MY Glowforge Family!! Oh, how I have missed you so! It has been far too long! I have been M.I.A. due to some pretty scary health issues I have/had going on. This is my first time back in my shop in quite some time. I am so glad to be back up here though!
I had a friend ask me to make a gift for her to give to her friend. What she asked me was to do a business logo sign for her business. She showed me the logo that I stole off of her webpage which is here:
She says “if you can just make it come alive, that would be Awesome!”
My first thought was to make the top piece out of plywood, of course with wooden letters glued to it:
(Please disregard the piece of the inner frame that is not glued down yet) and then build paper flowers out of cardstock to put behind the logo. Then, have all of that attached to the main backboard, which would be framed. But I didn’t have a clue as to how I would attach the logo board up high enough to have the paper flowers behind it.
Next, I decided to do the make logo board, cut the letters out, and glue them to that, just as my first idea. Behind that, I would cut the outlines of the flowers out of plywood instead and paint them accordingly. Lastly, glue those to the backboard. Ultimately creating four separate layers ( 1-framed backboard 2-flowers 3-logo backboard 4- letters/logo). Here I have a representation of what I am talking about. Only in this picture, the flowers are cut out of card stock.
I decided to Merge the touching pieces of the flowers together in Illustrator. I am not so sure that it turned out that great due to a couple of reasons. After I cut the flowers out of wood and try to paint them to match the logo image, the paint will be turned brown due to the burn marked edges. I am not sure how I would paint them before cutting, not knowing where to paint the wood in what color. Here is a screenshot of the first Illustrator proof --when I was still brainstorming, followed by parts of the merged proof.
Okay, now that I showed yall bazillion pictures and probably have you scratching your head due to confusion, (Hopefully not) do yall think there is a better way? My fear is that the flower cutout sections will not look as good as I will need them to, specifically where the flowers/leaves/greenery merge together.
One section that I cut out of paper looks funny where the different leaves merge together. At least it does while it is cut out of paper and the paper being all one color.
On the parts that I merged, where the pieces merge, I was aiming to make one of the pieces (that touch) disappear into the background so that it would look better, but I am not that “Illustrator smart”. YET. I am learning. And will get better with time. But as for now, that’s all I have.
Another issue, which is a pretty enormous issue is painting the pieces to match the logo image. If I do the painting after each piece is cut, the paint will end up fading to ugly brown-faded edges. I don’t know of a way to paint the wood before cutting unless I could find a way to do all of this without merging the different parts of different flowers.
OR… if there was a way to print each floral piece out, from Illustrator to my Cannon ink printer so that it prints out on paper to be the exact size that it is in illustrator. If I could do that, I could do my best to paint each section accordingly. BEFORE CUTTING. And that is if the floral pieces will look ok merged.
*Will the merged pieces still look funny once they are cut out of wood and are painted accordingly? Or is there really no solution to my whole sha-bang that I have gotten myself into?
*Is there a better way to get the floral pieces close together and sometimes overlapping in Illustrator?
*Better idea on painting each piece afterward in order to avoid paint discoloration?
*Or just any advice or opinion at all??
This is honestly one of the most important jobs I have done on my GF. So any opinions mean the world! Or advice. Because I am at a standstill!
My GF people always have the best advice and guidance! And I am very thankful for that. I never would have made it this far without all of yall’s help! I wouldn’t have made it past my first print! And I appreciate it so much!
It has been so long since I have even laid eyes on my GF, much less get to touch it! So I am thrilled to even be here right now. But I surely don’t want to spend days being stuck.
If only I could come like a thief in the night and borrow some of the genius’s brains to absorb all of the “Illustrator Smarts” and then return them back to the rightful owners. Oh, what a wish!
@Jules did you know that you/your screen name are a tag option in the tag option box??? LOL