The individual vinyl project required us to pick a multi colored design that we would edit in Illustrator so that we would be able to cut out the design. After some thinking, I decided to go with the Green Bay Packer's logo. I felt that it was not too complicated, and that it would also be something that I actually use.
The first step after selecting a good picture was putting it into Illustrator. In Illustrator, we would be able to turn the image into a vector image, which would prevent the image from blurring when it was enlarged. Along with this, I did things like remove the white background, and separated the logo so that I had all three colors in the design spread out and ready to print. After this, I saved it to my flash drive and took it down into the Innovation Center.
The first step after selecting a good picture was putting it into Illustrator. In Illustrator, we would be able to turn the image into a vector image, which would prevent the image from blurring when it was enlarged. Along with this, I did things like remove the white background, and separated the logo so that I had all three colors in the design spread out and ready to print. After this, I saved it to my flash drive and took it down into the Innovation Center.
My group went down to use the vinyl cutter at the same time, and we inserted our designs into a single document in Illustrator to print from. This worked out well, because by selecting certain images, you could pick which one to print when a certain color was in. This was especially useful for saving vinyl, because everyone who had a common color in their design could all print on one sheet of vinyl, rather than everyone printing on a separate sheet. After the vinyl cutter finished, we would cut out our designs and go retrieve another color to cut out other parts needed.
My group printed out our designs at the same time, so many of our designs came out in a single piece, and it needed to be cut apart into the individual designs. Once all of the designs were separated, I was able to start the process of putting the logo onto my notebook. First I had to remove all of the extra vinyl so that only my pieces of the logo remained on the adhesive sheet. Then using transfer tape and a lot of applied pressure, I put the tape over each of my parts to remove them from the adhesive backing. Then, I had to put on each piece correctly lined up, starting with the yellow, black and finally green. For each part, I had to apply a lot of pressure in order to get the logo to stick to my journal, and to remove as many air bubbles as possible.
The application, along with most of the creation of the logo was very similar to the process of applying names to our journals, except much harder. With multiple pieces, I had to try to be as precise as possible with placing things on center and in the correct spots. I also found that it was harder to account for all the air bubbles with the multiple layers, because if you missed an air bubble on the first layer and didn't notice it until the end, it would show on your entire design. I feel like I could have done a better job with the application of my design to my notebook cover, but it still turned out fine.