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Sensory Abstraction

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RESEARCH

Shown above I have inserted photos of every one of my mind maps from my research phase. The first one is showing the experience of swimming with dolphins. I was excited about this, until I realized there wasn’t much that could go into this feeling, and it was almost too specific. The second set of mind maps is the experience of Thanksgiving day. When I originally had Thanksgiving Day in the center, I was told that was too vague, so I changed it to eating Thanksgiving Dinner and gave it more specific elements. I enjoyed this one, but it was not my favorite out of all of them. Next I have the experience for the Fourth of July. Again, I was told that “Fourth of July” was too vague, so I created a new mind map for “Fourth of July Fireworks”. I was disappointed to realize this didn’t give me a lot of different elements to work with, so I moved forward. My final mind map began as “Amusement Parks” which I realized, again, was too vague. From here I thought of the most exciting part, Riding a Roller Coaster. There were so many different senses and feelings that went into this, and I felt it was my best option. The final photo shown is my final mind map and each of the different feelings/senses that I explored, and how I could potentially show them.

ITERATE

Shown above I have attached the photos of my iteration notes for each feeling/sense for my sensory abstraction. Shown first is the blur of the motion, and seeing the track infront of you. I wanted to make this feel wavy almost, and not have rigid lines. I wanted to have fast movement, to show the fast motion of the roller coaster. I also changed the thickness of the lines as they went up and down to create contrast. For the second image I am showing the yells and screams while being on a ride. I wanted this part of my design to pop out at you, and really give the illusion of something loud happening. This is where I began to brainstorm for what I could do for my 3D element, and this is where I decided I would want to incorporate it, to give a bigger sense of something loud. I knew that the color would have to be a high saturation, because a low saturation color would just take away from it. The sharp edges are supposed to represent how screams can screech and not be pleasant sometimes. The third image is showing the wind and “whoosh” while riding a roller coaster. Like the first image, I wanted this to be more fluid and flowy, and have lots of movement. When I think of wind being shown, I think of it swirling through the air, so that’s what I went off of for most of my iterations for this one. The fourth shown is the “tick-tick’ of the ride and the noises the ride makes. For the “tick-tick” I wanted movement, but not all at once. This is why I created designs with a steady line and then a part of it moving in a different direction, and repeating that. The fifth image is showing the excitement and thrill of being on the ride. I wanted the shapes for these to be more organic, to make it more fun and playful. A lot of the designs I came up with ended up being very similar to other feelings/senses that I already did, so I just went with those other ones. The Sixth image is the anxious/nervous feeling of being on the ride. For this I made each image with harsh lines and fast movement. I wanted them to feel uneasy to the viewer. Lastly I have listed the Hot handle that you touch while on the ride. I came up with some designs that to me felt like touching a hot object, but again these turned out very similar to some other designs I had and I felt this wasn’t the most important part of the roller coaster.

IDEATE

After deciding on which elements I wanted to incorporate from my iterations, these are the three main options that I came up with. The first one is showing the element of the motion/track infront of you for the background, with a lower opacity. In the top left corner, I added a design from my “tick-tick” iterations. I felt this design gave the feeling of that noise and slight pullback when you go up the hill. The top right corner holds the “scream” portion, along with the 3D element here. I wanted this part to be bold. The bottom right has the anxious feeling, and I intentionally made the line weights thinner as I got closer to the corner to create contrast. The swirls connect the two corners represent the wind and “whoosh”. For my second design, I wanted to keep the same kind of idea, but switch up the designs inside. For the top left, I added the wind/whoosh inside the design instead of having it connecting the corners, and I found myself liking this more. For the top right, I made the scream bigger, as I felt it should have a bigger presence. The bottom right has a different style to for the “tick-tick”, and I wanted to experiment with how the different iterations looked inside. I originally was going to go with the first two, but then I decided that I should experiment with color and how I wanted to use it. While playing around with color, I started working with a whole new design. I put the scream in the middle, and everything else went around that. After I added in all of the other colors and designs, it didn’t feel anything like a roller coaster anymore. It felt too random, so I stuck with my middle option, after getting advice from my table critique.

