Let's preface this post by saying that this is not a photo. This is a vector graphic created entirely with Adobe Illustrator.

Most people don't think of Illustrator as a tool for creating photo-realistic images. For most, that's Photoshop's job. While that may be mostly true, a lot of people don't realize that Illustrator comes with some powerful tools for creating photo-realistic images. This graphic was an experiment with one of those tools.

Vectortuts.com just published a tutorial that I wrote based on the vector iPhone design that I published last week. Vectortuts.com is a new website devoted to vector graphics tutorials and resources. There are so few websites out there dedicated to vector graphics and I am very excited to be a part of it. Check out my tutorial, I hope you learn something.

A while back Abduzeedo posted a tutorial on how to create an iPhone in Adobe Fireworks.  I like Fireworks a lot but I rarely work with it unless I am mocking up a website design.  I mostly work in Illustrator so it's a lot easier if I have an Illustrator file to work with.  Since I'm in New York this week and next and I have a lot of time on my hands, I decided to go ahead and design an iPhone in Illustrator.

Street Corner is another experiment in vector pixel art.  Originally, I was planning to design this piece as a low resolution test piece but I changed my mind and instead designed this piece as 790 x 1220 pixels with each square representing 5 pixels.  That means I had to select and color 38,552 squares.  As you can imagine this took me quite some time.

I based this piece off of another photo my friend Jacob Zimmer took.  In some of my earlier attempts in this style I attempted to take some shortcuts either by creating very smooth lines or by limiting the amount of detail I used.  In this piece I decided to include as much detail as possible but at the same time, use some really messy lines and a limited color palette.

This is a vector self portrait of myself.  I based this drawing from a photo of myself.  I used Adobe Illustrator to then trace and color myself. 

Fashion sketching is an important step in all phases of garment creation.  It serves as a roadmap for fabric and color selection as well as the actual construction of the garment.  For the most part, fashion sketches are done by hand by talented artists and designers but many designers also use Adobe Illustrator to refine their sketches.  This sketch was my second attempt at refining a hand drawn sketch.

This piece was an experiment with Photoshop's 3D Layer tool.  I wanted to see if I could replicate some of the same effects as some my earlier pieces but using 3D shapes.  The city was drawn in Google Sketchup.

Recently, I've been considering going back to school to formalize my training as a graphic artist.  In college, I spent some time learning graphic and web design.  I was one class short from receiving my associate's degree in graphic and web design before I transferred to another school.  Eventually, I earned a degree in telecommunications.

This piece was a required part of the application process at Parson's School of Design.   The assignment was to design a postage stamp with your favorite fruit or vegetable.  I like apples, so I ran with it.  I never got as far as actually submitting my application.  Once I figured out how much out of state tuition was.

This was one of my early attempts at a complex vector illustration based from a photo.  Recently, I've been pushing the limits of what I know about Illustrator so I figured I'd attempt something new.  Well, it took me just about the entire day to do it but I think it turned out rather well considering it was my first time designing something of this magnitude.  In all, it was very challenging and a nice learning experience.  The original photo was taken by Louisville photographer Jacob Zimmer.

I originally designed this illustration as a graph showing how some were over-inflating an estimate of potential gaming revenues.  The tall yellow stack was the over-inflated number, the other stacks were more reasonable estimates.  Anyhow, I redesigned this graphic to be a little less controversial for my portfolio.  It was designed using Illustrator and some Photoshop.