Project Two – Form and Composition Process Documentation
Introduction
This project challenged me much more than I would have ever expected. For every word, there’s an infinite number of design possibilities, even when given limitations, like only using black squares. For this reason, attempting to use Gestalt principles to express the word pairs was far from an easy task. I was inspired by how even the smallest of changes could have the largest of effects on my work and because of this, I found that none of my original thumbnails that I had attempted during the first deliverable were directly used in any capacity in my final iteration of the project. Instead, the usage of Gestalt principles to express the given word pairs was carried on to my digital iterations. Not only did I learn the basics of Adobe Illustrator, as well as how Gestalt principles effect how we view a design, but I also learned that the design process is one where it’s okay to scrap everything you’ve done and start all over again, because the creative ideas that you’ve considered will remain, even if your original designs do not.
Deliverable #1
For the first deliverable, making 30 thumbnails was not an easy task for me. I think it’s because I’ve never done anything like this before. As such, this was a harder task then it seemed it would be. I don’t think of myself as an artist and while I can be creative, I struggle to be creative when given a blank canvas and little to go off of. The most important thing that I learned during this part of the process was that just trying things, even if the results weren’t great, helped me learn about Gestalt principles and how to use them best to express the word pairs we were given. I found that over time, I was able to use design concepts that we’ve discussed in our two lectures to help illustrate the given words well.
Tension
For me, tension was about creating a suspenseful moment. To do this effectively, I attempted to invoke gravity (the bottom right and center right thumbnails). I also attempted to create tight spaces by limiting the amount of negative space in the piece (the bottom left and top left thumbnails). I found that by constricting, the piece through adjusting the proximity of the squares, I was able to create a tense moment. By making a pattern but changing a piece of it in a noticeable way, tension would also come about in my designs.
Playful
Playful, at least as I saw it, had a lot to do with continuity, limiting sharp turns by creating circular patterns (the bottom-most thumbnails). I tried to use these Gestalt principles to create a feeling of welcomeness, almost as if my design was inviting you to join it and play with it.
Compact
Compact was largely about proximity to me. By creating a distinct pattern but limiting the space between it, I was able to make my work feel more compact. I found that using the negative space to highlight the proximity between the squares was extremely effective and this idea would be used in my final design for the word compact.
Boundless
Boundless was about expressing a sort of continuation. To do this, I had two different ideas. The first was to use the positive space to create a pattern looked as though it would continue outside of the thumbnail (the bottom right and center thumbnails). The other thing that I tried was to use the negative space to express this feeling of continuity (the bottom left and top right thumbnails). For me, the latter of the two techniques seemed to work most effectively but I found it difficult to use squares to do this.
Rhythmic
Rhythmic was about creating a clear pattern ensuring uniformity. This can be seen in almost all of my thumbnails for this word. Overall, I found rhythmic to be the hardest of all of the words and I’m not quite sure why. Of all of the thumbnails for rhythmic, I think that the bottom right one best expresses the word. I think this is because your eye is attracted towards the bottom, directly at the pattern, which is consistent, but also simple.
Erratic
For erratic I mainly tried two different techniques. The first was to make a pattern-less, seemingly random, design (top left and bottom right thumbnails). The second was to create a design with a bunch of jagged edges and sharp turns and corners (top right and bottom left thumbnails). Of the two, I think that the former was the most effective technique to invoke the word erratic in my designs. This is because there’s no ability to predict what will happen next.
As you may have noticed, I did six thumbnails for each word instead of five. I had far too many ideas and wanted to make sure that I could get a whole bunch of different ideas on the paper. Finally, here are some extra designs using ideas that I had thought of that I really like as well.
For playful, I created a tower that’s struggling to stay up. Due to the angles at which the squares are placed within the tower, it doesn’t feel all that tense, instead it feels like the tower is barely stable, almost like The Leaning Tower of Pisa. For boundless, I tried to make an arrow. I like this design because it also doubles as a pattern, but is interesting in that it changes right in the very end, but this difference is the very thing that makes the arrow exist. As such, it draws your attention to the arrow and thus a feeling of continuity.
Digital Iterations
Here’s what I wrote for deliverable #2:
This week wasn’t easy. Incorporating color into the pieces added a whole new level of difficulty that I really didn’t expect. Many of the designs I had hoped to use didn’t end up working well once I started to add a second colored square into the mix. This brought me back to the drawing board, making me rethink my approach to this problem entirely. I found myself stumped several times as a result of my lack of experience with Adobe Illustrator. Even now, only days later, when I look at how I had done this project, (misusing layers, confusing fill and stoke, etc.) I find it difficult not to be embarrassed by how horrible I was with Illustrator.
Even at this point, one of my designs (specifically the “tension” design) is against the rules, I believe, as I am not using red colored squares. I would like to change my design to fix this, though I’m not sure how to make the adjustments I’d like to make as I didn’t consider the difference between fill and stroke when I made the design. I’ll definitely need to make this change before I print out the final project but I really like the idea behind the design so I’d prefer not to change it.
