Research-

Throughout this project, I regularly referred to the principles of design and looked up eclectic examples of them to remind myself of what imagery and sensations I was looking to achieve and how to do so.

Chart depicting the principles of design: found in notes and online.

http://dowlingart.weebly.com/elements-of-art–principles-of-design.html

 

Excercises:

The class was instructed to create  two ‘new’ shapes; one geometric, one curvilinear, to be used in four compositions displaying static and dynamic qualities, in order to explore the concepts of point, line, and shape both digitally and by hand.

 

Step One: Drawing square templates and cutting out shape stencils in various sizes. (0.5”, 1”, 1.5”,2”)

Step Two: Rapid iterations of shape placement using isolated contour shape.

Step Three: Connecting the dots/making shapes from the overlapping shapes.

 

After receiving feedback about my potential shapes, I learned that i would not be allowed to use concave acute angles in my final project, so went back to the drawing board to adjust the geometric shape I wanted to use.

Digital Variations of the same geometric shape. Final shape circled with star.

Step Four: Iterations of potential final images. (Static vs Dynamic)

Final Physical Compositions-

Top Left: Seated, Top Right: Tension, Bottom Left: Tumble, Bottom Right: Resting

Final Digital Compositions-

Top Left: Seated, Top Right: Tension, Bottom Left: Tumble, Bottom Right: Resting

Iterations

My original goal when starting iterations was to portray the feeling of tumbling, ideally through tension or emphasis.

An attempt at tension and the idea of tumbling.

I added boxes, creating a pattern around my first image in an attempt to understand positive and negative space.

After abandoning my first image,  I used circles and squares to portray the idea of tumbling, again.

 

In the top two images i revisited the idea of tumbling. In the bottom two images, I simplified what went into my design and changed my descriptive statement to ‘seated” and began to focus on the design principle, balance.

Still struggling with the principle of balance, I tried multiple iterations under the same description, building on my original idea of a circle resting between squares

An Adjusted version of one of the above iterations.

 

Production

For our final project, we were to create two compositions: one digital, one physical, using two shapes and positive and negative space. The assignment was meant to reference our exercise  in design principle, and communicative goal.

In approaching the assignment, I utilized circles and squares, with the goal of communicating movement, or a sense of tumbling, but struggled to prioritize design principles or understand positive and negative space.

 

 

 

 

 

In the design I brought to  my next class to review, I had finally figured out positive and negative space, but had not mastered the principle of balance.

 

Bottom two design were shown in class, top two were discarded iterations.

 

 

 

In attempts to achieve balance, I did more iterations based on the design I showed in class, which was using the descriptive word “seated.”

‘Seated’ iterations

 

 

In further exploring one of my iterations, I questioned at what point the sense of Vance was broken when I increased the horizontal lines.

    

 

 

 

 

After Deciding on a 2.5in length, I proceeded to finalize my digital copy.

Final digital composition

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I cut out and glued  together my 8×8 physical composition.

 

Final physical composition

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reflection:

This assignment forced me to alter the way I think.  The concept of positive and negative space was exceptionally difficult to wrap my head around, you might even say it was like being asked to think backwards. Additionally, as one of my first design projects, it was an opportunity to dive deeper into the principles of design, which I do not yet understand. Coming from a background in art, many of the elements of design are familiar, but using the principles is foreign.  Thus, each time something new about design begins to click, it’s akin to beginning  to understand a foreign language, and this assignment laid out some of the grammar of design.