Our Tools

"We become what we behold. We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us." - Marshall McLuhan

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Vectorized Imaging

Dot Matix Illustration: Simple design made using the Dot Matrix Method
The Grunge or Splatter Method: Used for backgrounds and texture imaging 
Line Tracing: I wanted to try to keep this image as life like as possible. This is made from too photographs, one for the fish, and one for the background.  This image is scalable to almost any size and almost looks like a real raster image
Line Tracing: Silhouette Method. Made from three images.  Shows one of my passions (hunting). I like how this one is hard to decipher at a distance.
Painting Text Method: I wanted to see how to make text follow a path.  In this picture I turned text into a symbol into Illustrator and I could place a serious of text on any drawn path.

Glitches I found using Picasa Photo Viewer:

Same Grunge image above seen in Picasa Photo Viewer
Same Silhouette image above seen in Picasa Photo Viewer
I have a great interest in vector graphics and animation.  I like vector graphics because they are useful in projects where re-scaling is a must. I wanted to find different ways to express images using only vector methods.  I chose using photographs, text, and shapes within Adobe Illustrator to create five different images. Each image is expressive in it's own way.  

I am an amateur of using programs like Adobe Illustrator, so this project was more of a learning exercise than anything for me. Each is a different method of creating graphics in Illustrator. Only the line tracing images have photographs, and the other three are created with just the tools within Illustrator. All these images can easily be rescaled to a variety of sizes without loss in quality.

I think each one represents a new learning event for me using vector graphics, and focuses on McLuhan's quote, "We become what we behold, we shape our tools, and then our tools shape us." My images for now are limited by my knowledge of Adobe Illustrator, but each is also unique created with the same tool.

Bibliography:
Designmodo, "35 Excellent Adobe Illustrator Tutorials." Last modified Octob 31, 2011. Accessed April 20, 2012. http://designmodo.com/adobe-illustrator-tutorials/.


Wikipedia, "Vector Graphics." Accessed April 20, 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_art.


Hamm, Michael. Adobe, "Painting Text." Last modified May 21, 2012. Accessed April 20, 2012. http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?


Harris, Jack, and Steven Withrow. Vector Graphics and Illustration: A Master Class in Digital Image-Making. RotoVision, 2008.


McLuhan, Marshall. The Medium is the Massage. Toronto: Simon & Schuster, 1989.



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