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Sensory Abstraction

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MIND MAPS

When I thought of a sensory experience, a concert came to mind.  This one felt the easiest to do and lent itself pretty easily to abstraction because it’s such an overwhelming sensory experience, especially light and sound.  I thought it would be really cool to do the project on, but I didn’t have a strong emotional attachment to it.

 

 

 

 

On the other hand, I was too emotionally attached to this one.  I volunteer at my local humane society and spend a lot of time building relationships with dogs, but this one was just special.  Her name was Ellie, and she was one of my favorite dogs in the whole world; we just clicked for some reason.  Unfortunately, her story had a sad ending and I knew trying to do a project on her during the stress of finals season would just be too much for me.

 

 

 

This one was the sweet spot.  A couple summers ago, I got to go to Europe and stayed in Antibes, France for a week.  It was my second time being out of the country (the first was Scotland when I was four, so it really doesn’t even count) and I was awestruck at this place.  It is my favorite place in the world and I hope I can visit again someday.  In the mornings, there was a farmers market in this outdoor pavilion with fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, and bread.

 

 

 

I edited and refined my mind map for the outdoor market and turned it into this:

 

ITERATE

I crossed out a few more items once I began to iterate as well because they didn’t feel as important to the experience that I wanted to illustrate.  Noted by the thumbnails are the elements & principles used.  I made the notes (light purple/blue) during our group sharing; we agreed for the most part on the most successful iterations (salty, the last one for vibrant colors, combining background chatter and busy, considering using soft & fuzzy and separated/enveloped in my own space as effects rather than graphics).  I didn’t get a ton of feedback, which is usually the case when we do mini critiques with our table groups, maybe because we see and talk about each other’s work every day or because we are afraid to criticize the people we are closer with.  I know it can be more time-consuming and less practical sometimes, but I really get a lot more out of critiques when we switch tables and get more perspectives.

 

IDEATE

Maddie suggested that I try combining my peaceful and salty iterations, so I played with this by making them flow into each other.  I liked the concept, but it just turned out kind of messy.  What I really liked about this one was the background texture I created using the watercolor brush.  I also included an iteration of vibrant colors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this one, I wanted to play around with the color circles, using a Van Gogh style.  I also incorporated emphasis from my enveloped in my own space iterations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the one I decided to go with.  I really liked how all the pieces fit together, and the colors worked really well together to create the warm, uplifting mood I intended.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lazy, meandering stroll: this iteration uses line to illustrate the idea of slowly wandering around the market with no intention, just looking and taking it all in.  In the graphic, I repeated this squiggly line over itself a few times, the same way I went through the market multiple times.  The places where the lines get sort of squeezed together represent slowing down or stopping in a certain place.

 

 

Busy/background chatter: The market was a very busy place with lots of other people walking around and background chatter; I used proximity to communicate this.  However, the busyness only takes up part of the graphic because most of it was drowned out and it wasn’t overwhelming at all.  It was noticeable at times, but mostly I was in my own bubble, as illustrated by the next iteration.

 

 

Separated/enveloped in my own space: I used line to create shape and emphasis in this iteration.  The idea behind this was to show the focus of my experience, what was right in front of me, and not all of the other things going on at the same time.

 

 

Vibrant colors: The market was filled with all kinds of bright colors, and I wanted to illustrate this with many different focal points.  I ended up creating circular, organic shapes since most of the color came from organic fruits and vegetables.

 

 

When I printed out my graphic, I chose not to include the circles because I was going to create them physically as part of my 3D element.  I titled the piece Antibes Côte D’Azure after the location.

 

MOUNTING & CONSTRUCTING

I roughly traced some of the circles on Bristol paper and cut them out, then painted them with watercolor.  When they dried, the paper curled, so I placed them between two pieces of foam board with a heavy object on top to try to flatten them out, which helped a little.  The next day I stacked them using foam and tacky glue and glued them onto the poster.  I used different amounts of foam to stack them in order to vary the heights.  I also glued a piece of twine on top of the right-most squiggly line to add texture and make the overlapping lines look more 3D, adding some movement and dimension.

I am so upset about what looks like bubbles in the lower left corner! I never noticed them when working and even after seeing this photo I looked again and they seem to be extremely slight indents or bubbles that only appear when there is light form a certain angle due to the semi-gloss finish of the paper. They are not noticeable at all in person, but show up every time I take a photo because of the lighting.

