Winter Break Creative Challenge

JSchoolTech loves to join our students in creative challenges – revisit our Winter Break Challenge.

Each week of Winter Break challengers received a quick brief and training video. Then had a chance to see other’s posts in Slack and ask questions.

by heather lawrenz

Week 1 : Winter Color Palette

Color is often my first stop in building a project. Our first challenge is to develop your winter palette that we will use in our upcoming challenges AND utilize Creative Cloud libraries to save these and use across the Creative Cloud Suite. 

I will introduce you to the technical aspects of selecting color in a few different programs as well as some basic color theory. 

Things to try: If you haven’t downloaded and experimented with the Capture app, try that. 

Apps used: Illustrator, InDesign, Capture, CC libraries, Spark

Table of Contents: 00:55​ – Using Adobe Capture 05:17​ – Using Adobe Color color.adobe.com 09:53​ – Illustrator Color 16:36​ – InDesign Color 22:00​ – Spark spark.adobe.com

Week 2: Spark Post

Create a post using your color palette that announces you are in the Winter Break Creative Challenge. 

Apps used: Spark, CC libraries

Week 3:  Flat Graphic Icons

Create an icon set (you decide how many) that reflects our winter theme. Icons should use your color palette.

App used: Illustrator, Spark Post, Noun Project, Nucleo

Table of Contents: 01:01​ – Nucleo app 03:07​ – Noun Project 04:19​ – Creative Commons Search 05:10​ – Stock.adobe.com 07:12​ – Creating a new Illustrator Document 09:18​ – Pencil Tool 10:54​ – Width tool 11:16​ – Drawing with Basic Shapes 11:40​ – Display Preferences 13:17​ – Basic Drawing shortcuts 16:27​ – Aligning Objects 16:49​ – Grouping Shapes 17:03​ – Shapebuilder tool 17:46​ – Creating dimension with shading 19:42​ – Tracing images and inspiration 21:58​ – Pen Tool 23:57​ – Lines and strokes

Week 4: Snowflake

Create a fun snowflake with simple shapes and rotations in Illustrator (or Spark). It’s true, no two are the same.

Apps used: Spark Post, Illustrator

Table of Contents: 00:53​ – Starting in Illustrator 01:22​ – Hold Shift for a straight line 01:32​ – Changing stroke weight 01:48​ – Changing stroke properties 02:39​ – Copying objects 03:23​ – Using alignment panel 04:04​ – Using Object transform 04:46​ – Using smart guides to align 04:52​ – Drawing with modifier keys 05:48​ – Rotating and copying shapes 09:56​ – Using Spark for shape building

Week 5: Paper Cut scene

Create a winter scene that looks like cut out paper. In this challenge we are exploring design trends and how to create the appearance of 3D in 2D. You can totally reuse some of the icons you created earlier.

Apps used: Illustrator, Spark Post

Table of Contents: 01:25​ – Where to find trends 03:05​ – Preview of this week’s project 04:27​ – Creating gradients 06:31​ – Using pathfinder to build clouds 08:00​ – Using magic wand to select 08:14​ – Using lasso to select 10:04​ – Sending to Back 10:54​ – Send Objects Backward 11:16​ – Trimming Overlap 12:50​ – Using pen tool to create trees 15:55​ – Creating shading on trees 18:01​ – Using blending modes to shade 19:41​ – Creating hill snow with knife 20:16​ – Copy in Front for snow 20:45​ – Adding detail to clouds 22:50​ – Illustrator vs Photoshop Effects 23:24​ – Adding 3D revolve 24:26​ – Creating paper cut drop shadows 27:02​ – Symbol spray snow flakes 28:53​ – Outer Glow Effect 29:21​ – Other Symbol Options 29:42​ – Adding a clipping mask to clean edges

Week 6: Photoshop Winter Scene

Create a photo-focused winter scene. We will begin our journey exploring Photoshop Camera, which I will try not to get lost in, then we will experiment with Photos in Spark, finally  In Photoshop we will look at a few different techniques – including using layers, masks and blending modes to create a snowglobe. I have a few starter files for you and you can also use your own – or download from Unsplash.

Apps used: Photoshop, Photoshop Camera, Spark Post

Table of Contents: 01:09​ – Photoshop Camera 03:27​ – Photos in Spark Post 09:03​ – Photoshop Snow Globe

Week 7: Recipe Card

We are going to use resources we created during our Winter Break Challenge to create a print recipe card in InDesign or Spark Page. Find your favorite recipe and design it up. 

Apps used: Photoshop, Illustrator, Spark Page, InDesign

Table of Contents: 01:01​ – InDesign 22:48​ Spark Page