Research
For my second fundamentals project, I got the opportunity to collaborate with someone else on this project. The project was to conceptualize, design, and illustrate the idea of movement through paper mechanisms. The end goal is to use Bristol and/or cardstock to demonstrate kinetic motion or stop motion to emphasize the true principle of movement. My goals along the way were to practice and expand conceptual building strategies. To experiment through modeling and prototyping, designing and constructing interactive 2D images, and demonstrating material sensitivity through thoughtful, intentional, and functional construction. I would do all this through my knowledge of craft and vocabulary along the way while using insight and critiquing from my classmates and partner.
The first thing I started completing in this process was getting to know my partner better. What kind of design they are interested in, their design style, their interests, and hobbies, or anything else that would make collaborating easier? After a while of talking, I found out my partner was very similar to me with some of the same common interests along with similar design goals and ideas. This made developing our project easy because we were easily able to brainstorm and communicate our ideas.
We now needed to come up with a theme where we felt we could reach the project goals as well as do something we enjoyed. With that being said, we ended up using Christmas as our theme for the project. Now we had to start to ideate how we could communicate the fundamental principle of movement through Christmas. We first realized time and form would be the key to communicating this idea. From there we came up with ideas and sketches that we thought would demonstrate our ideas. Along with creating sketches we started to explore and experiment with different forms of paper movement. Ranging from circular motion, to push and pull action we wanted to gain knowledge and experience with all types of mechanisms so we could eventually find which way best relates and displays our final ideas. We used YouTube videos and inspiration from the professor and c classmates to find and then craft small-scale versions of these mechanisms. At the start, I found we were more interested in circular motion and movement, but that idea eventually changed as the process continued.
Iterations
In the second week of the project, I ideated more and more with mechanisms and fine-tuned some of my previous sketches. The first round of sketches consisted of a lot of “Christmas characters” that could be formed and manipulated through ways of circular motion like throwing them into a snow globe or making Santa move up and down a chimney. After these steps, my partner and I started exploring with mind maps to really explore all of our options within form and time. This was extremely beneficial in expanding my ideas of how many concepts there are within Christmas that could be manipulated into the project. These mind maps lead to a better idea of how I could work with my partner to construct multiple iterations regarding movement, harmony, and shape.
The following week we started to eliminate ideas and mechanisms that we felt did not fit what we wanted to do. We eliminated the idea of circular motion after we made more mechanisms and just felt it was not enough of what we were looking for. So, we decided to start using what is called a dissolve tab. It’s two sheets of paper with slits made in opposite directions that when one sheet is slid into another sheet the bottom layer can be pushed and pulled to show and then cover up the old image with a new image. We felt this was a much better fit for our imagery as well as our ideas to demonstrate a pure form of movement. This new mechanism in turn turned into new sketches, ideas for form and time, and a rough draft of a concept statement. We now geared our sketches in a new direction toward ideas like a nutcracker opening a closing his mouth and the wrapping and unwrapping of a gift. Since the project is creating a diptych, which is a composition consisting of two uses of mechanisms, we needed two ideas that could go hand in hand and really convey a sense of movement that involved the passage of time and use of form.
Concept Statement
This project is focused on the two elements of time and form. The time aspect is depicted through before and after scenes in the dissolve panels. It can be assumed that the heart is unwrapped and then wrapped in the first panel’s motion. Then, in the next panel as it is seen not appearing under the tree, and then is placed under the tree through the dissolve mechanism as well. This passing of time goes hand in hand with our interpretation of gift-giving. Next, the form can be seen in the use of simplistic shapes. The heart is a simple shape used as a form of symbolism and the box it is wrapped in stays consistent between the two panels. We included familiar aspects in both panels to make them tell a cohesive story. The tree was also done in a simplistic style using basic triangles as the body, filling the tree with circular ornaments, and adding the star when the gift appears under the tree. Our stylistic choice of using elementary shapes was aimed to provide emphasis on the recognizable shapes and their meaning that is associated with holidays and gift-giving. Also, we used line work in the decoration of the heart and gift wrappings to provide designs that would enhance the aesthetic appeal of the dissolve tabs. By combining simple forms with more intricate patterns, the contrast contributes to the significance of the heart and gift since these were the main aspects of the narrative being told. Lastly, color was considered throughout this project to replicate a Christmas sensation. Although not everyone celebrates Christmas, most people associate red and green with the holiday, so this feature upholds the gift-giving season. In addition to all of the elements, the physical mechanism can be used to represent gift giving. As the tab on the left of the composition is pulled it covers the box. Simultaneously the tab on the right is pushed in to reveal this gift under the tree. So, going back and forth with the tabs can also be seen as a gesture of receiving and giving by the motion of pushing and pulling. Overall, the panels convey a heartfelt narrative of gift-giving during Christmas by showing before and after depictions using form, line, and color.
Production
The fourth week was a major setback week for the two of us. After discussing with our professor, we realized our sketches and illustrations were not directly meeting our ideas. We discussed a lot and had to re-discuss what we wanted to convey in our composition that would emphasize both form and time. We ended up with the idea of gift-giving. We decided that gift-giving is a symbol of love and we wanted to convey that the best and biggest gifts may come in the smallest of packages. So, we wanted to create a composition that embodied that. We wanted to represent a heart symbolizing love getting wrapped on one side with a dissolve tab. While on the other side we would use another dissolve tab to represent a Christmas tree and then when the second image was revealed you would see a star atop the tree with more gifts and the special gift that stands out and has the gift of love in it.
Now with this game plan, we split the work and she did the composition with the heart and gift box while I depicted the change in the tree and the presents. I used Adobe Illustrator to draw and construct all of the imagery within multiple layers. I could now remove and add layers to cut into different colored cardstock and stack them to create the layered image. This process took a lot of trial and error runs so that we could get to an end product that I felt confident about. There was some disappointment near the end of the project because the final product did not turn out as good as I wanted it to. The goal was to finish the project on Friday and work on the finishing touches over the weekend, but after scheduling for Friday I was unable to get in to cut it and finish the last cuts I needed. So, I had to finish it on Monday, and I think it played a role in the quality of the final composition. I liked the illustration and how it turned out, but the mechanism was not where I wanted it to be, and sadly did not have the time to fix it. It works to a degree, but the design is nowhere near as smooth as I would’ve liked it and if I had to do it over again, I would’ve tried to replan to give myself more time on the mechanism. I like how the layering worked within the composition and I think it does a great job of demonstrating movement through form and time but the mechanism itself is not smooth and I wish I would’ve had a chance to do it over. Overall, I think we accomplished our goals as a group and had a good time working together towards a common goal while working both independently and together.
Portfolio Project
View final project at Dynamic Pages Project