031-Legos

Again, not as easy as I thought it would be. I will have to revisit this.

030-House Illustration

Vanishing points, smart guides and the Pathfinder palette.

029-Avacado

Better late than never. Another tutorial. Learned how to scale a pattern that has been applied to a shape–without affecting the shape. Should have known that one already.

028-Popsicle

Tried out this tutorial. Very well explained. Learned a little something as well. Feeling better about using the Blur Effect even though it is not technically vector. I guess the Drop Shadow effect is not either. Hmm.
Font: Rockwell

027-Gears

Dude. This tutorial was not as easy as it looked. It took lots of processing power, time and understanding of Illustrator. I spent much more time than I thought I would. It's not perfect but it takes too long to move things around so it is good enough for tonite.

026-Perspective Stripes

I saw this website and got inspired. For the blur in front, I tried one gradient with 17 colors but found that 16 two-color gradients end to end worked much better.
Font: Bauhaus Bold

025-Vector Wood Grain

Have been wondering the best way to make a vector wood grain. This is a very simple and effective tutorial.
I still wish there was an easy way in Illustrator to make something look debossed. That is the part that took the longest on this one.
Fonts: Madrone, Blackoak

024-Lab

Saw some work by Jessica Hische last week. Love her style too.

023-Skate Heart

Working on a poster for a skateboarding contest in Feb. Thanks Billy.
Update: Here is the finished poster.

022-More 3d Letters

Saw this blog with inspiring type design. Thought I would give 3d letters a try by hand with no effects.
Font: Din Black

021-3d Letters

Found this tutorial. Skipped the Photoshop and did it all in Illustrator. Lots of potential here. Can't figure out why I never tried it before.
Font: Hypatia Sans Black

020-Red Chair

Was checking out UK illustrator Matthew Lyons. Totally dig his style. 

019-Scatterbrush

Not the greatest. Another tutorial. Could come in handy sometime I suppose.
Font: Neutra Text

018-Vector Bamboo

Another tutorial. Got in some Gradient Mesh tool and Symbol practice. I hate the gradient mesh tool. Maybe next month's theme will be Learn How to Use the Gradient Mesh Tool.

017-Vector Tree

Saw something like this tree on a catalog cover today and got inspired. I like the shadows but I think it needs some texture. Regardless, it is a good start and good practice for sure.

016-Textured Ribbon

Someone asked me how I made the tapered drop shadows earlier in the week. Here is how. Thought I would try and make a textured ribbon passing through the slit, similar to Apple's website last Christmas.

015-Bent Hash

Saw this website being promoted and thought it was a cool type treatment. Thought I would give it a try in Illustrator.
Font: Futura Heavy

014-Paper Letters vs the Abyss

Saw this advertisement for a book and thought I would try and recreate the look and feel using only  Illustrator. Simple but very effective.
Font: Futura Extra Bold

013-3D Spiral

My take on this tutorial.

012-Deboss Attempt

I wanted to try and create a vector debossed — indented into the surface — look. The only tutorial I could find was for Illustrator CS4 and it looks easy. It is not easy in CS3. Text = totally uneditable and it is a cumbersome process.
Font: American Typewriter

011-Over Under Through

It's all an illusion.

010-Vector Orange

Not really feeling it tonite. Vector orange tutorial from here. I like the result. Learned of a somewhat practical use for the Pucker Tool and Stained Glass Effect, I guess.

009-Trendy Lines

Followed this tutorial this morning for trendy geometric lines. I kept it all Illustrator and skipped the Photoshop parts. Don't usually get a chance to use Gill Sans Ultra Bold but I think it works here.

008-CMY Radial Halftone

I thought I would try and manually create a radial halftone pattern in Illustrator using the blend tool and the rotate tool. Got distracted with CMY, Multiply and Free Transform.

007-Crazy 3D Stripes

While working on a web site design, last month, I was playing with drop shadows and for some reason drew 1/4 of this shape. Today, I ran across it and decided to finish what I had started. It is a hard design to make in Illustrator with the shadows and continuous piece overlapping - but now I have a system.

006-Posterized Vector Ozzy

Quickly followed this great tutorial. Posterize in Photoshop then place and LiveTrace in Illustrator.

005-Wine Glass

Saw this tutorial on how to make a vector wine glass. Is it still vector even if you add a Gausian Blur?

004-Ozzy Mosaic

I ran across this tutorial for making a funky photo-mosaic effect. Learned how to make a color palate from a photo and save it as a swatches exchange for Illustrator. Would take more time than I want to spend to finish so I just did the background.

003-Rolled Paper

Followed this tutorial today. Learned how to make spirals with uniform decay and spacing to boot.

002-Isometric G

Saw this site while researching the isometric perspective.
My interpretation.
It's a 'G'.

001-disco ball tutorial

Just read about the Design Something Every Day challenge from Smashing Magazine. Thought I would give it a go.

I think I will try out some Illustrator tutorials for the first month and keep things simple. See where it goes from there. I found this list of tutorials.

Todays is how to make a disco ball.

Here we go.