State of the Sndbox Competition Entry

Hi all, this is my first (finally!) and last post of the year. I've been on the Steemit platform for a while looking around other creative's work, commenting, upvoting and loving it so far. I hadn't been brave enough to make my own post until now on behalf of the "State of the Sndbox" competition. I think this competition really fits within one of my goals for using Steemit: a playground to post my learning process into flat illustration. I ended up creating a few linear style icons, but I hope to do more complex illustrations in the near future.

CONCEPT

Since the sandbox is clearly visible with the logo, I felt that "state" was a keyword to focus on. One of the definitions by Google is:

1. The particular condition that someone or something is in at a specific time.

To me, this word encapsulates: variety, changes and transformations. I expressed this idea by applying different colors, color rhythms, contrasts and variations to the look of the logo. This, in turn, emphasizes the idea of a playground for creatives. My first drafts were very geometric and inflexible, here are some samples:

ICONS

I decided to take a more random approach and focused on the word "Idea", expressed with sparks, a sparkling light bulb and a hot air balloon combined with a light bulb, weird, I know. I made these minimalist illustrative icons:

FINAL PIECE

Finally, I changed everything up and finished my entry for the State of the Sandbox Thumbnail contest (posted at the beginning). I tried to make the design feel airy, give the idea of freedom, icons were added to show ideas flying by, and logo variations show states of creativity.

Let me know what you think, thank you all for reading and I wish you all a Happy New Year 2018!!!!