Research
For this assignment, I conducted research on what the various principles of design are and how I could possibly incorporate them into my composition to reflect a certain feeling or idea. Through the listening of lectures, reading of articles, and class discussions, I found that I most resonated with emphasis, repetition, and movement. When examining these principles and how they related to my numerous practice compositions, I found that the feeling of loneliness was abstractly represented.
- Exercise #1:
Iterations
The final version of my Shape Grammar project was produced through a lot of brainstorming and experimenting with different configurations. Beginning with the exercise composition, below are a few of the shape configurations I made while trying to figure out which one I wanted to make the main component.
Here, I made a wide variety of geometric and curvilinear shapes. Doing these quick sketches helped me experiment with different combinations of circles, squares, and triangles in order to figure out what qualities within them I did and didn’t like. I took these ideas into my final composition and was able to produce many different versions. Below are a few of them.
Creating all these compositions allowed me to play around with positive and negative space. Out of all four designs, I was especially drawn to the one all the way to the left and so, I decided to move forward with it as the first draft of my final.
Production
#1
A previously said, I was really drawn to the composition above. I thought it demonstrated a strong use of emphasis, as one of the triangles was titled a different way than the rest of them. Through some class discussions and one-on-one conversations, however, I realized my use of negative space was incorrect and needed to be improved.
#2
To fix this problem, I started by simplifying things. I went back to square one (literally) and removed all of the triangles from the composition. This helped me to clearly see the positive and negative shapes being made and figure out what step to take next.
#3
This next step ended up being a change in the layout to resemble more of a checkered board pattern. I felt as if this composition showcased a better use of negative and positive space and would allow for a more interesting way to show emphasis.
#4
I experimented with many ways of showing emphasis but ended up liking this version the most. Tilting the one square not only puts emphasis on that specific area but also make an interesting shape within the negative space.
#5
From there, I realized I still needed to showcase the feeling of loneliness. I experimented with the placement of this circle, trying to put it somewhere it looked all by itself and away from the rest of the shapes.
#6
Although I liked the prior version, I still felt my representation of loneliness could be improved. I did this by adding two more circles near the original one and then another circle near the top left. This made it so one circle was clearly separated and not a part of the other group of circles, thus making it appear lonely. Once I had that finalized, I constructed it by hand using black and white colored bristol. All together, this assignment was fun but challenging for me. I struggled with managing the project requirements, having an appropriate use of positive and negative space, and demonstrating a feeling and design principle within all of that. I learned a lot throughout the process, however, and that makes it worth it.
Link to Portfolio Project
Now that you know how it came to be made, here’s a link to my portfolio page where you can see my Shape Grammar assignment. Enjoy!
https://u.osu.edu/fricke-60/portfolio/shape-grammar/