You can create almost icon or logo you need by only using basic shapes.
If you were to look at logos from major companies like Twitter, Google, and Apple, you would see very identifiable, basic icons. One of the reasons these icons are so easily recognized is because of how simple the logo is. Let’s look at Twitter’s logo. It’s obvious that it’s a bird. But the bird is created out of basic shapes. The head and the lower portion of the body are circles. The beak is composed of two triangles. The wings are really just one larger triangle attached to the body. Separately, these elements don’t signify anything, but together, they form one of the most identifiable brand logos in our time.
Using this logic, I wanted to create a larger, more detailed image using only basic shapes. Adobe Illustrator was a fantastic resource for accomplishing this idea. I’m fascinated by architecture so I decided to create an image of a street in Amsterdam. Its unique architecture provided me with a lot of ideas to work with. As you can see below, I used circles for the clouds, mostly rectangles for the building outlines, and triangles for many of the architectural details. The road is also made from very small rectangles.
The designs on the buildings were one of my favorite things to create. I was able to create the appearance of windows and doors using only rectangles and different colors. Once I finished the buildings, I added light posts and trees to line the sidewalk.
Like with the creation of icons, many pictures can be created with the use of shapes (this is also a great trick for hand-drawing quick sketches. My drawing skills have dramatically improved since learning this trick).
Making a picture with so many small shapes can be hard to organize, but Adobe Illustrator (and other Adobe products) have a feature called “Layers” that allow you to organize your page elements. You can hide elements from a page, lock them, re-arrange a layer in relation to other layers. Utilizing this tool has been a game changer for me. Even when I make simpler icons, “Layers” is extremely helpful.
Making this picture took a lot of work, but it has helped me see things in a new perspective. I used to be afraid of making icons or any sort of digital art, but I’ve trained my eye to notice the basic shapes in complex things. If you can break something huge and complex into small, simple lines and shapes, you can create anything.
Erin Hancock is a student in the Digital Media program at Utah Valley University, Orem Utah, studying Web & App Development. The following article relates to the DGM 1220 Course and representative of the skills learned.
