Statement of Intent
To create a composition using Notan and shape grammar ideas. Making a complex shape from simple shapes (triangle, circle, or square) and conveying a theme.
Ideation
I settled on the idea of making a bear out of simple shapes. I chose this because I find the face of a bear to be a simple and cute thing to convey with simple shapes. I settled on using circles to make the face because a circle is the best shape to represent a bear, bears are all-rounded animals with their abilities and diet.
My first design of a bear used ellipses along with circles, this created a more rabbit-looking thing than a bear. My next design had more emphasis on the circles making the muzzle of the bear loo fuzzy. I then later tried a different design where I made the whole bear with this fuzzy look however, I didn’t like the way the bear turned out and continued with the 2nd design. Iteration and Production
For my first iteration, I made a radial pattern with the bear shape, however, this was ignoring the rules of Notan.
In my next iteration, I began to apply more of the Notan rules however I still manage to break it due to the illustrator tools being a bit confusing. Ignoring the Notan I continued to explore a radial pattern as I found it to be very interesting.
In this iteration, I changed the central shape to a square for a variety and I continued to explore the radial patterns. I was still struggling to properly use Notan rules since I found the illustrator tools to be confusing and unreliable.
After many iterations of breaking the rules of Notan, I had to ask my professor to explain the illustrator tools. With their guidance, I was able to make a composition that met the rules of Notan.
The tools of illustrator were unreliable for me, there were times I would try to flip an image while all the criteria were met and it would flip it in a way I didn’t intend or not work at all.
Reflection
This assignment allowed me to learn the basics of illustrator. In all honesty, I disliked this assignment. I found the constraints of Notan through illustrator to be very particular and unreliable. The variability and my unfamiliarity with illustrator quickly drained my energy for this assignment. I believe I could create a better composition but with my current understanding of illustrator, I am limited.