Matches on Fire with Smoke

Photo taken with:  Canon Powershot SD1200 IS

Nike’s logo is great, but what if it was on my car? My last project dealt with Nike apparel, so this is a natural extension. I looked around the web and couldn’t find anything like my design. It’s a shame because I think a simple swoosh like this really speaks to the brand’s purity and power. Here is a link to an agency that did a real project for Nike, and a matchbox car example here.

2004 Hyundai Elantra

First step: get a photo.  I really made it hard on myself for this project.  The photo is a night shot with really low contrast, plus it suffers from motion blur “seeing triples.”  Check out the image, zoom in to the rear wheel to see what I mean about the blur.  The picture was made with a Canon Powershot, which is great but really needs a tripod in super low light.  Anyway, the key was a good perspective and for that the photo works out.  The blur has to be worked out with artistry and guessing where lines go.

Nike + Hyundai: Drawing Cars

Step two: illustration. Basic goals are to make it look a little cooler than real life, by sharpening or blunting the angles where possible. Also trying to make it look realistic-ish by avoiding the cartoony look of clip-art. I believe the main difference between clip-art and illustration is the quality and density of detail.

Nike Car Wrap – High Resolution

Finally, we just have to put together an ad using the new illustration. I had an idea where the car would live in a dark alley, like the famous shot of Spider-man’s suit tossed in the trash. In the end I decided on just a dark abstract grid background so that it didn’t take away from the car or the branding. I’ve included a high-res graphic for inspection.

Bee buzzing the flower.

The bee and the daffodil.

Photos taken with: Nikon D90, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 D, 1.5 ft

Photo vs. Illustrated Style

I’m writing this post to practice and display illustrated vector work (with an ink outline effect.)  I have some interesting screenshots leading up to the final fan-art advertisement.

First we have a screenshot of what I’m calling “photo” and “ink” vector styles.  Photo vector is what you get when you straight trace a photograph.  It tends to end up blobular and very abstract unless a significant density is reached.  Ink vectors have black outlines like tattoos or cartoons.  For the fan-art ad we went with ink vector because it’s less “sloppy” looking in this case.  Could have kept working to increase the blob density of the photo vector style as well.

Nike Daylight Ad

Though this shoe comes in a variety of color layouts, we have a blue/white sample.  Looks like a blue sky with clouds kind of, so we made a nice lake backdrop for it.  Looks good with a nice artistic nature to the background.  Definitely commercially viable, assuming it fits the marketing goals of the company.  Reminds me of the beginnings of an artists designed shoe.

Graphics Library

Next to show is the project graphic library.  Not super useful for this project, but still interesting to see.

Nike Lunar Ad

In the end, we thought it better to move to a night-time view of the moon.  Because the product sub-name is “Lunarlon” denoting astronaut inspired design.  It’s layout has been specially formatted so that it looks good in the slideshow on the main page of zentrail.com.

Carpet Page Illuminated

So I’ve been designing rugs for a while now.  I like the way the format gives artistic structure and allows me to display projects with tremendous detail.  It really reminds me of the illuminated carpet pages from the old religious manuscripts.

For this project the aim was an English style rug, with local plants and symbols from ancient cultures (Mayan, Celtic, Native American, Arabic.)  Click the thumb to the right for a high-res finished image, then look below to go over some of the details.

[blockquote]The best thing is when people walking past stop and just have to stare at what’s right under their feet.[/blockquote]

Symbol Library

Ancient cultures are a treasure trove for pattern. It’s surprising how few actual symbols were used in the making of this rug design. Clearly a workflow process could begin with making a similar set of symbols before any arrangement takes place. The higher quality the individual symbols, the more masterful the final product.

What comes next?  Probably more illuminations.  I think a more focused theme is in order, perhaps one that solely uses Mayan textures.

Traceable Nature Photos

On this project I will try my hand at a rug design brought up from photos I took. This is good because it is less derivative and more personal. Plus, I get to see what a rug looks like built from the plants around where I live.

To start, I went for a walk and took photos. The photos aren’t great; the goal is to get sharp images with an aesthetic perspective. Shooting on an overcast day makes them way easier to trace because of the diffused light.

Wait a second – These photos don’t look like a rug!  It’s going to take a few steps first.

Grid for Rug Design

Let’s start out by making a grid for the rug.  The size will be 4500×3000 pixels (9x6ft), to match the size of rug I have in my home.  When viewed in landscape, the top and bottom borders should be thicker than the sides (like a painting frame.)  To do that, the corner angles should not be 45º, but offset a little.  I prefer the 50º example as it leaves the sides thinner than the top/bottom without (hopefully) going too far.

Starting Pattern

Adding a few colored squares and borders rounds out the rug base. Stuff isn’t set in stone, but having this scaffolding set up will make the rest of the project go smoother. Some of the squares, especially the fat outer border, will need to be tweaked to fit the symbols.

Tracing Nature

There are lots of little features to get from each photo. I notice that actually tracing the photo, then tracing the trace results in higher quality symbols. The second round is to concentrate on the lines looking good without the background photo interfering.

<<EDIT:>>

It’s been a week or more since I started writing this post.  The project went a bit awry, but I’m still posting the results.

