Blend type experiment

I recently ran across a article on veerle’s blog where she provides a tutorial on how to make a cool poster using the blend tool in Illustrator. That article gave me the inspiration to try out some experimental shapes myself. I really like the look and feel you can get from complex blends, the textures and patterns produced can be beautiful.

I started by drawing some random lines in Adobe Illustrator.

From there I double clicked the blend tool and set the blend to: specific steps > 100. Next, you can do this one of two ways, select the lines you want to blend by clicking on each line with your blend tool or you can select your lines with the selection tool and go to Object > Blend > Make. Voila! Instant awesomeness.

Here are some of my experiments.

I decided to layer some of these shapes on top of one another, creating a more depth. Remember you can use your selection tool to distort and transform these shapes as needed.

Next I imported my blends into Photoshop and layered them. I added some color and some spheres to give the composition more depth and “pop”.

This was a fun experiment that has limitless possibilities and doesn’t take a ton of time. In the future, I’d like to incorporate typography in some way with these wispy vectors, similar to some design work done by an extremely talented designer named Alex Trochut. If you do go to his site, be sure to check out the Neo Deco. Typeface and Nike Basketball T-Shirt.