Project Two: Form and Composition
This project is about designing a composition of black squares to illustrate words. There is no refined way to use the black squares: we can adjust the size, rotate them at whatever angle, use as many as we want, overlap the squares, etc. The aim is to help us develop the ability to effectively convey idea or make a description through simple objects from which yet we could generate infinite possibilities. It also helps me learn how to combine abstractness with concreteness.
There are three word-pairs we should describe:
rigid + fluid; clumsy + graceful; rhythmic + erratic
For me, “rigid” stands for a solid structure which follows the gravitational law and nothing easily falls apart. Thus, I imagined that the black squares are boxes in reality and I brainstormed about multiple ways to pile these boxes stably. “Fluid” reminds me of water and wave. I intended to mimic a pattern of waves or a flow of water.


An awkward layout that makes people feel uncomfortable or that could never happen in real world well illustrates “clumsy”. I was trying to find out descriptions of “grace” in a mathematical sense. I was trying to establish a good arrangement as a kind of expression of grace because well-order means a proper ratio.


I sought inspiration from music, including beats and nots, to show “rhythmic”. I attempted to use a combination of big and small squares to show that the image is regular in some sense but also dynamic. I used a synonym of “erratic”, which is “irregular”, to express the word. Basically, I created an exception in a organized layout or even randomly dropped squares in the frame.


I picked the “clumsy + graceful” and “rhythmic + erratic”pairs to make a further exploration.
I wanted to make a further modification on the falling man because I believed that it was the most explicit illustration of the word. However, this was too direct. I had lost the balance between abstractness and concreteness, and focused too much on the literal meaning of the word. Thus I refuted the idea and decided to create an awkward, unrealizable structure. I attempted to make something that breaks the gravitational law. The reason why I used only a few squares is that the quantity of squares did not make a difference. Since it is pretty much the same, I used as few squares as possible to make it direct, clear.

However, I changed the idea again because this set of image did not have a strong connection with the word. I could say they mean “erratic” because they did not look usual. They did not look distinctive in the context of “clumsy”. Finally, I visualized a picture of a pile of heavy boxes. Some were tilted or wedged. It was hard to reorganize them because they were hardly movable.

When thinking about “graceful”, the first thing that popped into my mind was the golden ratio which was widely employed in architectures and sculptures. So I created a combination of squares which sizes were in golden ratio to each other. However, this might not be a good idea because not everyone is familiar with this concept. Nor could people recognize it at a glimpse. To make the image more attractive, I decided to refer to the infinity sign instead. Curves and circles usually remind people of grace and elegance. I tried several times to manipulate the size of squares to make the loop look more dimensional, probably like a Mobius strip. Finally, I decided mot to closure the loop in order to make it look more flexible.


When a sound-recognizing app is used and listen button is clicked, bars came out of the button dynamically. They elongate when high-pitch sound is perceived or shorten when low-pitch sound is recorded. I wanted to turn the animation into a image to illustrate “rhythmic” because I believe it is very visual. The basic idea is that several slacks of squares stretch out, simulating bars in the app. I tried a version in which the squares in the same slack do not lay in the same line. I had another try, making the squares in the same slack rotate at different angles. However, these modifications blurred the general pattern. I decided to use another color in this word pair because coloring enhances the delivery of the idea. Initially I picked light green, but quickly I changed to bright yellow which naturally conveys a sense of vigor. I created an alternating pattern by making black and yellow squares adjacent to each other. The alternating order makes the picture look more rhythmic.


For “erratic”, I like the one with two squares per row but suddenly there lies three squares on a row. I added bright yellow to the picture to enhance its abnormality. Why are there three squares? Why the right one is yellow? That is random. However, the composition is still normal in a macro sense. Things were laid reservedly on the same row or column. Nothing would break or fall. It was a rigid structure.

Therefore, I decided to use a completely random composition. I randomly pick the color, rotate it and put it somewhere in the frame. Why did I put five squares? It is random!

For the reversible figure, I played around with geometry. I alternatively placed a black square on a white square, each one smaller than the previous one. I wanted to show that the pattern looked either concave or convex. I aligned the black squares vertically such that their corners touch other black squares and the blank space was composed of white squares. Then the picture reminded me of ladders. I wanted to show an illusion that people could walk through either the black path or the white path. So I employed a transformed form of black squares, cubes, and aligned them vertically. The picture shows that people could walk along the black zigzags or through the white stairs. I tried to achieve this effect by using squares but since they are not 3D it did not work.

Final Works:



My problem is that I have stayed too conventional. I sticked around the literal meaning of the words and kept finding inspiration from the real world. For instance, when I saw the word “rhythmic”, what instantly popped into my mind was music and then every piece that I created was related to music. One of the rough draft was even a depiction of a musical note. My pieces was being too substantive. The most traditional interpretation of “rhythmic” is musical. However, there are many other possible explanations of the word. Things that are dynamic and animated could be interpreted as “rhythmic”. Or an abstract pattern could also be viewed as “rhythmic”. In the future, I will try to think out of the box. I will not linger around the most traditional form of expression. It is crucial to think creatively and make different attempts when brainstorming instead of narrowing myself down to one path at the very beginning.