PROTOTYPE

After my table critique, I was told to add another element to the page in the bottom left corner, because it looked like it was missing something. So I went and added this other shape in the corner, with an iteration rooting from the anxious/nervous feeling. Another critique I got was to pick bright colors, but also keep them somewhat cohesive. This is why I kept the two opposite corners similar colors of blue. At our last class of the semester, we got our individual critiques from our instructors. I got a list of things that I could work with, including adding a gradient to the background instead, rethinking the order of each corner, making the lines meet up cleaner, fixing some unneeded white spaces, reconsidering the thick lines, and some other perfecting to some of the separate parts. I went ahead and made all of these changes to my design. I made the background parts a slight gradient(shown in second photo),  I cleaned up the lines, I made the lines less thick and I even made some of the color brighter. As far as the 3D element, I decided that I wanted to do something different rather than just stack the same shape over and over on top of each other. I decided to break up the “scream” shape into smaller pieces, and position each piece at different angles creating the illusion of a hills, because that is when most screams happen.

FINALIZE

FinalFrontAngle

FinalSideAngle1

FinalSideAngle2

The photo shown first is a digital copy of my final design. I used all of the suggestions given to me and I am very pleased with how it turned out and how much better it looks than my draft. This project gained a lot of growth in a short few weeks. When I first printed my final copy, my lines turned out like this, even though I used the same colors on top of each other. I was disappointed at first, then I realized that the intent of my background was the motion blur while on the ride, and I realized that it worked out. The lines inside of the thicker lines are abstractly representing the motion blur, or motion lines while on the ride and you see everything pass by so quickly. The lines are random, and I think that adds to the fact of it representing motion lines, because they aren’t perfectly symmetric. The imperfection of the inside of these lines made me like it even more. The first link listed is a front view of my final project. I added on the 3D elements in a way that made them going at different angles, hinting at the various hills you experience on a roller coaster. The broken up pieces are supposed to represent the screams while on a roller coaster, which is why the shapes are different sizes and seem broken, like a screech and how it hurts to hear. The next two links are the two different angles so you can see how it looks from the side.

 

Pattern & Scale

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ITERATIONS

Iterations

Linked above is a combined  PDF of all of my sketches (scanned) for my iterations for volume, and depth.

Depth is defined as “The apparent distance from front to back, or near to far”, with this knowledge, I knew I wanted to construct something that would lead your eye down/back, along with forward, to create that contrast. I began my iterations as shown by playing around with the different heights of each piece of my design. This lead me to believe that the most visually interesting way to convey depth would be to have a sinking piece, along with pieces also coming out to the viewer.

Volume is defined as “The amount of space that a substance or object occupies”, knowing this I went with the idea that I wanted my shapes to come out to the viewer at all different heights and sizes. I fell in love with the idea of having each general shape of my design being made into different shapes, to create contrast. Along with the shapes being different, I made each smaller shape taller than each of the bigger shapes, to create even more contrast.

DEVELOPMENT

Development Scans

Linked above is a combined PDF of all of my sketches (scanned) for my development for volume and depth for each piece.

For my design for depth, my intent was to create movement by creating a spiral effect with each of my pieces gradually getting taller as the go around counter clockwise. I originally had the idea to have all pieces of my design sinking downward, but when I looked at the depth definition, it is, “the apparent distance from front to back, or near to far”, so I thought about also incorporating pieces that would come forward, creating contrast.

For my Volume design, my intent was to create contrast. This was done by first creating different shapes within the shapes from my original design. These triangular shapes add variety to my design, instead of it being the original shapes. Something else that I worked contrast into is the heights. It was my intent to make the smaller pieces taller than the larger pieces. The smaller pieces having 6 stacked pieces of chipboard, and the larger pieces having 4 stacked pieces of chipboard. I purposefully sketched my development drawings at an angle in 3D so that you could see the different layers in-between and what I planned to do with them. In my sketches originally, I had that I wanted to make some pieces get to up to 2-5 inches tall, but when I began building I realized that this would not be ideal for my designs. I figured this out while testing with chipboard and gluing them together.

