50 Shades — Ladybug
About the assignment
To building skills in creative perception, interpretation, and representation, we were asked to choose an object, artificial or organic, and make 50 different versions of it. This assignment aimed to make us see the normal object in different ways by the ideation process.
Object Choosing
One day in the morning, I saw a cute little ladybug stoped on my backpack. It was amazing since I live on the 23rd floor. So I thought it would be a good idea to pick up a ladybug as the object for this topic.
My 50 shades
Analysis of the object
Elements
- Round-shaped body
- Black spots
- Head & Antenna
- Six legs
This is actually the order how I draw a ladybug, expressing the impression of a ladybug from the most significant to the less.
Composite Rule
- Patterns & Color
- Relationship between legs and the body
The Visual Perspectives
Different perspectives influence how to observe the object. I believe it is important to change perspectives to generate new ideas about the object during the brainstorming. So I listed the different perspectives as a guideline to remind myself.
Ideation Process
Top View
Firstly, I started thinking about the object from the top view. For me, the most impressive features are the round body, the spotty pattern, and the relationship between head and body.
To quickly seize the feature of the object, I only kept these 3 elements in the beginning. The image looked abstract like an icon but still could properly represent the object.
Then, I changed one of the 3 elements, to see what would be happened. From changing the round-shaped body to triangles and rectangles. Changing the body shape made the object look a little far from the original one. However, the iconic image seemed interesting.
After that, I changed another element, pattern, to observe the results.
While I was eating an apple, I just noticed that they have the same color and probably the apple could be the material to create another version of a ladybug. Thus, I scattered black pepper as spots on the chopped half apple.
Side view
From the side view, the feature I got were round shaped body, head and antenna, and legs. As before, I tried to change one of the elements, legs. Considering the function of legs was moving, I substituted legs with other things that have similar function as moving, from nature to artificial.
I stopped for a while reviewing these sketches and found out that all the substitutions above are from the natural world. Thus, on the opposite, I turned to find something artificial. The thing that came into my mind is wheels.
Although the ladybug looked like has a smooth surface on the top view, what if the spots were different textures, materials, or shapes?
With the sketches, I built up virtual 3D models of them.
Thoughts about the process
I analyzed the object and divided a whole unity into several elements, which helped me to think from various perspectives. During the ideation, I gradually formed my working process by repeatedly diverging the options and converging to conclude the concept of the current session to come up with what to do next.
About tools
Sketch helped me a lot, I could quickly leave a note about what I was thinking without interrupting the process of brainstorming. Also, it was also the most efficient way to convey my thoughts.
