I was really drawn to Evgeniya’s use of monoline arrowheads for creating a minimal aesthetic. I started with some feather icons that I found, then branched out into more abstract geometric forms. The glyphs in the fleurons category are inspired by various ivy hedera I’ve been thinking of using for ornamental borders, lines, and ephemera. The modern arcana category is an idea I’ve been toying around with for awhile—a motion graphic and/or printed tarot card deck featuring minimal symbols from both major and minor arcana—this is a just a sample. Below is where I landed with the four categories.

 

 

 

Below are some GIFs featuring simple monoline illustrations by each category. I experimented with various stroke weights applied equally to paths and arrowheads.

 

Feathers

 

 

Fleurons as ornamental borders and underlines to match the monoline lettering I designed.

 

 

Geometrics in a simple drop repeat pattern. I was imagining this as wrapping paper or inside book cover liner.

 

 

Modern Arcana on some simple, black outlined Italian tarot. This is a very rough first pass at an idea I want to take to animated illustration and printed card deck. Here are Judgment, Temperance, The Sun, The Lovers, The Priestess, The Hanged Man.

 

Thank you for taking the time to look at my visual experiments.

This class taught me a lot about file management—creating categories and thinking in terms of a design system specifically for icons. I also improved my management of Symbols in Illustrator.

Some areas I hope to revisit are the minor mis-positionings of arrowhead glyphs relative to paths. You can see some arrowheads when applied have those pesky little stroke endpoints coming out. This takes some push pull and trial by error in going back to the master arrowhead file to nudge the position of the glyphs or expanding appearance once applied. I also hope to revisit different colors applied to paths and arrowheads, but for this phase and class, I kept the color palette minimally muted and my application of color on the less intricate and detailed side of things.

I welcome all feedback.

@sangio_davese