Tacoma, WA
031125

Project 5: Illustrator - Recreate and Remix
[Vector Graphic] 

Concept

This piece in inspired by Kinichi Minami. Sometimes the best way to learn a new medium is by copying someone who already uses it well. Minami combines grid based design wth typography to create abstract patters. I was drawn to the bold shapes produced by the grid based design, and Minami’s strong, but limited color pallets.

The most difficult part of recreating Minami’s design was layout. Creating a believable composition with the correct proportions was really difficult. Until I discovered the grid tool in Illustrator, I struggled to build a grid with gutters as well. Once the grid was built, however, I had a wonderful time building the shapes. For my remix inspired by his design process, I chose to stick with a similar composition. Working with grids reminded me of the snake game where the snake crawls about the grid eating apples without hitting itself. I thought Minami’s grid would be a great way to attempt to build this shape. I also noticed that MInami’s style tends to play with depth, like how the orange piece in the recreation is almost skewered by the black character. I wanted to play that up in my design, and tried adding a drop shadow on my skewer where the snake overlapped it.