So yep, I let myself go out in the weeds on this one. I ended up playing with some abstract concepts. I’ve saved off a few samples below. While I do enjoy abstract art, the idea here is to make rug designs. More or less, the symbols have to be small and numerous, with clearly defined geometric scaffolding. After this post, I’ll take what I have learned and start from scratch on an English style rug (Mayan influenced symbols?)

Abstract Carpet Page, Version 1

Abstract Carpet Page, Version 2

Abstract Carpet Page, Version 3

My background is in the “commercial clean” look.  You see it all the time,  in brands like Target and other major retailers.  This is more or less an Arial logo, a splash of the company color, sales text and some photos.  What I’ve been trying to grok is the sharp contrast of the “commercial clean” to the traditional shapes used so much in architecture and really old rugs.

So, I’m mostly new to the traditional stuff but I want to learn.  Where to start?  The old adage “fake it till you make it” comes to mind.  The way I get a handle on new design styles is to… start tracing!  That’s right, I took a photo of one of my rugs and hand traced it into the vector form that you see in the pictures.  At the start the tracing is exact, then later once some of the basic style rules are discovered a bit of “creative license” can happen and the style can be extended.

First off, wow is it amazing.  After this project, a weird side-effect is seeing the rug patterns in every bush or plant.  Mother Nature is truly the original artist that all other art copies.  You can take any odd shape from nature, mirror it for symmetry and -poof- you’ve got one of these rug symbols.

Lets not forget, this was practice only.  Someone holds the rights to the rug design that I traced, making mine unsalable.  I do have to say I really enjoy this style and plan on advancing in it.  For my next project I think taking my own photos of nature is in order.  Then when I trace those the rights will be mine.

I’d like to detail out some screenshots from the project:

The original rug photo

1.  The Photo

To start I took a photo of a quarter of the rug.  It’s sooo detailed.  One of the nice things is it’s all symmetric.    I straightened the photo and gave it a lot more contrast (to make tracing easier.)

If you zoom in you’ll notice this rug has a fairly high pile.  That means the actual design is “muddy” because there is so much offset between the backing and the plane the art is displayed on.  No problem.  Muddy is great for me because I don’t want an exact copy.  The goal is to develop a personal style right?  I want to be able to draw individual symbols using my style, but also with the traditional look from further away.

Mid-Project Screenshot

2.  The Tracing

Mess of grid lines and assorted oddly drawn shapes, check.

This screenshot is the staging area for working, then assembly is in a different area.  Again emphasis on developing personal way of representing nature, not on copying the glyphs precisely.

Click on me for animated gif of assembly

3.  Assembly

Click thumb for animation, you can see the order of operations.

I think it kept getting better as I stopped tracing so much and started creating my own symbols.

Vectorized nature symbols

4.  The Payoff

Eventually these cool shapes start to emerge.

I can’t wait to get going with some of my own nature photos to make these.  Alas, one project at a time makes for finished projects!
 

Finished Vector (4.6MB)

5.  The Finish

Here is the final vector tracing for inspection. I even added some stylized tassels!
 

6.  Photoshop’d

One step further, lets add rug texture.

Turns out Photoshop’s Pointillize filter does a good job… just like magic.
 

Photo-stylized Mock-up

6.  Ship It

Sales guys and visual learners agree, mock-ups push projects to completion.

Here I’ve applied my vector rug to this fancy photograph. It’s just a quickie, but realistic enough for internal use.

Enough rambling from me. I’m off to go work on my stuff, and also read up on how to write a lucid blog article!

The Reference Photo

Tracing work is good fun, and I enjoy working on these practice “fan-art” projects.  It’s a great way to hone one skill at a time, and there’s always new techniques to learn in Adobe Illustrator.

For this project, I’ve used a photograph and traced it over into a piece of vector art.  Vector is the way to go for a lot of graphic needs, because you can make it once then scale it to any size.  Photographs get a little splotchy if you scale them up too much.

The photo had plenty of resolution to get good precision for the vector art.  Around the lid was blown out to white a bit, but Photoshop helped crank up the contrast, so no big problem (the vector lid ended up nicely detailed compared the photo.)

Vector Handles and Anchors

The actual tracing is a pretty simple concept, you take a photo and draw around the edges to make line art.  In practice, the tough part is placing the lines right so that you get smooth curves instead of sloppy weirdness.

The Coca-Cola logo flows with each line a well-formed curve, with no wonky parts commonly found in this kind of hand-drawn logo.  It deftly takes a potentially chaotic design and balances it right out.  The logo looks good because it’s well-made to the core, and well-made things looks good.  It definitely deserves its spot in the “all time best logos” category.

Big image of the final vector art

The last step is to add color to each outlined shape in the line art.  There are lots of gradients used, plus blends and transparencies to get that smooth, dramatic look.

The stylized vector art is capable of improving any photograph into a marketable asset.  Definitely worth keeping in mind.

Photo studio setup.

This setup got it done for me for many years.  It’s a big room with a 12 foot roll of white paper.  For small stuff like an apple or circuit board, I’d pull in a table with a white melamine top.  The lamps are 3000 watt continuous-on halogen.  I use and recommend Steve Kaeser lights, they’ve got great customer service.