From the course: Drawing Vector Graphics: Iconography

Leighton Hubbell - Illustrator Tutorial

From the course: Drawing Vector Graphics: Iconography

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Leighton Hubbell

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- [Instructor] In this movie, you might recognize some of the artwork I'm going to show you. That's because California based designer and illustrator, Leighton Hubbell, created many of the thumbnail icons you see used on Lynda.com and LinkenIn Learning. Let's take a look at his icon work. So, here's some icons that Leighton created for topic specific courses, Premiere Pro and Database Setup, HTML 5, and so on and so forth. But I like how he encapsulated the meaning of each of those themes within these very simplified flat color based icons. I love the usage of color here. I think it's balanced very well. And when he wanted a secondary color, he didn't change the color, he just used a nice a tint of the existing color to pull it off. The gray framing around everything kind of ties it all together really well and I think these work great. Now, when it comes to the course icons itself, you've probably recognized it when they come up like this and it represents a specific course. Now, one thing he did on these that I like how he pulled it off is I'm going to click on this shape and I'm just going to expand it. And all this is is a linear gradient and he's just applied a nice multiply to it in order to pull off a really good effect on this kind of a drop shadow if you will onto the surface of where this icon is sitting. And one thing that I think is very subtle but it helps to create that illusion of depth between the icon that's in the foreground and the icon in the background is this shadow. And the shadow in the background is at 70 so it's a little fainter and it gets a little grayer as it goes back in distance. So those are the kind of details that make this kind of iconic communication work well. Here's another one he created. I'm not completely sure that this course is but I like the simplification of a circuit board in the context of this icon work. And this one, checking for bugs, as the developer, I think that carries forth really well. Now, my favorite type of thumbnail graphics used in context of this online service is where they take this simple iconification of shapes such as shown here on the right. And it contrasts really well and picks up on some of the colors in a photograph. I think these two things contrast really well between an organic flair and a more precision based graphic. Now, one thing on this is on his shadow here if I click on it, this is simply a black color set to multiply set to 30%. But if we go to the Appearance panel, he's had a couple effects he's applied to it and that is he had a feather effect applied to it and a Gaussian blur effect applied to it. So when those come on, it creates a far more compelling drop show. So, icons have the ability to communicate in way that photography never could. So, keep leveraging your illustrative skills in the context of design and consider the use of icons to improve your creative work.

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