Color

This is a color study for picking colors from a photo.

note:  the color swatches didn't scan correctly.  The yellow and orange are much brighter and more yellow than they appear in this scan

First, The colors are chosen from the image.

Then, the neutral colors are subdivided into their parent colors.  In this case, the brown is broken down to red and green and the violet is broken down into blue and red.

From the original palette, it is determined that the photo uses a split complimentary color scheme.

The photo is then placed on different colored backgrounds to experiment with the message the different colors communicate.

timeless, elegant

modern, clean

playful, stylish

What Makes Us Look

This article is very relevant to what we are doing in class.  The author suggests that designers take advantage of man's ability to comprehend and interpret the visual information we perceive.  A good design should allow the viewer to interpret it based on their cultural and personal understanding.  Bloomer talks about different ways to grab a person's visual attention and keep it for long enough to deliver your message.  These strategies are relevant to the photo project because we are trying to create series of photos that tell a story.  We must, therefore, create a series that keeps a viewer's attention long enough for them to understand the story.  Bloomer goes on to discuss how we can use different design principles to engage the viewer.  She suggests that we use figure ground ambiguity, closure, continuity, color, movement and new perspectives on familiar things to interest the viewer.  All of these ideas can be used to make our seasons photos more interesting and engaging.  This will help make our story more clear to the viewer because they will pay attention to it long enough to figure it out.

Week 6

I see graphic design as the organization of information that is semantically correct, syntactically consistent, and pragmatically understandable.  

Massimo Vignelli

He is saying that graphic design organizes information in a way that truthfully presents it to the viewer.  The design must also be consistent in the way it is organized so that nothing seems out of place.  It must also be practical and easy to digest.  This is relevant to what we are doing in class because our series of photos need to express the seasons with images that make sense or are "correct."  The system should be consistent so that all of the photos belong together even though they have contrast between them.  The story needs to be "pragmatically understandable" so that it doesn't just seem like a series of random photos.

If someone from outside the university read my blog, they should be able to understand it.  I think I made it clear what the goal of the project was and how I solved it.

I learned that the best way to make edits is to identify what art elements are being used strongly in the design and which ones are weak.  That allows one to make edits thoughtfully instead of randomly pushing things around and hoping that something good appears.

Photo Project

Problem Statement

The goal of this project is to create three pairs of 4"x6" photos.  Each pair should have one photo of leaves and one of linear shadows.  We are to use our understanding of the design elements to create pairs of images that have maximum contrast.  The three sets should also have contrast as a whole.  These photos are to be mounted on 12"x18" matt board for the final presentation.

Edits

Early photos had too much similarity in them.  I wrote down the similarities and contrasts to help me identify the ways to make the contrast more intense.   I then used cropping and took new photos to make the contrasts more obvious and powerful.

Final combinations

contrasts

light-dark

random-organized

diagonal-horizontal

contrasts

curvy-straight

red-green

depth-flat

contrasts

textured-smooth

saturated-desaturated

stable-dynamic

Week 3

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of you.

I can't count how many times I have been trying to solve a problem only to realize that the answer was right under my nose the whole time.  When I am working on an art project, I usually don't notice the things that are wrong with it while I am working on it.  When it is in front of me, I am usually too invested in my work to see it objectively.  Sometimes I never notice the problem areas until someone else points them out to me.  It is important for me to learn how to see my work more objectively while I work on it.  It seems to help if I walk away from it for a couple days and then look at it again with fresh eyes.

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

There is a big difference between looking and seeing.  When I look at a great piece of art, it is easy to recognize that it is great.  Our minds can intuitively understand whether something looks good or not.  The hard part is learning to see it.  As someone who wants to learn how to make my own great art, I need to be able to see what makes it good.  I need to be able to look at a great design and pick out the design elements and how they work together to make it great.  That way I can learn from it and apply the principles to my own work.

Week 2

A picture is worth a thousand words.

This is true because any good picture can have infinite different interpretations.  No two people look at an image the same way.  When we look at a photo or painting, we bring our entire life experience with us.  When an artist creates a picture, they might have an idea of what they are trying to express but once they show it to someone, it's meaning gets altered.  Each person will have a different idea of what it means based on their beliefs, education, lifestyle, etc.  This is why even the most simple picture is worth a thousand words.  We will all have something different to say about it.