CONSTRUCT

DepthEarly

VolumeAlmostFinished

Linked above is photos of my near final products of Volume, and Depth. (would not upload as photos)

The photo shown above is an example of how tiny one of my pieces was and how tiny the chipboard pieces had to be, next to a glue cap for size reference. I had many pieces in my volume design that were small, and required small pieces of chipboard so that it wouldn’t show. This did not stop me, and was a good challenge to keep me going. I failed a few times, but I kept cutting and gluing the pieces until they looked as I wanted them to.

In the first link named “Depth Early”, I just had the structure built, and the box was not made to surround it yet. Making the box to surround the design was my final step.

In the second link named “Volume Almost Finished”, I had the flat piece of Bristol with the stacks of my design on top, but the box stand was not attached yet. Attaching the box stand was my final step for volume as well.

FINALIZE

 

FinalDepth

For my Volume design(first photo shown), I got good feedback about it, but there were details that I could fix to make it better. These ideas were to make some of the small pieces more stable and create a larger sense of volume by adding pieces of the same size under the bottom most piece. This would make my design not necessarily taller, but make the feeling of volume come out more. I am happy with the way my final piece turned out, and I believe that adding the extra layers made my design pop out more.

The link named “FinalDepth” is a PDF of my final design for Depth, this would not upload as a photo. During our table critiques, I was told that my Depth design didn’t come off as strong as it should, and could be mistaken as volume. With the advice of my classmates and professor, I was told for my depth design to create walls around the structure to close off the edges and create more of a sense of depth than a sense of volume and height. This would allow the viewer to see more of the sinking feeling than the height from the side.

 

Color & Pattern

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SKETCHES

Final Deliverable

The link above shows my sixteen images/options that I worked with throughout this project. I began this assignment with twelve original ideas created digitally. This was a very large variety of things that could be found in nature. I quickly found while working with the different images that I didn’t love how any of them were turning out for symmetric or asymmetric. I was fine with going back and doing research, because I knew I could find a better subject for this project. I went from twelve to fourteen ideas. At this point I thought I was confident with my choices and sketches, but I still felt like something was missing. I went back to researching, I knew I wanted to try birds because of their silhouettes, so I researched different kinds of birds. I finally found what I was looking for, and at this point I reached sixteen different images and options. At this point I was very confident with my options and I had a much clearer idea of where I wanted to take this project and what my intentions might be.

DEVELOPMENT & REASONING: PATTERN SELECTION

I knew for both of my patterns that I wanted a sense of contrast. I feel that contrast makes the image pop out, and become more visually interesting for the viewer. In my research process, I began to find interest in how the silhouette of a bird looked. I originally found one that I thought I liked, and did a lot of work with it. In the photo above, the process with my first bird option is shown. I kept getting the feeling that it still looked like a bird, and was too representational still. I wanted it to look more abstract. At this point I looked up photos of different birds and found one that looked different and stuck out to me. I wanted to make the bird more abstract looking than just changing the shapes, so I also flipped the bird upside down. This is shown next to my first bird option. In the second sketch which was proportion, I knew I wanted to work with that general idea. I kept the same shapes, except I made them all perfectly aligned and straightened. The outcome was as abstract as I imagined it to be. I had my symmetric vector figured out, and I just needed to find my asymmetric vector. For this I knew I wanted something that was more graceful and soft, where I could contrast it with the geometric shapes. I knew that jellyfish fit this criteria perfectly, so I decided to try out a jellyfish, and I was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out. Shown is how I worked with the jellyfish to turn it geometric.