 

DESIGN STATEMENT

This poster represents walking through an open-air market in the coastal French town of Antibes on a summer morning. Both the outer lines that create the circle and the spattering of dots cut off by the squiggling lines illustrate all of the busyness fading away in the background as you are focused on your own space. The overlapping squiggling lines are representative of a lazy, meandering stroll around the market. Warm yellow brings out a sunny, happy feeling, and soft blue reflects calmness and salty seaside breeze. Both the central yellow circle and the cutout circles are organic and imperfect around the edges to bring in an element of realism; the twine resembles the texture of the burlap that covered the tables. The market was full of colorful fruits and vegetables that competed with each other for attention; this was the focus of the 3D element, because they all stood out but there was no single focal point. Finally, using watercolor makes it feel more home-made and real, like the market (versus a grocery store).

Pattern & Scale

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ITERATIONS

I was SO confused at the beginning. First of all, it was confusing to differentiate between depth and volume, since they are so interrelated.  I was also confused about the layering and how the 3D design was supposed to be related to the graphic – did it have to look exactly the same as a plan/top view like the 2D to 3D orthographic?  I really didn’t know what I was doing so my initial iterations were not great.

Depth:

Volume:

DEVELOPMENT & DRAFTING

During class I got a better understanding of the project and decided to use my symmetric design instead because the spiral was giving me a ton of issues, mainly that there were just so many details and tiny lines, and it being a spiral rather than concentric circles made it very difficult to create layers since everything was overlapping and there was no clear cutoff of sections.  Switching to the symmetric design made prioritizing depth and volume much easier.  I really wanted to utilize the gradient effect I created with small lines to show depth and it came across very effectively.  My first design for this idea had a bunch of different parts: the outline, the gradient, the vertical lines, and the top section.  Within the gradient stair-step section, I wanted to cut out sections where the vertical lines would be and then add in parts that would also step down (see bottom right).  After practicing a little with the Bristol, I realized that would be really difficult and decided to redesign it so that each layer included all the parts and I wouldn’t have to try to fit them together at the end.  I also chose to convert the curves in my graphic to points for two reasons: first, I wanted to use those shapes to literally point the eye toward the lowest area/focal point; second, creating all those curves, both large and teeny-tiny, was extremely time-consuming and almost impossible to perfect.  I really wanted to put my effort into making sure my design and intent came across and felt that trying to include all those little details would detract from the bigger picture.  I also decided that I wanted to use something to space the layers out, since the 10 layers seen in the right side of the photo added up to about the thickness of one or two pieces of foam.  Instead of using foam or chipboard, I bought some tiny adhesive foam squares that were really helpful so I didn’t have to cut and glue tiny pieces of foam.  For the draft critique, I didn’t get a ton of constructive feedback for several reasons; first, I was sick all weekend and asked for an extension, then spent 8 hours in the studio on Monday and cut out all of the layers for my depth piece but had nothing for volume.  I got a lot of affirming comments about what I did have, which made me very happy and reassured me that my intent was clear and I did a good job prioritizing depth.

 

CONSTRUCTION

I began by making blueprints on my iPad of each layer and all the measurements, which took quite a while but were really nice to have before I sat down to start cutting.  My depth piece consisted of about 10 layers and took me about 8 hours to complete because of all the tiny measurements and details.  I could’t just make one design and then trace it a bunch of times because each was slightly different from the last.  To connect the layers, I used two foam squares layered because they weren’t very thick.  For the first couple of layers, I used 6 pairs, one on each corner and one in the top and bottom middle.  I’d seen other people stacking, and those who just put support on the outer corners seemed to have trouble with the center caving in a little, so I knew I would need to have support there.  I decided to just put the squares on the top and bottom middle for the rest of the layers instead of all around the border because it didn’t seem necessary.  This caused some unevenness of the layers on the outer sides, but didn’t affect the design as a whole, especially because it’s meant to be viewed from above.

My volume piece was much easier to cut, but more difficult to assemble.  I initially wanted to build this one similar to the way we created the last 3D project because I thought it would take less time than cutting a bunch of the same layer, and I also thought that actually creating a volumetric shape would emphasize volume more than layers would.  I tried this, but it took a while and didn’t line up quite right at the very end.  I decided that building wouldn’t be any faster than layering and would probably end up being much more difficult, so I stuck with the layers.

Drawing and cutting the layers was easy because I could just trace and make duplicates of the same layer.  The bigger two base parts were easy to put together, but I really wish I brought tweezers to layer my 1/8th x 1.5 inch rectangles which took quite a lot of time.  I was diligent about stacking all those tiny pieces, and it paid off very well in the end with a very clean, symmetric piece.

FINAL

I was really happy with these! I think they are very clean and do a really good job of prioritizing depth vs volume.

