The Design Team has been grappling with both design principles and the complexities of Adobe Illustrator. We presented two options for website logos that we created in Adobe Illustrator to the larger group and after a democratic vote, one was chosen.
Before we got to this stage though, we first had to produce both logos in Illustrator. To help us learn the program we were fortunate to have a tutorial with one of our Columbia Libraries colleagues, Jeffrey Lancaster. Jeffrey gave us a tutorial that was perfectly geared to our skill level as well as focusing on our particular issues with each logo. He began by describing the difference between a raster image and a vector image. In the raster image each pixel is a unique color and the image is a grid when looked at up close. The vector image is flat color with points connected by lines. Each image scales differently. The raster image (used in Adobe Photoshop) scales by adding new pixels with new color attributes. The vector image (used in Adobe Illustrator) scales by changing the space between points so the image stays sharp. He also showed us how to manipulate type fonts and spacing. Jeffrey described the various file types for exporting the image and recommended we use .png, portable network graphic, since it preserves transparency.
Our team will be meeting next week to develop headers and footers for the website and to make some color adjustments to our new logo.