DIGITAL CREATION & COLORIZATION

Like I said in the above section, I had an idea of what intent I wanted to be behind each of my designs. Starting with the jellyfish, I knew that whenever someone thinks of a jellyfish they think soft and flowy, with the colors being blues, purples and even whites. I knew right away that I wanted to stay away from that idea. Part of this is because I wanted these designs to come out as abstract as possible, and I knew it would be harder to figure out what it is if the colors don’t match its identity. This ended up being the case for both of my designs. When creating the jellyfish, (which is shown again for reference) I began with the more geometric box shapes, which all had at least four sides and were mostly static. My classmates and professors gave the advice to change my original idea and add an element of movement. I began playing with my design and looking back at our notes to reference movement and all that it entails. I wanted something that would move the viewers eye around while looking at it, so I went with the idea of making each of the extended pieces pointed at the ends. This allows the viewers eye to follow each point, as it resembles an arrow. I kept a middle piece like the one that is shown in the middle sketch above, but I made it slightly larger. This allows each of the “points” to meet at one point, but also allows the viewers eye to travel around this middle piece. The scale of each of the long pointed pieces was intentional to include variety of the lengths and thicknesses, to help contribute to the movement. As far as color, I knew that I wouldn’t make this the typical colors of a jellyfish. Since I contrasted with the shapes of the jellyfish, I wanted to also include contrast within the colors I chose. My inspiration of color came from a photo of a bright pink color in a field, with a darkening background behind it (shown above). I loved how the pink popped out of the green and also stood out from the background. While looking at what kind of color schemes I could do, I realized complementary colors would be perfect, because they contrast. I knew that green and red were directly across from each other, meaning they were complementary. From here, I chose pink because I knew it was a tint of red, which would also contrast against green. For the background, I did not want a color that was super bright like the colors of the jellyfish. I wanted a muted color so that the design would pop out, and not get lost in the background. My classmates suggested a subtle blue color, which I tried and loved with the combination of the other colors I chose.

For the Bird, I also wanted to contrast with the shapes. A bird is generally a very free, and graceful animal. Their wings have a slight curve to them, along with their bodies. When I was working with the sketches, more specifically the proportions sketch, I loved how it made the bird so abstract. The box shape of the body and trapezoid shape of the head creates a large feeling of abstractness and unfamiliarity. Along with the sharp edges of the wings that were perfectly aligned, I felt this was abstract enough to struggle to identify if this was a bird or not. For the color, I began looking at muted colors. This is because I felt that birds are very dynamic, they are always moving and being vocal, they stand out. This is why I chose to contrast the color and make the colors more muted than exciting. After group critiques, I chose to go with a monochromatic color scheme, which captured exactly what my intent was. This monochromatic color scheme also helped with the idea of my design being static, and not including movement. My inspiration of color came from a muted pink sky, the sky that usually comes after a beautiful sunset (shown above). For my background, I chose a color that was dark, mostly because my colors were all lighter. This made my design stand out rather than a muted color like the ones I chose for my design.

ITERATIONS

The first photo shown is my iterations with color choices for my bird design. The top two were my original ideas, where I had three completely different colors. After my small group critique, all of my classmates in my group suggested trying some monochromatic schemes if I really wanted to have a sense of my design being static. I started to pull one color from the original designs and make a monochromatic version based on that. I felt that the pink version (first) was the most successful as far as creating contrast against the bird. The color pink made me feel like the bird was softer now, and not as dynamic.

The second image shown is my iterations for my jellyfish. Like I said, I wanted to try and stray away from typical ocean colors, which was a slight struggle when using complementary/contrasting colors. The first option was based off of a sunset, and I also changed how the color was distributed. Instead of keeping the middle piece like the next two, I made it all filled in with no stroke, which came across as unsuccessful with my group critique. It was between the second two options for me, and I felt that the middle option was the most contrasting and visually interesting. I did like the third option, but I felt it was too muted and not as exciting to look at. The middle option felt the most dynamic to me. Adding the white stroke also seemed to tie the whole design together. I also took the time to brighten the colors in my final choice because my group suggested that it might make the contrast stronger.

FINAL DESIGN DEVELOPMENT

For my bird design, my repeatable pattern was the simpler of the two for me in a way. I knew that I wanted my pattern to be orderly, and straight across/up & down.  This gave even more feelings of my design being static like I intended. The hardest part of my pattern was to get the tile I created to line up perfectly, and so there wouldn’t be spaces. For some reason on draft day, mine was one of the only prints to show these tiny spaces in between, so I went and fixed this by creating small boxes and shapes that were the same color as the background with no stroke, to simply hide these spaces.