Color & Pattern

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OK, so I went a little overboard on this one; I was just so excited about all the beautiful, colorful natural patterns.  For the first part of the assignment, I did some research on color theory: analogous and complementary colors, primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, the color wheel, and feelings associated with certain colors.  Then, I searched up a ton of patterns in nature and used Procreate to go in with the eyedropper and pick out the most common colors (this was over break, before the project really started, so it was mostly just for fun).

 

ANALYSIS

I didn’t start to do the analyses of proportions, individual components, direction, and value & color until we went back to class after break because I was a little confused about how to break them down.

 

 

COLOR SCHEMES

I made several different color schemes on Procreate.  For many of them, I chose a main color from an actual image (one of the colors that I had already selected with the eyedropper) and then built a scheme around it using analogous or complementary colors.  For the brighter ones in the bottom corner, I just selected bright, happy, summery colors and organized them into a few different groups.

 

 

 

 

ITERATION

One difficulty for me was that I loved these natural forms and patterns so much, it was hard in the beginning for me to abstract them away from being representational.  The good news is, I worked on this for so long and did so many iterations, I think I finally got the hang of it.  The first design that I developed was these gorgeous peacock feathers, working from the individual components analysis.  At first, I wanted to do a tessellation, but after some trials I decided to try to create a more abstracted design.

I also did some development with…

lettuce: I used the color and value design and repeated it three times, increasing outward in size.

an orange: this design from the individual components was pretty simple and easy to make, and I had a lot of fun playing with bright, summery colors.

a honeycomb: the first was the individual components design, and the second was direction.

The final symmetric design I decided on was the individual components of bamboo.  Originally, I made the small detail lines a little squiggly, and I also used the gradient tool (which I later found out was not allowed).

 

I chose to make the detail lines straight to make it feel less like bamboo and more like a pattern.  Instead of using the gradient tool, I used a bunch of lines right next to each other, each slightly different from the next to create that fading effect.

At first, I used neutral browns and greens, but that looked too bamboo-y, so I went completely opposite from realistic and used blue and orange.  I liked the new colors, but they were a bit much, so I toned it down to blue and then teal.  The final color scheme is one I used at the beginning, but I created my own gradient this time.

 

For my asymmetric design, I used the individual components of the cactus.  Wow. I spent so much time on this one, with so many iterations.  I started out tracing the cactus, but I didn’t go all the way to the edge of the image because I didn’t want anything to be cut off.  Then, I used the pen tool to start filling each “petal” with lines that started and ended in the same place, but became increasingly curved going out.

I realized that this would be really hard to read as a small, repeated pattern, so I decided to go in a different direction.  I traced the cactus again, but instead of tracing the curves of each petal I just made one straight line for each side, resulting in a really cool geometric design.  After this, I played around with other geometric designs on Procreate, but I ended up working with the first one.

 

Because of the perspective, some of the petals were viewed kind of to the side, which resulted in some very narrow angles around the edge, so I moved them to make them a little more like the center angles.  Then, I added three more lines inside each petal (I wish I did this on separate layers – I had to go back later and select each line to put them on different layers).

 

 

 

At first, I only used two colors: one for the background, and one for the lines.  I really like the way it looked, but I knew it wasn’t enough for this project since color was such a big part of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was the part where I had to go in and separate all the lines into four layers so I could make them each different colors.  I worked with one color palette, but I made five different versions and it was so hard to decide which one I liked.  In the first one, I made all of the lines in one petal the same color, but I made the inner petals lighter than the outer ones to try to show depth, bringing the middle of the design forward.

 

 

I really didn’t like the way it turned out, so I tried a different approach: I made the inner lines on each petal lighter than the ones on the outside, creating depth and dimension.

I had a lot of issues with line weight and scale because I made the original design on a 4″x4″ template, and I needed to make it smaller to tile it, but the stroke stayed the same and I had to deal with that.  It led me to the last two patterns, which have thicker line weights, causing the lines to overlap.  My favorites were the middle two; I really like the blue-only design, but I chose the one with the pink-beige accents because I thought it added a nice pop, and because my other design was also monochromatic.

 

FINAL SELECTIONS

I’m really happy with my final designs; I think the dark blue ties them together well, but they both have very distinct color schemes.  I’m also proud of the way I used intricate line work in both of them to create depth and gradation.

I had so much fun with this project! But I wish I could have submitted more because I just had SO many ideas.  I will probably develop more patterns and add them to my portfolio.

Cube Exercise

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During Zach’s demonstration, I remembered trying to make a cube out of tissue paper for an experiment in high school chemistry. It was very, very far from perfect, but I hoped the sturdier paper would make this project easier (it did).

