Illustrator Midterm

I have long been a fan of M. C. Escher's creations. The first Escher images I ever saw were ones that created feelings of moving through infinity and illusion. His creations always had many details to them and seemed to hold an element of surprise.

Elements of this poster which are Escher's work: The background image of the eye, the colorful patterns inserted into the text on the headline, and the self-portrait within the pupil of the eye. I modified the self-portrait by first doing a simple live trace, and then applying a 3D extrude and bevel with wireframe.

Illustrator Lesson 6

These items are part of a still life that I arranged and photographed a few years ago for a watercolor project. I decided to trace it for this Illustrator assignment, as it is a very colorful arrangement. I am still getting used to using the pen tool, and I love the gradient mesh tool!

Illustrator Lesson 5

This image is made up of various fonts. The creature's head is a portion of the letter M. The scales are made from the letter C. Circular images are the letter O.

The pinkish orange animal is a cat. The mice are riding in a houdah on the cat's back. Can anyone tell me what letter the houdah is made from? :)

Note: A howdah, or houdah, is a carriage which is positioned on the back of an elephant, or occasionally some other animal, used most often in the past to carry wealthy people or for use in hunting or warfare.

ECommerce Lesson 5

Note: widgets have been removed, as they were slowing down the loading of the blog. :(

These are possible widgets for a site that provides customized mobile apps and widgets. Various brands of cell phones are offered, as that relates to the hardware in which the site's products would be operated on. There is an instruction manual, for those who are inspired by the site to make their own apps (the site will consider templates submitted for purchase). Also offered is a book listing the best Android apps for people who wish to explore choices for that type of advice. (Ideally, some of the site's products would be in that book!)



The only concern I have about the above widget is that the "bounce" could distract site visitors from the content on the page. I like the bounce, though -- page selection and placement will be important when incorporating any object that moves or changes, i.e., fades in and out automatically.

On the right, I'm testing out a "cloud" which is set up to list cell phone products. Hover over the text to see how it works. Note: After the class ended, I removed the "cloud", as it was unattractive and just one more thing to make the blog slow down when loading. :)

Below is the Amazon Carousel Widget. I like this one because it is attractive (clean, professional look), and does not have continuous automatic movement. It only spins once when the page loads. But you can press (and hold) on an arrow and watch it spin anytime you want!

Note: Amazon Carousel Widget removed.