Learning the Adobe Illustrator

I've been learning all about the Adobe suite recently. The first program that I plan to master is Adobe Illustrator with its vector images. To motivate myself to work on the program, I plan on using the icons I create for profile pictures (except for LinkedIn of course). Nothing motivates me more than getting to show off some of my fancy custom made icons. 

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My first creation on Adobe Illustrator was inspired by the concept of the Black Diamond Equipment (TM) logo. Instead of a smaller diamond inside a larger diamond, I cut the diamond down the center from left to right with a single line. From there I filled out the various smaller sectors shape with alternating colors of black and white.

The main problems I had with the image was that the overall diamond shape was lost due to the black on black coloring scheme. The pattern did look "cool," but there was confusion over what the image was. I asked a couple of my buddies about the image and sure enough they could not understand what the image was.

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For my next creation I decided to improve the overall layout of the previous image. I added a right edge to give the image a 3D feel. I kept the alternative color scheme of black & white since it fit the original image. To keep the overall diamond shape visible, I placed the structure in a white background.

The main problem I had with this image was that the black lines used to make the diamond stood out partially ruining the smooth consistency of solid colors. I also made the mistake of saving the file in PNG instead of SVG. An SVG file would appear smoother and not rely on the pixels. I set my blog icon to this image and noticed a type of blur with the image.