Creating a self-portrait
Mad Scientist Laboratory by Fectiv
As designers, it is important for us to keep experimenting with new techniques and ideas, and of course, keeping design fun. That’s why every month, the Fectiv team has a design challenge, that we call the Mad Scientist Laboratory.
So what is this Monthly Mad Scientist Laboratory exactly?
Fectiv is a digital design that focuses on creating and shaping, consistent and effective digital platforms by building a bridge between design and development. We’re a team of four UI and UX designers (Laura, Anne, Astrid and Jonas) constantly working on digital projects. With this design challenge we want to add a more playful and experimental side to our designs that we normally don’t explore when working for clients. It’s also a chance to try out new techniques, insights and styles that we are not familiar with and share these with each other, for inspiration, fun and exploration purposes.
Each Monthly Mad Scientist Laboratory has a theme and a specific set of requirements to draw us out of our comfort zone.
This Laboratory’s theme was:
- “Self-portrait”
This Laboratory’s requirement was:
- In 3D, abstract, cartoon or illustration
- No flat design
- Only in Adobe Illustrator
- No image-tracing
Jonas’ self portrait
“I really like beer. The city where I live, Leuven, loves beer too. Our city is also known as the beer capital of Belgium, mainly because the brewery of the worldwide know beer Stella Artois is based here.
The truth is, I never went to school or worked anywhere near Leuven, but in cities that are quite far off, so I was always the one with a different accent. Because of this, I was always the guy from Leuven, and it slowly became a part of my identity. By studying and working in other cities, I got a stronger connection with my city and birthplace.
Below you can see a few versions of the illustration. I experimented a bit with color and background for the final version.”
Want to see more of Jonas’ work? Check out his portfolio at: http://frontend-dev.ida-mediafoundry.io/ida-portfolio-jonas/index.html
You can find more of his landscapes and illustrations at his Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonassimoens
Astrid’s self-portrait
“After long time of thinking, I came across a typical Ikea Portrait of Audrey Hepburn. I liked that style, so I tried it on one of my own pictures.
While I was making my poster I used to drink out of one of the typical pop-art glasses.
So I had a new idea of mixing 2 things together: The style of the portrait of Hepburn and the typical colors that Andy Warhol used in his work.”
Want to see more of Astrid’s work? Check out her portfolio at: http://astriva.be/
You can also find more of her work at her Behance: https://www.behance.net/astriva
Laura’s Self-portrait
“Designing a self-portrait is harder than expected, especially when I needed to decide on the technique I was going to use. After searching for some inspiration in Google I decided to choose for the technique ‘Abstract’.
So I started drawing abstract shapes of a face with the pencil tool on my artboard. After a while I came up with this “portrait”.
My mind was totally brainwashed of the ‘abstract’ thinking process and I was lacking inspiration so I closed my Illustrator.”
“The evening before D- day I opened up my Adobe Illustrator again and started googling around. Until I found an interesting piece of artwork where the face was built with different shapes in different colors.
So I started from my first “art work” I made earlier that week and like 1 hour later I managed to finish my work. My self-portrait was born!”
Want know more about Laura?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-de-winter/
Anne’s self-portrait
“This assignment was a fun one for me. Since I’m not the most photogenic person in the world, this seemed like the perfect way to make a pretty profile pic of myself.
I started with researching different styles of illustrations to see which direction I wanted to go in. Per usual I went for a more simplistic style with minimal elements.”
“Now that I’ve figured out what kind of illustration I want, it’s time to start drawing. I thought I would start with the hardest part, the hair. It turned out not being that difficult, but deciding what color blonde I should use, was a little harder.”
“When I got the hair right, all the other stuff was a piece of cake. I used shapes like circles and rectangles to create the face, neck and even lips. For the shirt, I used the pen-tool. To be honest I am not 100% satisfied, because the more I look at it, the more it looks like I have very broad shoulders.
But that is pretty much it. A self portrait of me.”
Want to see more of Anne’s work? Check out her website at http://lacapitanne.com/
So what do you think? If you like it, be sure to give us a clap!
See you next month!
In the meantime you can visit our website or like our LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook page.