Going into class, I really thought that I had some great designs. I particularly liked my designs for compact, boundless, and playful. Unfortunately, I was told that my boundless and compact pieces didn’t appropriately use black squares and for those two, I had to rethink my designs. I also knew that for tension, my design didn’t follow the rules, so I was trying to figure out how exactly I should use it, because I was really proud of how I was able to make the design.
I was trying to make a spiral of squares for the word playful. Along the way I looked online and stumbled upon scatter brushes. After playing around with them for a little bit, I was able to create the tension design by using rings of various sizes and then applying the scatter brush to it with specific values to achieve my desired effect. I was really proud of what I had come up with just by playing around with some tools for about thirty minutes.
I also didn’t read the instructions before I started on the colored squared portion of the assignment because I had thought I understood the instructions. After I had completed both of my color designs, I decided to look at the assignment and realized my mistake. I used multiple colors and in some cases, didn’t even use colored squares. I learned a lot from this mistake and moving forward always read the instructions to make sure there was nothing I was doing wrong.
My design for playful is the only design that really stuck around after deliverable #1. I did make a few changes to it, like following the rule of thirds, which actually made the piece feel more playful overall and I’m really glad I didn’t leave it centered on the artboard. I also decided to make it one of my colored designs. I struggled to figure out how to incorporate the colored squares. My first instinct was to replace some of the black squares in my design to colored ones, which didn’t look very organic. I then thought outside of the box (or inside rather) and placed a colored square inside of the black ones. This added an interesting playful emphasis, and I found that by tilting the colored ones a few degrees off from the black ones, I was able to create a design that was screaming playful.
My first figure/ground design wasn’t great. I decided to use one of my designs from deliverable #1 but wasn’t too happy with how it looked.
Final Iterations
Class Monday 1/30
During class on Monday 1/30, I made a lot of changes. I quickly realized that a lot of my designs could be tweaked to work for other word pairs, such as my original tension design, which I decided to remove the red and return it to white, and found that it could work well for either boundless or figure/ground (this can be seen in the bottom right of the picture below) . I also had changed my boundless design from that day by moving the four squares downwards slightly so they looked more like squares and not triangles and connecting them with a square in the center (this can be seen in the top-center of the picture below). In doing this, something really crazy happened. Arrows, appeared in each corner of the piece in the negative space! It happened totally by chance but worked perfectly well in expressing boundless and figure/ground as well. Now, I had to decide which of these two designs I should use for what part of the project. I decided to make the one with arrows as the figure/ground as I was afraid I would be breaking the rules by expressing boundlessness through symbolism (by using arrows) even though it was completely unintentional.
You’ll also notice that I had messed around a lot with the colored squares. I tried to figure out how to use the same colored squares to express both playful and tension. I really liked how the green looked in my playful design but I was afraid that it wouldn’t look as good in a tension design. I tried a whole bunch of colors but I decided to stick with the green as it worked out okay in my final tension design (a preliminary tension design can be seen in the left-center of the picture above).
During class on Monday 1/30 I also began on a new design for compact (the final design can be seen in the top right of the picture above). I started with this, which uses the same idea of a diamond with some white space around it as seen in my design for compact that I brought to class that day.
Next, I adjusted the square in the middle by adding more squares inside it (proximity) to make it feel even more compact.
I really liked how this looked. There’s a difference in the size of the white space that’s separating the large squares and the smaller squares, which really helped create a nice effect. I didn’t feel like this was “compact” so after rotating the design a bit and trying to place it in different areas on the artboard, I decided to shrink it down even smaller. Next, I duplicated the design and connected it together like a puzzle. I continued this process, making sure that there was equal spacing between each piece. I thought that by creating a pattern and also by having a compact design, I would amplify the effect of the original design and make something that felt so much more compact.
By the time class ended, I was able to solve the problems with my design for compact, boundless, and tension. I was able to make a new figure / ground piece, and I explored some new avenues for tension.
Tension Design
Tension turned out to be the hardest part of the whole project for me. For some reason, almost everything I tried wasn’t expressing tension in the way I expected it would. I was left stumped and unsure how to proceed. Here’s some (but only a few) of the many, many, things that I tried:
While the weaving effect that I achieved in the orange designs looked cool, it wasn’t exactly displaying tension how I had hoped. I liked the idea of using large squares and felt that making a grid but disrupting it in some way had the potential to work and it’s ultimately what I had went with as my final iteration.
Printed Designs
Final Thoughts
Overall, I’m really pleased with how they all came out. I think I was able to effectively express the meanings of the word pairs with only black squares (and in some cases colored ones) by using Gestalt principles, even with my limited experience with Adobe Illustrator. The design process was definitely a creative challenge, but it was one that I had learned a lot from. I learned not to get too attached to a design as all designs can be modified or replaced at any given moment and that the modifications and replacements were always for the better. By becoming detached from my work, I was able to design more effectively, trying countless ideas and design options in an attempt to make something that worked best.
