The Articles of Faith are held true by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As I thought back on times that I’ve learned about and memorized religious concepts from my childhood, what I remembered most were the visual examples and connections that facilitated that learning. Because of this, I wanted to create 13 icons that represent each of the 13 Articles of Faith, which encapsulate the message in a creative and representational way through both literal and symbolic forms.

Going into this project, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to include all the details from every Article. I did, however, remember that certain words stood out as I reviewed them years before. I chose to sketch out ideas for each of them based on the most prominent words, focusing on that which could be simplified and easily recognizable. This included research into symbolic imagery that is relatable not only to LDS doctrine, but Christian iconography in general. I went through each Article and sketched a few ideas for each.

Initially, I was compelled to create these icons within the parameters of encapsulating circles, which would unify my icons and clean up the edges. However, I realized that starting out with the goal of encircling my images would restrict the silhouettes and range of choices I could make artistically in making my icons.

Here you can see my initial inclination was to encapsulate my icons inside circles. I thought that this would frame them nicely, but after further sketches and receiving feedback on the idea, I strayed away from that idea for the sake of artistic liberty. When creating my icons, I stuck with the same themes/ideas in my sketches for the most part, with some variations upon execution.

This was my first attempt at my idea. It was a half-success. The second, third, and fourth icons established the basis for what the rest of my icons would look like. Generally, I stuck with solid colors with light and dark for definition, s opposed to stroke. I tried to implement a the same amount of detail to the rest of the icons as I did to the olive branch and snake to add interest and maintain consistency throughout the set. Those that were too simplistic or difficult to understand were altered, as seen in future drafts.

As I modified my drafts, I took advice to thicken my lines and eliminate stroke as much as possible, as seen in the olive stems and the eye.

This is a more detailed look into the process I went through for one of my icons in the attempt to create something with definition and depth without stroke

First I started with a sketch I rendered by looking at photos of old Roman coins (this one correlates to the "governments" Article of Faith.) I took a photo with my phone and imported it into Illustrator and traced over it.

Using the sketch and trace I did, I blocked out color to build off of. By locking down background images and stroke, I was able to insert colors with ease.

Here is a look into further drafts executed with similar style, and the coin basically completed. Using different values of the same hue, I mimicked the highlight and shadow created by a bas relief coin.

Further down you can see the evolution of a more representative, surreal version of the key which indicates the priesthood theme through a tie shape.

Here are my finished icons positioned in a set. While all are vastly different in silhouette, color, and subject matter, the way in which I formed the shapes were all done the same. This was done by shape building tools, without stroke. The shadows and highlights did the most in forming the dimension and shape of the different icons, also formed using shapes and the blob brush tool. Many of them also rely on less realistic, more surreal, metaphorical, symbolic forms. The quality of form and line altogether form a cohesive group of icons that are simplistic and fun to look at while having some complexity and realistic features.