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For this first assignment
relationships I think there's a tendency for people to over-think it.
What the point of the assignment
is to get to
is to get understand some different
design building blocks. So in this case were to be dealing with line, shape,
tone
color
texture. And then you can also work with some photographic images the photographic
images are in there just because as a designer you kind of treat photographs like
artists treat these other design elements you have to think about what photos
will work with the rest of your design so you
think in a broad way for those. So when you're dealing with relationships you
might think in the most basic terms.
Thick, thin, big, small those kinds of things. You don't have to necessarily come up
with a
you know a
crazy deep
relationship. It can be a
visually
easy to compare
and that gets you working with
one of the primary principles of design which is contrast.
Or sometimes it's referred to in Gestalt principals as the principal of similarity.
So obviously
things that are dissimilar we tend to see as different.
So how can you make things dissimilar enough so that you can see that their opposite ends
of a relationship?
So I'm going to show you a couple of examples of just drawings using these elements
um... just in their most raw forms they are not really but uh... it's not
they're not samples off the project but it gets you thinking about using the elements
of design.
And you know hopefully that'll will get you working on this when you
turn this in you're going to be turning in five
graphics and each of the graphics will be a comparison so
um... maybe there are two separate maybe their on two separate sides
of the graphic.
uh... i suppose you could turn in
ten individual graphic files but that doesn't really drive the point home as much as having
an interrelationship between the two the two items on the page.
So instead think about having two items on the same page
for each one of the relationships.
In the assignment
I might be kinda picky about
at least in the written assignment in might say something that you know
the relationship can be the same relationship over and over.
You know if come up with this great theme and you want to work with that theme I'm not opposed
to that. I really like to see you explore five different types of relationships that
you can get working with these elements of design.
That's the intent.
Ok I'm going to show you some
just some drawings of design elements from it and we will talk about that.
Okay so for this first
uh... set of elements here
uh... we're dealing obviously with the line.
and line can be all kinds of different things I've made a couple of different lines here.
The top line is a hand draw line without any assistance
and then i made one with the ruler using a pencil
and then i made one
with a pen
using a ruler. So you can see just among the first three
made it quite a different mechanical
difference on the page.
And then i made
the fourth one here is with the same pen and again that's just dragging with my hand its not
using the ruler.
And then
I've used a thicker marker
free hand and then i used the same marker
just with the ruler and then I took the marker
and put it on its its tip. Let me show you this marker here.
Kind of interesting
uh... this is just a fabrica estel.
It's a brush type of marker.
So as I draw with it I can get
a thick point in there I apologize I'm drawing with my left hand.
And I can get a thin point with the same marker.
Anyway
but the point being that
Even a line
when you say draw a line lines can have all kinds of different qualities about them.
You know then I can take that even further down here
you notice that i'm drawing a straight line again
but this one is kind of broken up. Is this now one line or is it numerous lines?
There's the Gestalt principal called continuation where your eye will
travel from one item onto the next.
And that's kind of what we're seeing here
our eye is putting this together as a of one kind of direction line even though it's
broken apart.
And then you can see here we can get curvy lines and we can get
curvy and straight lines together in one thing at some point the starts to become a
shape to right so
where it is it's cease being a line and
become a shape instead? I think that's a good question to explore
and then of course we have kind of loop de loop broken up line again down at the the bottom.
So those are some different examples of what you can do with lines and these are all horizontal
lines.
If I move it around this way
it takes on a whole different character now now that they're moving vertically or even
more if I turn them moving diagonally it has yet different quality
to it.
There's a tendency again these are non representational forms
they're not supposed to be anything except for lines.
But when we look at horizontal lines like this we tend to think of the horizon.
When you look at lines
straight up like this
they tend to take on individual qualities about them. They become kind of individual
elements.
Speed tends to be represented by diagonals. You tend to see a movement
or at least dynamic
lines can be very represented with diagonals. Sorry dynamic is hard for me to say today.
So anyway there are some lines to deal with.
So that's the first one of the illustrations you are doing a relationship between the lines.
The next relationship has to do with shapes you know we've all of been drawing this stuff forever
right so.
What I did as I just drew out couple of different shapes the first little polygon
here
is with the rector i'm sorry with the ruler and I just scraped it out and you can see actually the
lines extend beyond the edges of the shapes and now it's confusing it's not quite sure
that's line or shape that we're dealing with. So if it's a little more ambiguous uh...
it's also mechanical in the way that it's represented just different then if we
were to draw it by hand
so for instance here we have the rectangle drawn by hand and it has a different quality
and then here's a drawn by hand using just we don't have any of those edges
creeping out beyond there.
