Form & Composition
Project Two
Print/Illustration
2018
Individual Project
About the Project
In this project we were given the task to create compositions that illustrated five select words with only black squares. Those key words were order, tension, congestion, playfulness, and comfort. By using black squares to depict the words, we had to explore how objects in space convey meaning through their placement in relation to other objects in space rather than relying on the objects shape and form. We’d start with rough sketches in an attempt to see how our initial concepts held up with gestalt principles in mind. Lastly, we refined and recreated our ideas in illustrator for a more clean and professional result.
Initial Concepts
I first started with writing out what each word meant to me at first glance. These first ideas would act as my loose boundaries for each word I had to portray. Order, tension, and congestion were easier to think about in terms of just words. They were straightforward and had a clear definition. However, I had a harder time finding defining words for comfort and playfulness. It was also difficult differentiating between the two because they felt so similar to me.
Sketching Thumbnails
In the initial sketching process, I tried to adhere to the loose guidelines I created for myself. I’d also perform a simple google image search for each of the words to see what other concepts or inspiration I could find. My sketches were rough and quick as I wanted to simply get my idea on paper as fast as possible so I could move on to the next idea and reiterate. The blue pencil shows some of my ideas after receiving some in-class feedback. I’d scratch concepts that didn’t fit the description and consider merging aspects of compositions that had positive feedback.
I found order and congestion the easiest to sketch. The definition of each of the words were strict and simple. The other three concepts I had trouble wrapping my head around in the sketching stages. Though tension also has a straightforward definition, I wasn’t sure how to show it through static squares. Again, playfulness and comfort were hazy and often mixed with each other. Feedback from the professor and TA would help me create a more clear distinction between the two.
Digital Iterations
Order
Order proved to be much more challenging to create than I initially thought. Order was simple and well defined on paper. I knew I needed structure, and clearly defined patterns. However, my first few digital compositions fell flat to me. The iterations felt too dull and straightforward, even boring. After talking to the TA, I tried to offset a square in the first two examples to further pronounce the idea of order. The idea was to further showcase order by introducing a little bit of disorder.
I liked the idea at first, but after creating the other words I realized it was too similar to playful and tension. Order shouldn’t have any resemblance towards the other words. It was only till I started to think about hierarchy that I created the composition that I felt would fit best. The far right image introduced the idea of hierarchy and structure while clearly defining order. Working from top to bottom, the squares would double in size while maintaining the same white space to convey symmetry without the entire piece being symmetrical.
Tension
With tension, I kind of knew the direction I wanted to head in after my initial sketches. In my sketches, I included compositions that had squares in “uneasy” scenarios to create a sense of tension. While the idea was alright, the execution and delivery on my end felt poor. There wasn’t a guarantee that the viewer would fully understand without me explicitly telling them. Rather, I chose to describe tension through it’s physical appearance.
The inspiration for these digital iterations came from pulling on something from both ends, like a slinky or rope. Once I had the idea, I played around with a few different sizes and spaces before I picked one that I felt showed the physical tension of something being pulled apart best.
Congestion
Congestion was one of the easier pieces for me. My digital designs didn’t stray too far off of my initial rough sketches. During my feedback sessions, we found it might be best to combine two of my ideas into one to further illustrate the idea. The first concept was to make the entire piece congested. By creating four large squares and placing them randomly throughout the art-board, the squares filled up most of the canvas and left little oddly shaped whitespace. The second concept involved the use of many smaller squares in one space to create congestion.
Combining these two ideas would create the final design on the far right. The large squares would occupy most of the canvas, but then I’d choose one space in particular to further congest the area. Furthermore, I introduced the idea of gravity by letting the smaller squares fall downwards to add a sense of depth and movement. Much like how actual pieces might work in real life if they were congested in a small space.
Playfulness
The first two compositions followed my thought process for playfulness in my rough sketches. The idea was to have most of the shapes in some sort of order, like a line, with one square out of place “messing around”. The idea most similarly resembled a line of students with one student being the class clown and stepping or playfully jumping out of line. After further feedback, I created the third composition. This more explicitly stated some sort of order with the smaller squares following the larger square, but still had one smaller square jumping out of line to show playfulness.
I liked the overall composition of the third idea, but I felt like I could do better. The final three pieces introduced the idea of curved patterns to generate a playful environment. I started to play with the idea of wavelengths as the light curves had something interesting about it. I tried to think about other concepts that had strong visually appealing curves. I ended up creating the fibonacci sequence and flipping it to make it symmetrical. I also slowly changed the size of the squares as they spiraled towards the center to further convey scale and add a layer of depth to make it seem more playful.
Comfort
Comfort was by far the most difficult word to portray through squares. Initially, when I think comfort I think round soft edges because that’s what movies tend to do. Protagonist or cuter characters have rounder and softer features to make them more comforting and easy to like. Antagonists tend to have sharper features to further solidify the idea that they’re evil and unsafe. However, I was unsure of how I’d show the idea of soft and comforting through sharp squares. I tried to convey comfort through tight and cozy space. Most of my comfy iterations had that black border made of squares to isolate space and focus on a single subject. Though I liked the idea and played with many versions of this, it still felt incomplete.
Again I looked to curves, the fourth design above felt super comfortable to me. However, it also gave a strong playful vibe as well. So much that it also became a candidate for my final pick for playful. I decided it was best to merge my two ideas. Create a confined cozy space for my comfortable curved subject to live. After playing with different sizes and positions I ultimately chose the design that was third from the right.
Final Selections
Here, I knew the general look and feel I was trying to achieve. Most of the selections for each word here are quite similar with only a few tweaks in an attempt to further drive the words feeling and definition home. I think both could have done well, but in the end the top row is the final selection I chose to represent each of the words.
Final Compositions
