[Project 2] Checkpoint 1/25

Part I: Sketching Thumbnails

Initial Sketches

For “tension,” I thought of creating scenarios with the boxes that would literally express tension. Thus I drew two boxes that are barely touching, and one box with another box precariously perched on the corner. My intention was to draw these boxes in such a way as to actually evoke a feeling of tension from whoever may be looking at the pictures.

I had similar thoughts for “playful.” I wanted to, in a sense, animate the boxes so it would seem that they had playful personalities. I think my most successful thumbnail is the one with the box peeking out from the corner.

For “compact”, I went with two routes: 1) the boxes are compressed into each other, and 2) the boxes are compacted into a space and it looks like there is no room for movement.

For “boundless,” one approach I took (bottom right thumbnail) was to create the feeling that the box was growing out of the space available and would not stop growing. Another approach I took (middle row and bottom left thumbnails) was to have the boxes have no boundaries, so they’re overlapping each other. The approach I took with the top right thumbnail was to create the feeling that there is an endless grid of black squares.

For “rhythmic,” I wanted to create a feeling of repetition and also smooth movement, so I experimented with just drawing a couple and also multiple rows of boxes, as well as drawing a gradient of boxes from small to large sizes.

For “erratic” I went with less of a scattered, random approach and more of a “non-uniform” look, which led to overlapping a bunch of differently sized squares on top of each other and seeing what kind of shapes I could create with the squares and also the white space.

Narrowing it Down

I decided to go with tension+playful and rhythmic+erratic.

For “tension,” I went off of the idea of creating scenes that would evoke literal tension, so I drew different scenes in which the squares were stacked precariously on top of each other, and also to have a couple scenes in which a large square looks like it’s going to fall on top of smaller square, and a small square on the verge of falling off a big one.

For “playful,” I really liked my thumbnail with the square peeking out from a corner, but I also tried to create scenes that looked as if the squares were playing with each other. In the top right thumbnail, I tried to make it so the two squares were playing some sort of game, and in the middle right thumbnail, I tried to have the square look like it was wearing a hat (using an overlapping square) and throwing confetti.

For “rhythmic” this time I tried to go for a more structured, repetitive route and experimented more with creating different shapes with the squares, such as the pyramid in the top right thumbnail, and the flower and spiral in the middle row.

For “erratic,” I again wanted to use less random patterns and more scenes that showed non-uniformity. So I created situations in which the squares seemed out of place next to the other squares in the thumbnail.