Obviously there's different kinds of shapes i just drew out rectangles triangles, circles
there's plenty of different ones to look at
and you can achieve good contrast by playing with those together.
You know we start to get into uh... tints and shades here
depending on how we color it. If the background is colored black and the circle was left
there then obviously we have a white circle but we have something more we're dealing with
negative space.
Negative space is the space around an object. Sometimes you'll notice negative
space more with uh... when when the object is inverted.
An then I just wanted to show off the different qualities you get depending
on the type of thing that makes the shape.
Notice that we have different style or different softness of lead
for this top row of shapes.
And then I used a pen and ink
cross hatch in this second row and then I used a darker carbon
for this row and then finally a used ink to fill this in.
Now we are dealing with texture aren't we what makes these different is the texture
involved in building them up but also there's we're dealing with the tint or the
shade.
Tint would be the
uh... lighter shades and uh... shade would be the darker range or tone.
I should be using the correct terminology so tones and shades are the darker ones shades are the lighter ones.
I'm going to leave color out of this. color is pretty complex
and i think that there's plenty of examples you can't have about colours but uh... i wanted
to go on and just look at texture one thing that i did when i was in school that I had an art teacher
recommend to go around and take pictures of different types of texture.
And i think when you do that they become much more aware so this is just kind of a standard
oak desk obviously and if we compare it to the ACC
newsprint schedule.
It has a different softness of about it. It obviously doesn't it has a different
way that interacts with the light.
Notice that the
polished desk has kinda this glossy highlights where
newsprint has none.
If I bring in a ruler here we get much more for the highlight obviously we're getting
a metallic highlight
in these cases.
If I bring in my sandwich baggy that I carry my pencils in
Then we get all kinds of interesting texture that's occurring because of that surface
so what texture allows you to do is look at surface and surface can i think it's under used in design
remember you can scan this stuff in or take pictures of it. Come up with all kinds of interesting
juxtapositions
of relationships just by using different types of surfaces.
Im trying to come up with a better term than that
even this cheesy ACC notebook
has kind of the fake suede thing happening.
plastic edge. All those textures
help tell the story.
If I come over and look at
here's a part of my computer. The aluminum
deals with light differently than even other metal. So here's here's the ruler
here and then we've got the aluminum right next to it might even both be aluminum but
the way that they've been surfaced its different it reacts differently
so when you're working with these project when we're working on this project
think about how you can get
on opposites to occur
what is the opposite of shiny what is the opposite of big what is the opposite of
you know
of a surface quality and and you could show that off.
So I guess I just wanted to finish with a
you know a wrap up on this and and that
thinking about those relationships with these different design elements you can really
start to exploit
how those things work together and that's that's the principles design i mean that's
those are the principles of design that you're using.
The elements
shape, tone, color
texture. Those are the building blocks and then how you get them to interact with each
other is is the glue or the principle that makes it work. So in this case again we're really
dealing with contrast being uh... big principle.
Opposite sides of continuum
if you want to get really uh...
risky with this
try to see if you can represent
um... things that are hard
to show off like how could you show different emotional states
you know could you do that with just line to scratch out one can have one line represent
happiness and another line represents
Sadness
but do it in a non representational way. Where don't draw a face that smiling face this crying
it's too easy right so
how could you, using
the different types of
instruments that we've got
you know how could you create that feel? So that's that's an extra challenge for you
and i mean you could stick with the big small that kind of stuff that gets a little dull.
Think about
taking it to the next up work how can you challenge yourself to get these
design elements to express more
subtle or or uh...
but you don't observe them
in the world that you're not in not representing numbered but the quality of the line
creates the quality of the emotional
or you know you could do things like hot and cold like i mentioned in there. What's
cold in minnesota is probably different than cold in florida well
don't draw snowflakes
how could could you do that with the line forms how could you do
wet and dry with texture?
Now obviously you can get somewhat representational there i could see where people would take
an image of something that was wet a like maybe mud
verses cracked land.
That's pretty representational could you do it with a line in a non representational and
i don't know
so that's what the assignments about. Sorry to rattle on here but i
hope I have kind of cleared that up a little bit more.
I encourage you can you could you do this by hand on the computer the
thing i like about doing it by hand is it opens up a variety of things for you to computer
this tendency for
getting the same mechanical look and feel Sometimes it's a little hard to get the
contrasts is wide as they could be
here's an idea maybe use the computer to print out one side and then on the printed page
you you draw by hand on the other and then you naturally develops some contrasts.
So anyway there's there's the assignment let me know if you have questions and otherwise
I'm looking forward to seeing some planning for it and
seeing the project.