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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.

Statement of Intent

To draw an ideal Studio Space with personal furniture and 1 item that defies gravity.

Ideation

This was the first room that I made using the one-point perspective exercise. This gave me a good idea of how to place items around a grid-drawn space. I had issues drawing a window however, I found that using a simple border helped to separate it from the wall.

My main ideas consisted of blending a large glass feature with stone or concrete furniture. those are materials that I personally would enjoy having in a studio space.

I would frequently browse Pinterest for inspiration, currently, I have an interest in eastern forms of architecture. so I chose to include a raised floor in my studio.

I decided to use a lot of stone in the studio, the grain and imperfect edges convey beauty in imperfection. the Japanese idea of “Wabi Sabi” was very prevalent in my conception of the room. Wabi Sabi is the Japanese ideal of finding beauty in imperfections, such as fixing the cracks in bowls with gold to highlight its imperfection.

Iteration and Production

making the space itself was a process of putting in the largest items in the room first, then filling in all the detail.

The first big detail I began with was the Desk. I wanted to make a desk that was like a big piece of set concrete. To add more interesting features I gave it a sort of upsidedown triangle design. However, this was a pain for me to get the proper perspective lines. It would be a cycle of fixing one part for another to be disrupted. Eventually, I decided to change the form of the dest to a more warped and imperfect shape. I like this imperfect design more because it complements the imperfect shapes of the rock furniture.

I followed with the cubic window which was a much more simple shape to draw. Near the beginning, I had issues with differentiating the window from the rest of the room. After asking Taylor, he recommended putting a thicker border around the edges of the window to separate it. Following his advice, it fixed the window.

For the object that defies gravity, I wanted to make a floating slab of rock to function as a table or bench. After asking my professor how I could make it look like it was floating he suggested putting magnets of some sort below the slab.

I integrated the floating slab into the front center of the room with some dome-like magnets.

I struggled most with the desk. it was a difficult angle to convey since I wanted to show that it was a slanted desk. With the final design, I made the desk look a bit more warped than a “perfect” desk. personally, I enjoy this touch because I like furniture that has visible imperfections. This is part of why I included so much stone in the room.

I made the first iteration of the room by taping transparent paper on top of a 3-point perspective 16″ page, using the transparent paper I was able to just draw the furniture in the desired perspective. It was tricky transferring the transparent paper version to the final paper however, I was able to by taping the transparent paper behind the final page so I could use a light table to trace.

I showed my final to my Professor and they suggested that I include one more object on an empty wall. So I decided to make a comically longboard rack.

Reflection

This project was a good way to draw my visualized ideas of room composition and furniture. It was fun to create a piece of furniture in my mind and properly draw it.

Statement of intent

To make a concise and relevant bio about myself to introduce visitors to my portfolio page. For Assignment 1 we were to make a PDF based on what I think is “good” and “bad” design

Ideation

For the bio, I had a loose idea of how I would want to write it. I decided on 3 main points that I wanted to cover in the bio including who I am, how I got here, and what I want to do.

my initial ideas to compile these key points involved:

• Writing a personal story about how I came to study at OSU or putting in some of my personal accounts of what led me to the department of design.
• To go straight into technical skills almost like a resume.

Another separate idea was to include some small graphic images, mainly to add some visual aid and some character to my portfolio site.

I think making the bio like a mission statement would be the best way to convey my intended message.

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Good v. Bad Design project,

At first, I began to think about think I use every day such as my water bottle or my skateboard. My immediate thought for good design was the Akari light by Isamu Noguchi.

This light has a lot of aspects that I consider good design. From the sustainable materials of the paper to the pristine level of craftsmanship.

For examples of bad design I turned to the internet for inspiration, and I found many amusing photos of laughable bathroom and staircase designs

though I would consider these bad designs in my book, I wasn’t very compelled to talk about these cases. I wanted to talk about something closer to myself as a person, so I began to think about things that gave me trouble in the past.

I thought about drawing as a child and I remembered this infamous Disney pencil.

I personally have a lot of gripes with this pencil so I thought it to be the perfect thing to talk about as bad design.

For the last two designs, Secretly Dislike and secretly liked, I took a walk around my house of inspiration. Looking at all the furniture and how it served functions. I came

across a chair that my housemate upholstered which I secretly disdained. I found the upholstering to be an unnecessary compromise of the original design of the chair.

A lamp that I made myself, I chose this lamp because I made it with direct inspiration from the previously mentioned Akari Lamp. So I thought waiting about it would be a good way to contrast my personal attachment to this lamp.

 

Iteration and Production

For the bio, I decided to meet in the middle with a short personal account about my growing interest in design and tying in some of my technical skills.

Putting together the Final product of the Good v. Bad Design was straightforward. I had most of my thoughts about each of the individual designs.

While using Microsoft Word I used a 2 x 4 grid to format the paper. While putting the images and text together I noticed that using an alternating pattern with the text and the image helped make the paper easier to read and follow.

Reflection

Making the About Me page was a good way to reflect on my personal skills and passion for design. I saw this almost like making a resume and I appreciate the correlation between the two.

Making the Good v. Bad Design was a great way to think about my personal ideas and beliefs about Design. The contrast between my loved design and hated design has given me some insight into my core beliefs as a person.

Statement of Intent

Shape grammar,

We were meant to choose one of 3 shapes (Square, Circle, or Triangle) and make a composition that evokes a certain emotion. One composition was intended to be determinate and the other one, indeterminate.

Ideation

For my shape, I chose triangles because I personally like them more than the other shape and I find triangles to be a very simple yet complex shape. An equilateral triangle signifies perfect balance between each vertex. I personally like triangles because of the many emotions I think they can convey, such as irritation, chaos, simplicity, anxiety, balance, etc.

Determinate Process:

I was thinking about conveying the emotion of irritation but I took a glance at my phone’s lock screen:

 Which is an image of a train window looking at a passing forest, all the green and motion gave me the idea to convey something to do with plants and a route. I then chose the emotion of Balance.

Indeterminate Process:

Originally for this process, I misunderstood the assignment. I thought that we would be creating a shape from an indeterminate process such as giving a tree branch a marker and letting it draw in the wind. like this:

 I left it for 5 hours, and there was no wind.

So still misunderstanding the assignment I tried a different method of creating a shape. One of my roommates forgot about a bag of peaches and they went bad. So I took the peaches and my bristol. And threw them together…

I was left with an interesting weave of patterns from the splattered fruit. I then took the most obvious-looking shape.

 

After showing my process to my professor I was told that I misunderstood the assignment. So I cut out triangles from magazines and would drop them from 2 feet above the paper.

Iteration and Production

I began the process by cutting many rough triangles out of some spare magazines. I cut many different sizes so I could play with their differences.

I began to arrange the triangles in many different orientations.

Determinate:

For this process, I started by creating a web of sorts and then changing it incrementally.

after seeing the inspiration for my lock screen I began to play with verticality and some leaning to convey the feel of balance.

                                                                                                                                

After nearly 25 iterations I settled on a sort of spire of leaning triangles as my final. So I named it “Blade of Grass”

Indeterminate (Arps Law):

This was a more straightforward process, which consisted of absent-mindedly dropping 12 pieces of triangles until they all fell on the bristol. I would have to drop pieces more than once because they would drift off the paper.

                         

With the way how the triangles seemed to land on the page, I felt an emotion of carelessness so I named the work “Thoughts In the Wind”

Reflection

This Shape grammar assignment gave me a good understanding of the difference between determinate and indeterminate. I learned that there are times when an indeterminate process could be better than a determinate process. I believe that for each project there should be a balance between these two aspects to retain a thoughtful and creative composition.