July 20th -Nadji

On July 20th, a very busy day for me. I was asked by Nadji -a woman who goes to Toastmasters- to help her on a project for a class she was taking that involved Photoshop. I said yes and agreed to meet her that Saturday (after Toastmaster's Officer Training) at a local coffee shop. 

I felt stupid after saying yes because I'm not that savvy when it comes to Photoshop. InDesign and Illustrator are much easier for me to work in -especially with the kind of graphic design work I do. Luckily when I met with Nadji she told me she needed help in Illustrator for her Photoshop class that had one assignment involving Illustrator work. Hallelujah. 

Her project was to make a social/political statement of some sort and convey it visually. She wanted to focus on the concept of animal testing on consumer beauty products. 

Step 1. I told Nadji the first thing to do is get some reference pictures so you know kind of what you're aiming for when it comes to graphics. So I gathered up some pics from Google images of lipstick, nail polish, and rabbits. 

Step 2. Then by studying the images after they were placed in a circle around my Illustrator board, I organically decided to see what it would look like if we took an image of a woman applying lipstick was portrayed giving reference to the rabbit used to test the makeup. 

I'm just going to show you the image so you know what the heck I'm trying to unsuccessfully convey through descriptive language: 

Basically I made the lipstick being applied reference the shape of a rabbit and then made the lipstick itself reference a carrot. Kind of the "way things should be" versus the "way things currently are". 

Step 3. I showed Nadji how to use different Illustrator tools to achieve this look/affect. Gradients, pen tool, transparency layers on top. You note specific details in the image that allow it to be "detailed" and abstract at the same time. 

The teeth were the hardest part. Very annoying. But the overall desired effect was achieved. I was also amazed by Nadji's portfolio of Photoshop work. It's amazing what you can create with these different programs.