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Week Eleven: Time and Motion/ Rules and Randomness

Time and Motion

Pages: 232-247

Time and motion are closely related principles. I hardly considered how much time and motion were in design but I'm realizing how often they're used in things like storyboards and style frames. A motion sequence is developed through a series of storyboards, which convey main phases and movements of an animation. Static objects sitting parallel to the edges make the object seem to be motionless. Diagonal objects make them look like they are dynamic and in motion. Cropped objects that are partially cut out of the image appear to be moving. Changing just the position on an object can make it look like it is changing overtime. I find motion design to be something that I need to work on as a lot of my work seems very static. This section will definitely help me know how to change things in order to make my work have more movement and be less static.

Rules and Randomness

Pages: 248-260

Rules create framework for design without determining the end results. They can be used to generate form as well as organize content. Rules are very important for the design process. My favorite project example in this section are Photoshop Action, Motion Prompt, and the section on repeat and rotate. You can definitely see the movement through these design with only a few set rules. I think that rules can make things much easier, especially if you're struggling with coming up with a design idea. They do this by creating constraints while also helping your work look consistent.

Week Ten: Pattern/Diagram

Pattern

Pages: 200-213

a pattern is composing single elements like dots, lines, and stripes to create different variations in one scheme. I really enjoy patterns because you can use one repeating element, change the color and size to create movement. They also can be very complex although they are only using now element. Many patterns use a grid to help move you through the image and it helps draw the viewer in. Changing the color, scale and orientation can transfer the visual impact of a pattern. This to me seems to make images have movement.

Diagram

Pages: 214-231

a diagram is a graphic representation of structure, situation, or process. From my understanding and the images shown, diagrams are very helpful in organizing both complex and simple bunches of information. They help to illuminate and explain complex ideas. I found networks to be interesting and I think using them could help come up with some really cool designs. Diagrams can include a large variety of content and principles including grid, hierarchy, color, and flow. I think diagrams will be very helpful with organizing a lot of content within one page.

Week Nine: Modularity/Grid

Modularity

Pages: 166-185

A module is a fixed element used within a larger system or structure. Something I really liked in this section was the statement “ Rules are helpful, but its fun to break them”. I found this to be very true because our options for design are endless and if you can pull off breaking the rules every once in a while and create a good design, you should. I think the examples on page 169 are very good examples of using constraints successfully. The ordinary peeve of paper was turned into a larger art form while organizing a large amount of information.

Grid

Pages: 186-199

A grid is a network of lines typically running horizontally and vertically. Grids help give a designer guidelines, and help create active, asymmetrical compositions in place of static, centered ones. They help designers leave white space and not try to clutter the page. Grids are used in a lot of different ways, page 193 helps show that just because you have a grid, it doesn't meant you work has to be boring. You can be both create and organized while using the grid system.

Week Eight: Layers/Transparency

Layers

Pages: 140-153

I personally have been really bad at using layers until recently as I've realized they are very helpful with organizing work. This reading has made me realize that layers can be used for a lot of other things aside from organization. They can help create variations of a single design by turning the different layers on and off. I also didn’t know about the importance of layers while printing. I really liked Lim’s work on page 164, it is different than other work I have seen and really shows the use of layers.

Transparency

Pages: 154-165

Transparency suggests clarity and directness, but in design its purpose is to create dense, layered imagery built from veils of color and texture. Transparency to me is a very fun tool to use because you can have a transparent shape with a color and you can allow an image to show through with that color. My two favorite forms of transparency in this reading are graphic transparency and the composition “seeing through”.

Week Seven: Framing/Hierarchy

Framing

Pages: 116-127

Until this reading I never realized how often frames occur and how necessary they are. It is one of the most persistent unavoidable acts performed by a graphic designer. I find it interesting how many different ways frames work, from dividing an image from its background to serving as a transition from figure to ground. I personally have tried the cropping technique on photos to discover new image and to make my focus point more noticeable. On page 120 I really realized the change and importance with margins and bleed, and how they can affect an image.

Hierarchy

Pages: 128-139

Hierarchy is the order of importance within a social group or in a body of text. It controls the delivery and impact of a message. I find hierarchy to be a very successful and fun concept because it can be simple or complex and can bring a lot of attention and meaning to a design. I previously took a typography class which made typography and hierarchy a familiar topic for me. Typography can help readers move through the page easily with alignment, leading, indents, type side, and style; all factors necessary for successful typography.

Week Six: Color/Gestalt Principles

Color

Pages: 90-99

I found the statement about how designers work more systematically to be very true, particularly because designers have to consider having a friendly and easy interface while attracting users. I really like the black, white, yellow palette because things really stand out and the colors are very clean looking together. I also like the way the “near compliment colors” work together. Changing colors in patterns seems to really make different parts of the same pattern stand out and pop in different ways.

Gestalt Principles

Pages: 100-115

Gestalt is a very important concept in graphic design. It can be used in a lot of different ways, but when done correctly can help create a very successful design. Perception uses the brain to create different forms and make the viewers fill in the blanks. I would really like to get better at using figure ground.

Week Five: Texture/Color

Texture

Pages: 68-80

Texture is very interesting to me because there are so many different ways you can change and show different textures in design, Texture also has the power to be metaphoric and is capable of adding more meaning to a page. (piece of barbed wire fence is a metaphor for violence.) It helps us discover the nature of things in our environment. I found the section on physical and virtual texture along with the images in the typography portrait section to be very creative.

Color

Pages: 80-89

I found it crazy to read that color was not a piece of graphic design before. Color to me can bring a lot into an image as it can tell a mood or importance in a design. Colors work very different with other colors as talked about in the reading. Light tones will look lighter against a dark ground than a pale one. I found the color theory and different color wheels to be very helpful, this will definitely be a page that I turn back to when working on future projects with various colors.

Week Four: Rhythm and Balance/Scale

Pages: 49-67

Rhythm and balance are a huge part in moving a viewers eye through the page. When used well it can help the viewer get a greater understanding and help tell a part of the story. Rhythm and balance can be described in a lit of different aspects of our lives which I find very interesting. I really liked how rhythm and time were compared to music because I often relate to the two. This reading made me realize how much scale can change the story and point of a piece of art. Scale refers to the literal dimensions of an object. Changing the scale of an object can change the entire feel to it. It can give a different message to the viewer.

Week Three: Point, Line, and Plane

Pages: 33-48

before reading this section of the book I never really considered how much our everyday lives have point, line, and plane in them. I found it very interesting how printing processes have used dots to depict, light, shadow, and volume. I also found it interesting how they stated a line is an infinite series of points; previously I never thought of them in relation to each other in that way. I found that a lot of the concepts in the reading built off of each other and the different volume and space between things can give different feelings.

Week Two: Formstorming

Pages: 3-32

Formstorming for me is a very interesting concept. It covers a lot of ground and has a huge range of design techniques and ideas artist can use to create something great. The formstorming projects are a good challenge to get artists thinking and creating everyday. For a previous design class I got to choose one idea to Formstorm, I chose 100 iterations and did a project on dogs.

Week One: Introduction

Pages: 1-12

This book goes over the basics of graphic design and visual thinking. In the 1920′s Bauhaus explored designs as a universal “language of vision” which continues to shape and grow today. Modernism transformed and are into post modernism in the 1960′s, it later became a dominant ideology in the 1980′s and 1990′s. The new basics believed in a way of describing visual form and its universal significance.

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