Composition

On my 5th week of Principles of Design we were taught about Composition.

Here's what we've learnt :)
Oh before class today, we had to pre-prepare a 12x9inch mounting board with a 8x5inch cut-in frame. I kinda expected that composition/grids will be taught that day hehe.

Composition is the process of placing, arranging, rearranging text and graphics on a plane. A good composition is not only pleasing to the eye, but also effectively conveys the message to the target audience(s).

1. Format

• The 1st step in design for page layout is choosing your format (eg. portrait, landscape, square, circular etc)

2. Layout

• Symmetrical & Asymmetrical.

3. Grid

• Grid offers guides for graphic elements to line-up vertically, horizontally or diagonally while still considering the basic rules of composition because our eyes and brains crave a certain amount of order and consistency.

4. Rule of Thirds

• Breaking the board up into thirds and placing elements along upper lines and at the intersections.
• Do avoid discomfort tangent.

5. White Space

• Just as important as the text and graphics on the page in the empty space, giving it visual breathing space and emphasis.

The 3 Phases of Designing:

1. Research
2. Development
3. Finalize

Research

Basic guidelines:

1. Research subject and client

2. Resource look and examples

3. Demographic and scope

4. What media will comp exist?

5. Others: Paper, binding, color, format and size.

Development
Primarily consists of finding and making variations (be it in your choice of format , color, layout, theme, font, typography etc)

"Do not rely on your fist conceptual idea all the way throughout your design process. Always work on at least 3 completely different ideas for a project."

Basic Guidelines:
1. Which visual elements and principles of design are going to be utilized.
2. Variations of a concept are as important as the concept itself.
3. Traditional forms of hand drawn art.

Finalize
Basic Guidelines:
1. Final craftsmanship
2. Digital software
3. Resolution
4. Color modes (CMYK-RGB)
5. Post production control

After the show of slides, we were assigned to 

select a subject matter of each of our liking (eg. door, window, bottle, cup, bin, food etc) and spend the next 1 hour going around campus capturing as many photos of each of our subject matter. We needed to hold or stick the frame in every shot as the 'view finder', using it to compose / crop our shots. Return to class, go through taken shots and narrow them to 20.

So, off I went around campus. But before taking pictures, I couldn't decide which subject matter I should choose. I then randomly took photos hoping to be inspired enough to pick a subject. Well, I did of course. I chose logos! Well not exactly logos, I took pictures of brands and signs too. So what do you call it? Public signs? Well, with a lot of shoplots around Broadwalk, logos/brands would be a good option.
Therefore... here are the selected 20 photos!

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20!

After returning to class, another assignment was given. It was more to a continuous of what we've done, capturing 20 photos with the Rules of Thirds applied. This time, we needed to take 30 shots outside campus. So that'll be a total of 50 photos. 50 photos will then be collected to create a short movie clip. A nice title shall be given to the movie clip. Besides, we may be creative and add subtitles/narration/make a story out of these photos. Lastly, we needa present our movie clip in class next week by bringing them in a thumbdrive and transferring it to Ms Lisa's laptop so the whole class can view together. :)

Principles and Elements

Look at the pictures I've found. They are related some principles and elements of design (:

Align

Contrast

Pattern

Proximity

Closure

Lines

Convergence

Similarity

Similarity

Similarity

Dynamic

Assignment 1 - Self Portrait

Greetings!
Had my 1st class of Principles of Design and we got introduced to some elements of design, visual aesthetics and art movements that we never knew. Besides, after the introduction to principles of design, my lecturer, Ms Lisa, gave us an in-class activity, our 1st assignment - Self Portrait.

Students had to design a self portrait based on an art movement that best represents us.

• The requirements are: A3 size (Minimum)
• Use elements from nature (it wasn't stated "ONLY" hehe)
• Use "trash" or free things
• Use COLLAGE / DRAWING / TRACING / GLUING etc as methods (Minimum of 2 methods) Methods I used: Drawing and Collage (which already requires gluing)
• Return in 1 hour 15 minutes to present in class - Ask and answer all questions for your presentation

ASSIGNMENT:

• Finish up self portrait and photograph it.

• 200 word essay based on artwork and class presentation is needed to be written in the blog

• Upload self portrait photo to blog and link blog to the main blog

About my artwork, self portrait, it is something that represents me. Firstly, I'd like to talk about the methods and steps of making this Self Portrait of mine. This representation is presented using 2 A4 sizes of yellow notes paper combined, that make an A3 size, (actually torn them from my A4 notebook since we were encouraged to use materials that are free of charge), drawing with all kinds of art medias such as sky-blue paint marker, red ink pen, pencil and sharpies. For the 2nd method, it'll be collage. Gluing is required in collage therefore, I bought a Harper Bazaar's magazine to cut out pictures inside then glue them according to the flow of aestheticism. I wouldn't say the purpose of buying the mag was completely for this task, I do collage too during my free time and also, I make full use of magazines by cutting pictures, pasting them in other future assignments as well. As far as collage was mentioned, elements of nature definitely cannot be excluded from free things therefore, as you can see, fresh green leaves are cut and glued to meet the requirements.

Before pasting the cutout pictures, I filled the yellow lined paper with blue paint marker, making a more interesting background, also complementing the yellow. After that, my next grab will be the pencil, drawing part of a face being splashed by a quality filled Taylor's bucket. Yes, Taylor's. Because I'm enrolled to this prestigious university that has all to create a successful me with a design related career. Below the bucket, you can see a figure gripping a pen. The reason, I'm interested in learning more of Figure Drawing. All these mentioned are drawn onto a white page of my journal.. After cutting out from the page, I pasted it on the top right of the paper. I then drew a row of bind 'connecting' the torn-out white paper, using a black sharpie.So it'll look like a book, means there are more than just the goodness of the front page.

Furthermore, as  you can see the leaves are being cut and pasted this way. The pictures that I pasted are the things that I'm interested in such as, dancing, music, art, landscape photography.

I do like flowers, colors, traveling, fashion, scenery as well. The other decorations and patterns are aesthetic purposes, especially the leaves, it makes this self portrait have a very environmental friendly feel. My presentation went well, I didn't receive many questions though. I enjoyed doing this assignment and this will be a good start for Principles of Design.
The whole artwork looks like this:

Thanks for reading, have a nice day.
-Jean