As part of a design challenge with Illustrator on the iPad beta team, I re-created an album cover focusing primarily on typographic elements using the new type tool features. I chose to design Lady Gaga's new album "Chromatica"

For the Album Title & Artist Name, I used Type to create the Initial "Lady" in Script and "GAGA" in Sans. I used a font which communicated to me, the feeling: Handmade, Feisty, Sensual, Future, Modern, Chroma, Electric & Fast.

I used the Type outline feature to create a duplicate text and displace to create a shadow effect, by using the type outline feature, it allowed me to manipulate each individual point to create the shadows like a long shadow. I also added Gradients to each shadow using colours from Lady Gaga's Brand Colours. I added a further darker shadow, to create a more 3d Effect, to make it pop. 

Lastly I felt it needed a little more, so I manually added an Inline for a more handmade feel using the pen tool. 

I used the Type tool's Type on Path to add in the song lyrics. A few of the lyrics I choose to experiment with a few features like skew, 3d ribbon & stair step.

For the last element the background, I added multiple gradients and imported my own handmade rough texture to make an authentic feel. I added lyrics with more spacing to cover a large negative area to make it look as if its part of an image with a text path, manipulated the edges to make it fit.

For the most part, everything was made and utilised typographic elements in Ai on the iPad! It was much easier to create on iPad, and pushed me out of my comfort zone.