Final Documentation for P2

Tension vs. Playful

Tension

These are my preliminary sketches. The sketches share the common theme of tension through a “confrontational” or “tight” feel to them. For instance, one of the sketches looks like a tug of war battle between two squares, which I imagined to depict tension quite well.

I explored one of my more favorite sketches by going more in depth.

I looked at tension as being a battle or a confrontation between two entities, as that’s how I interpret the word. So, the inspiration behind this piece is a tug of war. However, I still felt that this piece didn’t strongly convey tension due to its simplicity.

I followed up with my original interpretation of tension by adding multiple squares having a tug of war with each other. At first, I was satisfied with this iteration, as it seemed to convey my idea of tension quite well. But, after comparing my work with other classmates, I started to learn that most people interpreted tension as being a moment of stress or anxiety, and I slowly began to appreciate this interpretation.

I introduced the color red into this digital iteration to further emphasize the tension point in this piece, which is at the dead center point of the canvas.

TENSION FINAL- In adherence to my new interpretation of tension, I combined some of the basic elements of my previous iterations with this new interpretation to create my final pice. The black squares getting smaller from all four directions to crash into one small red entity in the center of the page represents a sense of stress and pressure on a single point, which emphasizes tension.

Playful

These are my preliminary sketches. These sketches represent playfulness by using squares that are either tilted or are lined up in curves. I feel like the image of tilted squares represents the squares to be dancing, which conveys a very positive and jolly sentiment.

I explored one of my favorite idea further and then followed it up with a digital iteration.

When thinking about playfulness, I tried to experiment mostly with tipping squares and squares in curved formations.

I continued to experiment with curved formations.

I played around with different sized squares to further emphasize a sense of goofiness. My inspiration for the small squares were party hats, as I feel like those represent playfulness very well.

I felt that my original iterations clearly depicted playful, but in order to refine my idea, I experimented more with changing square sizes as well.

PLAYFUL FINAL- With a combination of dancing squares, curved formations, and different sized squares, I feel like this final iteration gives off a very joyful and positive vibe that clearly represents playfulness.

Compact vs. Boundless

Compact

These are my preliminary sketches. A lot of these sketches depict compactness by using larger squares that essentially “trap” smaller squares. The use of tilted squares, in my opinion, further emphasizes the degree of compactness, as it seems like a square is physically falling on smaller squares.

I further explored one of my more favorite ideas and then replicated this in my digital iterations.

For Compact, I experimented with larger squares boxing in smaller squares to convey a sense of suffocation or pressure.

I included larger squares that were touching the edges of the canvas to convey a sense of being trapped and being immobile due to the compactness.

COMPACT FINAL- In my final iteration, the lack of whitespace in general shows a sense of compactness as the overall piece feels crowded and congested due to all the black boxes. Furthermore, the two big black boxes on the left seem to be crushing the smaller squares. The squares on the right all seem to be coming down on a tiny square on the bottom right of the piece, and the squares seem to be congested and and confined by the edges of the canvas and the edges of other squares. Overall, this iteration makes me feel dense and tight.

Boundless

These are my preliminary sketches. These sketches attempt to represent boundless by considering the concept of infinite. The use of a double headed arrow is a more literal representation of this concept that really resonated with me. The first sketch on the left image is also one of my favorite, as it describes the notion of exponential growth, which gives a more positive touch to the term boundless.

Here is what I thought my favorite sketch was, but I soon realized that this was not as effective as I thought, as it was a little too simplistic and literal.

I originally experimented with formatting squares in the shape of double headed arrows to represent the concept of infinity. I really appreciated this concept, but thought that it was a little too literal and didn’t make one feel a sense of boundlessness by simply looking at it.

I switched my idea to the concept above, which is simple but very clear. It represents ever-growing squares that don’t seem to end. The square leaving the canvas depicts a sense of motion as well and emphasizes the lack an ending.

I continued to refine my idea by experimenting more with size and spacing.

BOUNDLESS FINAL- My final iteration was a continuation of my original simple concept. I included the depiction of ever-growing squares by adding two more directions to make the piece more abstract and aesthetic, but at the same time making sure it emphasizes the concept of endlessness and boundlessness.

Figure Ground

Above are some rough sketches of some figure ground ideas that I was thinking about. They are quite rough as I created these sketches mostly visualizing how I was going to recreate them digitally, as I realized quickly that with figure ground, a lot of my squares were going to follow a very structural and repeating pattern.

I had a lot of trouble coming up with solid figure ground ideas that were abstract. The main limitation that I had to work around was having to make sure the squares were distinctly separated from each other. Since the squares were not allowed to be connected to each other, it made it extremely difficult to make a figure ground, because the whitespace was allowed to be in any shape or form, but the black space had to be in the form of squares. So, the general approach I took to creating my figure ground pieces was to start off with a simple formation of black squares as seen above, and then continued to add squares to see what

Another approach I took to creating a figure ground was using patterns, as I felt like it would be nearly impossible to have black squares in a an erratic formation create the illusion of a figure ground

After multiple attempts, I came up with a concept that I really liked, which was to surround the edges of the canvas with evenly spaced black squares to create the illusion that the background could either be white squares on a black canvas or black squares on a white canvas. .

I continued to work with this concept by trying to add more black space.

FINAL FIGURE GROUND — I combined my idea of having an ambiguous background with having patterned black squares in the center of the canvas. Using squares that are in a patterned formation rather than in an erratic formation makes all the white space look very segmented and square-like as well, which really accentuates the overall figure ground effect.

Post-Crit Reflection

After the crit, I realized how abstract and complex the seemingly straightforward words that we were required to emulate through squares are. People had such vastly different interpretations and outlooks on how certain these emotions could be represented through squares, which really was very interesting. My pieces were discussed a couple times as being clear representations of the words, so I was quite proud of that! However, there were certain words that I feel like I could’ve thought about more critically after seeing some of my other classmates’ work. For instance, I feel like my figure ground could’ve been a little more distinct and clearer.

Overall I really enjoyed and learned a lot from the crit, as it exposed me to so many new ideas and made me rethink my ideas on a more critical and challenging eye, which I feel like is very difficult to do when you’re working individually and don’t have a basis of comparison.