One of the challenges of working with limited color is finding that balance between composition and contrast. The only thing that could make it worse is being told which colors you have to use – like red, green and metallic gold. Thankfully the theme was the Holiday Season. Above are some creations from a handful of freshmen students in Sean Thorenson’s Digital Illustration course.

In a little more than a week Holiday break begins. The semester is winding down and the blog entries will likely slow as well.

Students are working on getting any loose ends wrapped up on assignments and preparing for finals.

Next semester will bring new challenges and projects. The sophomore students will start print production, portfolio and photography classes. Freshmen will start typography, a design class and photography.

To students, parents and friends the instructors of Graphic Design and Communications wish everyone happy and safe holidays.

Most projects in the Graphic Design and Communications program have few creative constraints. In the work-a-day world that usually isn’t the case.

Having to be creative while working with images provided by the customer is a common situation for most designers. LIghtboxing mimics that situation by giving designers a group of images and a theme with goal of creating the most from those few images.

Lightboxing isn’t a concept created by the Graphic Design and Communications staff, the idea came from “Caffeine for the Creative Team” and Veer.com. A great example of the concept, done by professional designers, can be found here.

Students were allowed to use any or all of these six images and the font Cochin.

The creativity of the piece is in the message and typography instead of the image.

The emotion of the sad Santa image rules this piece.

The impressive collection of images above may look like photos, but they’re actually two-dimensional vector drawings that utilize gradients and color to create photo-realistic illustrations. Students in Sean Thorenson’s Digital Illustration class were required to choose a photo to redraw using vectors in Adobe Illustrator. Work like this is extremely technical and details make all the difference. Overall it proved to be a great project for the students to refine their abilities using the pen tool to create anchor points and paths (a basic skill) while working with color, masks and gradients to enhance their images and understanding of the application.