Ash Thorp Emulation

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For an assignment in my Visual Literacy class, I was told to bring in a "really cool picture". When we brought in our respective pictures, I brought in a really cool image from Ash Thorp's "UI AND DATA DESIGN" course on Think Squared that I had seen on Behance. My instructor went on to say our assignment was to emulate our chosen photo as closely as possible. I had always loved super cool User-Interfaces for movies, like the ones done for TRON by GMUNK, but I never thought I could create them myself.

I was a little scared of the assignment and confused about how to even approach it, but above all I was excited because I knew I would learn from it. Sure enough, through research, trial and error, persistent work and effort, a really sweet project was produced.

Thorp produced his product in Cinema 4D, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. He also teaches a course on Learn Squared called "UI AND DATA DESIGN". It starts at the very beginning by exploring how he formulates ideas from a creative pitch. From there, he moves into building and organizing assets, keeping his work consistent, and concludes with some of his best practices for presenting artwork on the web. Using a combination of Cinema 4D, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Bridge, you can see his step-by-step workflow to turn ideas into reality. (1)

However I did not have access to Cinema 4D, so I had to approach recreating it in a very different way through only using Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. It also wouldn't necessarily help me to learn how to "emulate" something if I was learning exactly how to do it so I avoided taking his class. It took much trial and error and many, many hours, but I finally reached a point I was happy with.

Side note: This all being said, I would love to learn to use Cinema 4D and take his course, but I'll save that for another time.

My process began with research and visually dissecting the original image. I watched interviews of Thorp and talks that he gave to get an idea of his process and inspirations to get into the mindset. Researching his inspirations, watching movies with other User-Interface designs and looking at other motion graphics designers like GMUNK really put me on the path of getting excited about the task at hand.

I started by just taking notes, drawing and getting pen to paper. Icon drawings and mental notes began to give me a path. At this point, breaks became common to let different approaches simmer in my mind. Eventually, a path begins to form and it's time to get started.

This whole project, though not perfect, was really fun and I believe beneficial. It really taught me to maneuver through obstacles I encountered in the process and taught me that I can make these really cool User Interfaces that I never thought I could do before this. Shoutout to Ash Thorp.

"Beautiful!!! :)" - Ash Thorp (via Instagram)

Sources:

(1) - https://www.behance.net/gallery/32565465/LEARN-SQUARED-UI-AND-DATA-DESIGN-COURSE