New Year, New Header

    When asked to design a new header for our class design blog, I was first a little puzzled.  The class was instructed to create an 8.5 x 2.5 inch header using print from a computer and an illustration or design telling a little about ourself as a designer.  For my header design, I chose a peacock feather.  The feather is symbolic of a whimsical, colorful design agenda.  The peacock feather has many colors, all of which shine in different hues depending on how the light catches the feather.  I also have feathers attached to the walls of my workspace in the iARC studio.
     I created my header in Adobe Illustrator, by using the brush tool and using the art brush stroke.  The stroke is set to .25 pt so the lines would be crisp and not too harsh.  I wanted to experiment with Illustrator, which is how I designed the feather doodle.  I often doodle in my sketchbooks, so I wanted to incorporate an original doodle into my header.  The use of color was easy, as many people know the general colors of a peacock feather.  The colors of the feather are fun enough that the exaggeration of color on illustrator, as opposed to what an actual feather looks like, are acceptable because the art brush stroke makes the feather look like it is done in water color.  The header is very light an airy, which I think reflects a lot of the ideas I have as a designer, since I tend to stray from straight lines and hard edges.