Form and Composition — Project 2
This project is one that illustrates form and composition through black squares (of any size). Concretely, this project started with the word pairs “clumsy-graceful”, “rigid-fluid”, and “rhythmic-erratic”, which we had to illustrate in different thumbnails in our sketchbooks. In addition to the word pairs, we had to sketch thumbnails of a figure-ground relationship. Conceptually, this project’s aim was two-fold: to help us understand the process of creating a composition and documenting it, and to use Gestalt principles to differentiate between the words in each word pair.
The above pictures contain the thumbnails that I started out with. At the very beginning I drew a few randomly to see in which word category I would place them. Very quickly, I began to get a sense of what I wanted for each word. To both simplify and formalize what I could do and what Gestalt principles I could use, I decided to draw a thumbnail for each word that used only 2 squares.
I didn’t feel that I could very easily put into words how I thought of the word pair “erratic-rhythmic,” so I decided that I wouldn’t include those in my refined thumbnails. For “rigid-fluid”, I found that the difference resided in a few principles. There seemed to be an equilibrium in fluidity, one that was either reached or about to be reached in the thumbnails. On the contrary, there was no equilibrium in rigid thumbnails. Rigidity feels cramped, and so equilibrium didn’t have to be achieved while close proximity felt like a necessity. Lastly, “fluid” seems to have elements that draw a curved, unified line. This isn’t necessary but it does add to the fluidity of a piece.
**Please excuse the smearing on the pages. I haven’t gotten the hang of not dragging my hand through ink yet**
“Clumsy-graceful” has an emphasis on balance, with graceful thumbnails being balanced in some way and clumsy being less balanced. For my thumbnails, this tended to manifest itself mostly in scale and direction. Though not specifically a Gestalt principle, “clumsy” is almost defined by a break in unity, while graceful is a unity that prevails even when the elements seem disparate. This was surprisingly hard to achieve.
After sketching these refined thumbnails, I transferred some of them to Illustrator.
Like I stated above, I’ve been portraying clumsy as a break in the unity that the elements create. In these thumbnails, there is a continuation created by the squares — a diagonal line that the squares must follow. The clumsiness comes from the break created by the square in the middle, which I tried to portray “stumbling”. I played with the size, the number, and the continuity.
These also portray clumsiness. Most of these play with time; the viewer can imagine a state that the squares were in before they got into this position. For example, the top left had a square teeter off the edge of a cliff, and the right 4 artboards show a set of squares that are rocking out of time. By the bottom right thumbnail, I thought that my squares were coming out of the screen, making a clumsy path, so I went with that.
These are reminiscent of a waterfall, something affected by gravity but not confined to a certain set of dimensions. Fluid, as stated before, eventually finds a state of equilibrium. The fluidity on these artboards has not yet reached equilbrium. I played around with the size of the squares and the angles in which they fell (in the top right I used a fibonacci sequence to generate the angles). I think the bottom right looks the most fluid-like, following the curve that I talked about above.
Grace comes from balance and unity, and I think that this system of squares represents that well. The small squares in a big window suggest a unity that is isolated, which is what I wanted to achieve as I played a bit with scale. The bottom right curve feels like an exaggerated motion.
My rigid thumbnails began on the top left, where I imagined the boxes pushing against the side of the artboard. The squares reach a balance not because they are inherently balanced but because of the pressure that they exert on the box and vice versa. I reimagined a rigid system in the other 4 artboards, with a grid of diagonal lines that creates a pattern with these squares.
I created some new figure ground thumbnails, but I’m not especially proud of them. I’m trying to treat the white space as its own object, but it’s hard to create a balance of white and black.
While messing around with different rigid compositions, I stumbled across the top left thumbnail. I realized that this “tiled floor” look is reversible and I could see a diagonal rectangle in between the black squares. I played with scale as well the positioning of the squares. My final thumbnail ended up being the bottom left one because it’s not too busy (my “first” final was the top right) and it is situated in the frame so that the negative shapes are closed and easy to spot among the “lines” of squares.
My fluid thumbnails before reflected a stream of water but were not so fleshed out. In these, I wanted to add a random element that fluidity has while also maintaining the curve. I decided to change the direction of the squares (as you can tell if you read the thumbnails top to bottom and right to left). Initially, I was only suggesting curves and flow through the position of the squares, but the direction heightened the flow. The blue squares are meant to emphasize the randomness because they are the ones that are in places that, individually, they should not be but, in a group, make sense.
My rigid thumbnails from before didn’t exemplify rigidity to the people that I asked, so I created a form that was as rigid as I could imagine. The blue square increases the awareness of the rigid system — it is trapped in its space by small borders and big squares. One can picture the pattern continuing and trapping subsequent squares.
My clumsy idea that I fleshed out here reflects a person stumbling in line. Whereas the top middle thumbnail has a square that is just rotated, the bottom middle (my final) has a square that is not only breaking the direction created by the other squares but also out of position. This composition had the least tension in the frame and illustrated the concept most cleanly.
Following my last drafts, I made the middle thumbnails by just straightening the lines of some drafts from before. The top thumbnails are an exploration into perspective. I decided (with the help of a couple people) that this final thumbnail had a balance that was captured at the moment in time it represents. The composition didn’t need to have straighter lines to be any more graceful.
This project showed how different elements of design come together to embody certain Gestalt principles in the case of each word pair and in figure-ground pieces; the project also gave me a good understanding of how certain elements naturally come together with others, and how this comes from the creative process. As I moved from my sketchbook to Illustrator to later drafts in Illustrator, and finally, to print, I got a good eye for seeking out what I wanted in each of my drafts and what I thought made my compositions feel the way they do. This will serve me as I move onto projects with type because the concepts and elements remain the same. As I work in a new medium, my growing design sense will help me to be more efficient and discerning.
