrator - Creation Of Disc

So now I have looked at design features, tutorials and had a chance to play around with the features that Illustrator has to offer it is time to put this all into practise. In this blog post I will work through the stages I undertook when creating my Illustrator disc. This process was a lot less detailed than the Photoshop element. This is based upon the tools which are available. Photoshop has a lot more tools to offer than Illustrator. This said you can still create some really good pieces of work in Illustrator. So where do I begin?
I started by using the template which you can see I created in a much earlier blog post. My next step was to create a background. Again from previous blog posts you can see the deliberation which I went through before deciding on this aspect. I opted for a gradient background. To create this I firstly drew an Ellipse using the Ellipse Shape Tool. I made this the same size as the outer guide. This Ellipse then filled my disc. To add the gradient to this I used the Gradient Tool. This can be found in the side Tool Bar. With this selected I was then able to edit the gradient settings in the right hand tool bar. I firstly changed the gradient type. I set this to Linear. I was then able adjust the colours in my gradient. These are set as black and white by default. I started my gradient with a light purple, this then changed to light pink and finished with dark pink. This can be seen in the below screenshot along with the gradient on the disc.

With the basic background of my disc now established I decided to add my title. This seemed like a good place to progress too. I already knew that I wanted to use the same font type as I used on my DVD inlay. This was to keep the two elements consistent. To create my title I used the Type Tool which can be found in the left hand tool bar. I simply clicked on the disc and started to type my title. I was then able to change the settings for this. I firstly changed the font to Harlow Solid Italic like mentioned previously. I then changed the font size. I set this to 24pt, this was based on how the title looked rather than being a set size. I simply increased the size until I got to a point where I was happy with the way it looked. I set the main body text to white and then changed the Stroke to a dark pink and set this feature to 1pt. The next stage was to use the Arch Tool. This made my text bend around the top of my disc. To create this effect I selected the text and then selected the Arch Tool which can be found in the top tool bar. I changed the settings to edit how much I wanted my text to arch. These settings can be seen below. These settings didn't make my text go exactly where I wanted it to and hence I needed to now use the Direct Selection Tool. This allowed me to move each corner of my text and hence bring this a lot closer to the bleed guide. The image below shows the progress up to this stage.

 

The next stage of this process was really simple. I now wanted to add three main actors in my film to the disc. I wanted to use the same image of the girls which I had previously used on the front of my DVD inlay. This again shows consistency and will give a professional feel. To insert this image I used the File, Place menu. I then searched my files for the image I wanted and then selected the Place button. I then resized my image and moved it to correct place. The image below shows my disc with this element added.

 



The next stage in this process was to add clouds. I used two different tools to create a variety of different clouds. These different tools created diversity and also hit the criteria. The two different tools which I used were the Brush and the Pen tool. The Brush Tool was used first. This tool can be found in the left hand tool bar. I selected the brush tool and then set the Fill to None and the Stroke to White. This created hollow clouds. In this instance it was the look I was going for. To create filled clouds I simply turned the Fill to White as well as the Stroke. With these settings in place I then simply drew the cloud shape. It is very difficult to create the exact shape first time and hence I when my cloud was drawn I used the Direct Selection Tool. This tool allowed me to adjust the angles and shapes at various points around my cloud. The screenshot below shows this. I was then able to adjust the features of the cloud without having to start over again and I could hence make small mistakes in my first hand drawing as this could be tweaked.

I used this technique to create mainly hollow clouds but I did also make one full cloud using the brush tool. The main way I created the filled clouds was using the Pen Tool. I personally found this tool much more difficult to work with. The Pen Tool can be found in the same tool bar as the Brush Tool. I set the Fill of the pen to White and Stroke To None. This will create full clouds rather than the hollow clouds I created using the brush tool. I then drew the outline of the cloud. The issue I had with this tool was it created really harsh pointed edges. This is clearly something which clouds lack. For this reason I had a look around the subject and found a tool which helped to remove this. This is the Smooth Tool. This can be found off of the Pencil Tool. In order to use the Smooth Tool I simply had to draw curved lines over the edges of my clouds. If I used the Smooth Tool on the outside of the shape I got smooth edges and if I used the Smooth Tool on the inside of the shape I got pointy edges. The images below show the pen tool on its own and then the pen tool once I have used the smooth tool. It is clear to see which is which.

 

 

 I repeated this whole process until I had created a line of clouds in the sky. I used a mixture of these two tools to create this effect. I also looked at the transparency of these clouds. I varied the opacity of some of these to create a diverse appeal. It seems silly to list all the levels of transparencies I used so I will simply name a few. The lightest cloud was set at 12% opacity while the darkest cloud I set to a 100% opacity. None of the clouds had the same opacity and this really aided the overall effect these gave off.  The image below shows these clouds incorporated into my final design.

 

The next features I added to my design were the variety of logos which I needed. I added these using the same method as I added my actors. This was using the Place Tool. The image below shows all of the logos I added in this way. The image below also shows the text wrap and legal information I added. The way in which these where implemented can be found in the Week 6 - Illustrator Improvements. It is also worth looking at the creation of my logos as these also show different techniques such as Clipping Masks and self taught features. The implementation of these are also in a separate blog post.

 

So lets look at the tools I have used throughout the illustrator process:



Shape Tool
Gradient Tool
Brush Tool
Pen Tool
Smooth Tool
Transparencies
Layers
Type Tool
Placing Images
Clipping Mask
Text Wrap
Direct Selection Tool
Gaussian Blur
Guides
It is worth noting not all of these tools have been mentioned in the above blog post. These tools have been used in different aspects of my disc such as the logos.

The next stage of this process is to evaluate my work. This will follow in a later blog post.