Illustrator
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Our second assignment was to create several two-dimensional designs using this software. Some of the things we made were key chains, notebook covers, and water bottle engravings. This page will show you how I created a key chain, as well as the finished products of the others.
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DEsigning a Key Chain
Step 1: Open a new, blank document. Make sure its dimensions will fit in your device and will have enough space for your design.
Step 3: Add text and/or shapes. Make sure that there is nothing too complicated, because your device might not be able to handle finer detailing. Once you have these shapes, make sure to outline them as either a cut (red) or an engrave (blue). If you would like only the outline to be engraved, make the shape transparent. The filled color of a shape being cut out does not matter, but it would be better to use a darker color such as black or gray.
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Step 2: Create the initial shape of your design. This will be the shape of the key chain as whole, and everything from this point on needs to fit inside of this shape.
Step 4: Add the hole for where the key chain will fit on the chain once it's been created. Be sure to outline this as a cut (red). Once you have everything you want or need in your design, adjust the size of all your outlines to fit the sizing of your device's laser. For me, the size was 0.0001 inches.
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All Done!
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Make sure to save it in your computer files so that you don't lose it.
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Here are the final results of several other designs I made.
In order, the designs are a keychain, a notebook cover, a water bottle engraving, and the two-dimensional pieces of a three-dimensional figure. Some of these figures are cut in material like wood, plastic, or foam, but others are cut into vinyl or are engraved into a premade surface (like the water bottle). Normally I would show images of those being printed or created, but unfortunately due to the COVID-19 pandemic that happened during this school year I was unable to have in-person access to the machinery. The final products of all designs are shown on another page of this site.
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