Photoshop and Illustrator

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I?d been working on a Summer Ball poster, but looking back on it I wasn?t happy at all. I?d initially started with a design but outside influences meant I ended up with a bastardised version of what I?d started with. First of all you change a few pictures, change some fonts, add some more detail, change a few colours, change the layout, and by the end it?s transformed into some monstrosity and you can?t really be bothered with what it looks like.

Yesterday morning I started completely from scratch and a few hours later I came up with this:

I like it for it?s simplicity, although even this one may not get used opting instead to use a different design. We?ve been a bit delayed on promoting the Ball as we?ve been waiting for confirmation from some acts, and then yesterday we were told that the ?Delays? had pulled out and so we?re on the hunt for a new band and won?t print off the new posters until we can add them to the line-up. That?s life eh?

I think the main reason I did enjoy designing this one is because of the use of custom shapes, a feature I haven?t really used that much in Photoshop, mostly because the shapes supplied by default are quite boring and of no use. This was all changed by a visit to deviantART and their large selection of user-submitted custom shapes. Another site to visit for more Photoshop resources is Biorust which also has quite a few downloads to aid your design skills.

In other news I?ve started to use Adobe Illustrator too as I?m designing a new club badge for my football club and needed to create a high-definition vector graphic, so that the image can be any size and lose no quality. I?ve always used Photoshop for anything I?ve done like this and instead set it at a high dpi but even then the image will lose some clarity at high-zoom which is not the case for vectors. Quite a lot of the layout and tools in Illustrator are the same as Photoshop but there are other differences too and I?ll have to learn and get used to those. Watch this space for more news.