Expanding Skillset: Design: Projects: Street Sign
- How do I create an interesting & relevant design that is simple, economical, and functional for everyday purposes?
What am I making?
A street sign design for a real city that matches the character of the city but is simple and quickly read
example Street Sign page you would put on your Google Site
How do I make it?
newer YouTube tutorial: Using Vectr to make a Street Sign 2
older YouTube tutorial: Using Vectr to make a Street Sign
You can skip through it - the middle part, I spend a lot of time with the Pen tool
Steps
PIck a city to make a street sign for, a city you know well
Do research - find out what things the city is famous for! What are existing symbols that represent the city?
Draw sketches of street signs that show sign shapes, colors, and small icons that match your city, including what you found in your research
Decide on an idea to draw on your computer
You can use Adobe Illustrator or go to Vectr.com (and sign in with Google so you can save)
Create a Wide but not Tall Rectangle or Rounded Rectangle or other shape if you like; use a good Street Sign Color that everybody can live with
And, a color that relates to your city.
You could also use a different shape, but do something that a lot of people can tolerate
Type a sample Street Name and set the color to be visible on the background and go with the city theme you have in mind, and place it on the Sign shape
Create a Simple Graphic that represents some aspect of your city. It must be your own drawing. You can upload a photo or image as a template to draw over. Then, discard the template.
Scale the Simple Graphic down so that it fits on the Street Sign.
Balance and Align all parts on the Street sign so everything is spaced nicely and not close to an edge or another element
Select all the elements and Export the Selection as a PNG file; you may need to click a link and then save the image from the screen by right-clicking on it.
On Google Sites, under Pages, create a new page called Street Sign.
Add your Street Sign image, and describe how your Street Sign represents your city.
Write about what you learned doing this assignment, mention skills and techniques.
When done, push the Publish button, review the settings, and publish.
Then click the chain-link button, Copy the link for your page, and paste it into Google Classroom to "turn in."
Grading
All design is your own. You may re-draw your own versions of images, but do not use others' images as is. Use the Pen tool and Pencil tool to create shapes for any images
Overall design matches vibe or character of target city; explain your reasoning on your page.
Design is quickly readable: Emphasis is on the name of the street.
Any graphics are secondary
Balance and Alignment - good spacing, keep major elements away from the edges, even spacing
Combination of Font Style, Color scheme, and Graphics demonstrate Unity
Practice Economy - nothing complicated or cluttered in the design to distract from quick visual processing
Career Connections
Graphic design, Marketing
Resources
All About Street Name Signs and the Highway Gothic Font typeface
Examples from Sign Companies: USA Traffic Signs and TrafficSigns.com