I made three cubes.  The first two were in a t-shape and I made them both in one sitting.  On the first one, I didn’t make enough tabs and my cuts were not very straight at all.  On the second one, I added another tab in the planning process but accidentally cut a different one off, so still ended up with too few tabs.  I also used too much pressure when scoring a fold, causing a total separation between the faces. I used a small piece of paper as a brush to apply the tacky glue to the tabs. Since the first two were practice, I didn’t worry so much about smudges, but I brought a rag when making the final cube which helped eliminate smudges and clean up tacky glue.

THE FIRST TWO:

THE FINAL CUBE:

When I made my final cube, I used a different design that I thought would make putting it together easier:

After I began putting it together, I realized that two of the tabs would overlap, so I cut off the one on the middle right and it worked well.

Since I had some issues with scoring on the last cube, I decided to use a scrap piece of paper to practice before I scored the actual cube, and I think it helped. One problem that I had in every cube was the last step, folding the top down, because it never fit quite right and usually had one corner sticking out a little bit.  On the last cube, I was able to fit it in pretty well and wasn’t able to tell at the end.

Designer Bio Update

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I finally got around to updating my about me page after receiving feedback! I still wish I had better tools to work with, but maybe I will use a different software to update it in the future.  Also, I got a laptop so I can see what the site looks like on a normal screen instead of the iPad.

Iterations

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ORDER

In our critique, my group members pointed out that I included only pyramidal/triangular-based structures and that I could think about other types of forms.  I also realized that iteration #2 was not viable because there were visible face changes that were not present in the original plan view/square design. Design #3 from bold also made me think about inverting some parts of the structure, rather than having everything raised. The design that I ended up using for my order structure (left) was not one of my original iterations.

 

 

 

BOLD

I chose to use the first design, although I also enjoyed design #3.  However, I noticed that my other two pieces involved structures increasing by height, width, and length at the same time and I felt that design #1 would make the overall project more cohesive.

 

 

 

 

INCREASE

I also did not use one of my original iterations for this design.  After seeing an example in class (left), I really liked the idea of having the shapes protruding from each other and created a new design.

Creating Orthographics

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PRACTICE

We practiced orthographic drawing in class with the following exercise:

The “L” shape configuration of the top, front, and left views helped bring everything together and make it easy to visualize because everything lined up.  This was helpful when making my own orthographics because I knew how to set it up, and I knew that the top and front, and front and side views should line up.  Instead of having to remeasure certain proportions, I could just base the front view off of the top view (my original square design), and then the side view off of the front view.

 

APPLICATION

I used the same “L” configuration as in the the practice worksheets so that everything would line up easily. The first orthographic has many dotted lines because of the asymmetrical arrangement of the cubes, so there are a lot of hidden edges depending on the view.  The other two were much easier to create because they were more symmetrical and lined up better.  I also used these drawings to measure all the dimensions of the structures.  Since the plan views came from the last project and were not made with the intention of building, many of the length and width measurements were not ideal and in 32nds or even 64ths of an inch, which made building rather difficult.

I ended up creating a different design for order and made a new orthographic:

Building

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PLANS

I used Notability on my iPad to create the building plans for each of my structures because it was easier and faster to be precise and accurate.

ORDER

BOLD

INCREASE

 

EDITING

After I began building, I edited my plans based off of any issues that I had; most issues were related to flap placement.  I had to revise my order plans the most because the notch made them very difficult to create; I had to use two separate pieces of paper to create the structures in order to cover the area of the notch.  After the first try, I realized what would work better in terms of which faces needed to go on which of the two separate parts in order to fit together well, and after revising the process was easier.

The other major issue I had was with increase: I attached the second prism to the first upside down, throwing off the orientation.  I didn’t realize until long after the glue had set, so I knew that I would have to remake the entire thing.  I tried to use my knife to remove the second prism so I could fix it just to see what it was supposed to look like, but some of the paper ended up ripping and I decided to just leave it.

 

 

 

FINAL MODELS

I remade increase in the correct orientation, and I also remade bold to fix the gaps at the seams.

Terms & Iterations

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Order: the arrangement or disposition of people or things in relation to each other according to a particular sequence, pattern, or method.
-helps organize info & items

Increase: become or make greater in size, amount, intensity, or degree; an instance of growing or making greater
-can be used to create hierarchy

Bold: showing an ability to take risks; confident and courageous; having a strong or vivid appearance
-can be used to create hierarchy & contrast
-element of typography
-grabs attention

Playful: fond of games and amusement; lighthearted; intended for one’s own or others’ amusement rather than seriously; giving or expressing pleasure and amusement
-whimsical

Congested: so crowded with traffic or people as to hinder freedom of movement
-too many things in too small of a place

Tension: the state of being stretched tight
-can promote a feeling of discomfort