For my Jellyfish design, my repeatable pattern was a bit tougher. Since it is asymmetric, it is harder to get perfect alignment. After I made my tile template for the final design, I had the same issues with the small spaces, and for some reason the tiles didn’t want to line up. So, I fixed this problem the same way, by making the same color boxes and hiding these spaces. At first, I had my final design set up just like my bird design, straight up and down. I took advice from my classmate and slightly turned the design, making the orientation more diagonal. This helped a lot with my intent of movement in my design and made it more visually interesting.

 

2D to 3D Orthographic

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THE “PERFECT” CUBE

This project began with an exercise that would test our perfectionist skills. Our first exercise was to construct a perfect three by three cube using Bristol board, and tacky glue. At first, I did not think this would be a hard assignment. We all remember in elementary school having to use our safety scissors to cut out templates and them glue them together. I quickly realized as I started that this would not be an easy assignment. First, I struggled using the blade to cut. I would use the ruler and somehow still make completely crooked lines. This was frustrating at first, but I began to figure out how to use the blade to cut effectively. This was definitely a challenge, but that’s what I loved about it. I constructed a total of three cubes, the third one being the closest to perfection that I could get. Im glad that we did this exercise, it was eye opening and prepared us for how the construction of our 2D to 3D objects would be.

ORTHOGRAPHIC PACKET

OrthographicPage1

OrthographicPage2

OrthographicPage3

Listed above are links to my finished orthographic packet that we completed in class for one of our exercises. These really helped me to understand how orthographic drawings work. I started off confused on where I should have dashed or straight lines, but doing this packet made me more confident with where I needed to apply certain lines. The different sides also confused me, so this also helped by giving us the simpler shapes at first and then making them more complex in the end to challenge us.

ITERATIONS

Iterations1

Iterations2

Iterations3

Listed above I have the links to photos of my iterations for my 3D constructions. My beginning drawings are different than what I ended up with, and this is because I changed my mind with how I was going to construct some of them. In the later sketches, it shows what I decided to change and make more interesting overall. These really helped especially with the group critiques, they were able to make good suggestions which then made me change my mind about some of my original ideas.

ORTHOGRAPHIC DRAWINGS

Orthographics

Linked above is a single PDF including all of my orthographic drawings for my final design. I struggled with these in the beginning. This was a challenge for me, mostly when trying to imagine what they look like from a certain side when you can only look at a 2D piece of paper from the top view. I felt extremely accomplished and proud of myself when I finished these and figured them all out. These were very helpful with the building and construction.

CONSTRUCTION

ConstructionProcess

OriginalTension

In the two links above, I show my process. In the first one, I show the piece of Bristol where I cut out a majority of my pieces. It is clear in the photo that there were templates that I messed up, or cut wrong. I wanted to include this to show how I grew from my mistakes in this process. It was frustrating at the moment, but I would just continue where I left off and would re-do it to make it even better. This made me focus even more and make sure that the cuts would come out perfect. The second photo is of my original design of tension. This was what I had made for our draft day. I already felt that it was too plain and boring, so I asked my critique group for ideas. There were many that stuck out, but I chose the one that would challenge me the most, and if I pulled it off would make it the most visually interesting. Constructing extra tiny rectangular prisms and cubes wasn’t the easiest, but I am extremely glad that I decided to take the risk. I found construction as something that I improved with as I went on. In the end, cutting with the blade became easier and easier, and I wouldn’t get as nervous anymore. This is a skill that I definitely improved on in this assignment.

FINALIZE

FinalConstructions

Finally, linked above is a single PDF of all three of my 3D constructions. This project definitely challenged me in a lot of different ways. But, being challenged helps me grow as a person and a designer. I really enjoyed this project. Having the freedom to be as creative as we want (to an extent) was very enjoyable.

 

2D Principles and squares – Making it digital

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DRAFT

Draft 2D

Listed above is my first draft that I presented to the class in our critiques. Going into the critiques, I knew that there was a lot for me to correct and make better. One thing that I knew I needed to fix was the text, and the others being some of my elements/principles that didn’t make a lot of sense. For order, my table told me that it would make more sense for the squares to be touching at the top and bottom, so I made that change there. For tension, the only thing they would change was to make the “falling square” less tilted, so I decided to play with that. Next was playful, they didn’t say that they would change anything so I decided to keep that idea. Then increase, which they said to make the bottom square touch the bottom left corner. For congested, the only thing they recommended was to play around with the tiny squares, so I adjusted them a little bit to make them more “squished”. Lastly for bold, I told them how my idea was to use the word bold with size rather than color, which they understood but they agreed that it didn’t come off as bold.

