P2 Documentation
Introduction
This project exemplifies Gestalt principles and objects interacting in space. The aim of this project is to effectively communicate words through illustrating black squares in white space.
Every individual draws a different picture in their mind when they think of a word, and for me, “rigid” was depicted by a structure, or any collection of black squares that wouldn’t fall down easily. “Fluid” was movement, or molecules sliding over each other as in the ocean. I adhered to the common picture of “clumsy”, things falling and succumbing to gravity. To me, “graceful” meant balance, I saw “erratic” as different sizes, and “rhythmic” was either very orderly or was a pattern. I tried to stick to these ideas when making my initial sketches, but I felt like the “erratic” pieces could easily be mistaken for “clumsy” and that the “rigid” pieces were not very appealing.
However, the most trouble I had was with the idea of figure/ground. I understood the class examples, such as the FedEx logo with the arrow through the Ex and the common depiction of the vase and two faces, but I just couldn’t come up with my own. I just started sketching squares and tried to create something in both the figure and the ground that I could see. It wasn’t entirely a success, but at least I had five sketches down on paper.
Digital Iterations
I decided not to use the “rhythmic + erratic” word pair because I felt like my “erratic” sketches could also pass for clumsy, and although my “rhythmic” sketches may have been able to save the pair, I didn’t like them enough to use the two words. This left me with “rigid + fluid” and “clumsy + graceful”. I started my digital iterations by creating digital versions of two sketches for each word, picking the two sketches I thought represented each word the best. Then I tried to explore a bit more by changing each digital version to create one more artboard each. This gave me four versions for each word, with one variation on each of two original sketches per word.
I didn’t think my “rigid” versions were as structured as I would have liked, save the one in the top left corner, and I didn’t see anything in the background of my figure/ground versions, so I decided to make additional variations on the top left “rigid” artboard and digitize another one of my figure/ground sketches:
I originally had the four figure ground artboards in the picture captioned “Preliminary digital versions”. I added the figure/ground version on the very left of the picture above. I thought this was a little more like figure/ground since I could not only see the black squares as a pattern, but on each of the four sides I could see a temple-like building. When it came to desk critiques, this version was the one Brendon said was the most like figure/ground but that it was missing something. This was when I tried to add more squares to it to give it that little more “something”. When I was done refining, I thought that it was a very complete pattern, but I hadn’t tried to look for the figure/ground again. During the final critique, I realized too late that I had lost the figure/ground concept while I was trying to add more squares where something might not have been missing in my original version.
Another aspect of the project I had trouble with was choosing a word pair and adding a single color. I didn’t know which word pair to choose, nor which color to use to depict the word(s). Therefore, I just chose a random word and tried out a few colors on it, just to see what it would look like. I thought the colors with my “clumsy” versions looked pretty good aesthetically, but during desk critiques, Professor Petrich said to “make the color mean something” so then I was sure that these “clumsy” versions were not the way to go. I subsequently eliminated these colored artboards from my final decision.
During desk critiques, I had the “graceful” version of the large diamond balanced on the four black squares. Brendon saw this and took away three of the squares, simplifying it. I thought it looked much better with just one square and realized that I may have just been adding squares for the sake of making different versions, not with simplicity in representation on my mind. This was an important mindset that I learned and will take into consideration on future projects.
Again, I was trying to pick a word pair to add a color to. I scrolled through all my versions of each word, stopping on each one to see if I could imagine a color there. Looking at my black and white graceful versions, I was inspired by Professor Petrich’s phrase: “make the color mean something”. Ballerinas are definitely a stereotypical “graceful” example, and they are historically associated with the color pink. Thus I added pink to my favorite “graceful” versions, specifically the diamonds on the top. This idea ended up really enhancing my “graceful” depiction.
To pick my final pieces, I surveyed my friends, showing them the artboards, and I asked which version was the best representation for each word. In the end, I chose the versions that had the most votes because ultimately, I wanted to pick the ones the most people agreed on. Just because I strongly preferred one representation over another didn’t mean that it was the most relatable to the most people. After the final ones were picked, I zoomed in and cleaned each one up — making sure edges were against edges and corners were against corners.
Reflection
Having no design experience, this process was a definite struggle. I learned that creating initial sketches takes a lot more time than I had originally thought, and that I should start projects early so that I have time to come up with more creative ideas and clarify concepts that I don’t understand. A design aspect I learned was that often, simple is the way to go. Adding to designs just to try to come up with different iterations to try out isn’t always the best thing to do, especially if I lose the concept I had in the first place, which happened in my figure/ground piece: I originally had something in the background but then I lost it when I tried to refine it by adding more squares in the white space. I realized this too late, during the final critique. Perhaps the most important lesson I learned was realizing that people can get different meanings from the same word or design, so it’s important to ask multiple people for input so that you open your mind to more ideas and avoid stubbornly sticking to your own concepts.
Next time, I will start earlier so that I have more time for creative thought, always keep what I’m trying to communicate in my mind so that I don’t lose sight of my goal, and ask others for comments and thoughts on my designs all throughout the process, instead of only at checkpoints.