Draft2Increase

Listed above is showing how I fixed both the order section and the increase section. For order, I put the bottom square touching the bottom, and for increase I put the bottom square also touching the bottom left corner. This was still my draft.

BoldOptionDraft

Listed above is what I was playing around with for bold. I decided to redo Bold completely and figure out a new design. This is what I was playing around with a while before I came to what I wanted to use in the end.

FINAL

Final1Bold

Attached above is the first part of my final work, for some reason there was a bug whenever I used the mask tool that would make one of the squares all black, so I have to post 2 separate PDFs. This one is showing my final including what I did with Bold. I arranged 4 squares in a way that made a shape that was not a square to stand out while being white.

Final2Increase

This link shows the final piece including increase, where the top right biggest square goes off the page, and the bottom left smallest square is right on the corner.

 

2D Principles & Squares – Analyze

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ANALYZE

ReworkedCongested

Reworked 1

Reworked 2

Attached above I have PDF’s of my reworked elements. I narrowed down each category from fifteen to the two that worked the best for that word. In the photos, the word that describes each image is shown on the side with arrows. (Congested was left out somehow and had to be put in the moleskin). From here I picked my favorite out of each six and reworked them even more for my final draft. I really enjoyed working with Vectornator. It was a lot easier to play with the placement, sizes and arrangements than it is drawing each one separately.

 

 

 

2D Principles & Squares – Iterations

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NOTES

Notes Part 1 Notes Part 2

The links above titled “Notes Part 1” and “Notes Part 2” are notes that I took for my iterations and also notes I took in class while we were working on our 72 drawings. I have included a few rough sketches of some ideas I had before I put my ideas onto the tracing paper, and these have arrows indicating which element that I thought they incorporated. I was stumped at first trying to think of ideas for these drawings, but the notes in class helped me a lot. Another thing that helped me was doing the research on the different elements prior to this class. Things such as the synonyms helped me think in a different way. Once I got started with the drawings, it felt much easier to go off of what I thought in the previous drawing. This definitely challenged me at first, but I ended up loving this part of the assignment!

ITERATIONS

Bold

Congested

Increase

Order

Playful

Tension

All of the links shown above will take you to PDF’s of each element with all of the ideas that I came up with before reworking them. In each PDF, there are stars on a few of the squares, and these are the ones that I reworked eventually.

REWORKED

PlayfulTensionOrderReworked

BoldIncreasePlayfulReworked

The links above show each of the six elements that I reworked and made more understanding. These were just rough drafts of what I thought could make them better in the end.

 

2D Principles & Squares

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EXERCISE

These are my sketches for each of the element combinations that we covered in class. I have two of each listed, right next to each other on each page. I really enjoyed this exercise, I liked the challenge of not only finding one example of the combinations, but two of each. While trying to think of examples, I found myself trying to think of all of the graphic designs I’ve seen that incorporate all of the elements we were given. I never realized how many of them use the same type of elements to convey their message. The two links titled “drawing 1” and “drawing 2” will take you to the images of my examples of the combinations of the elements.

drawing 1  drawing 2

 

2D Principles & Squares – Note taking

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NOTE TAKING

These are the notes that I took in class about our Designer Bio. I found that this class really helped answer any questions I had about what to include in my bio. The hardest part of this project for me was to decide what I wanted to include, and what I didn’t want to include. I initially had a whole paragraph about my time working on my high school yearbook, but was soon told by our Professor Emily Valentine that it would be better to use that as a separate “Project”. I decided on the photo that I did because of how relevant the wording in it is. It reads “If you’re not excited about it, it’s not the right path”. I think this is not only important for design, but anything you do in life. Because of the color of the sky in the photo, that is why I chose the blue colored font. I chose to also add the horizontal lines on my designer bio to separate material and create repetition.