Interactions Between the 3 Levels

Representational

In whole this exhibit design represents a human brain and its function. Certain characteristics such as its round shape helps represent a brain. Its representational brain components of the exhibition design serve as functional purposes. This design relates to the others levels, symbolic and abstract, in the same way representational forms are used to create abstract and symbolic recreations.

Abstract

This is an abstract design of a tree. Though it represents an object in our world it takes an abstract form because of the abstract functional elements such as the design elements of color and composition. This design represents a tree but changes in the design drastically change our visual idea of an actual tree. Its relation to the other levels comes from the original influence of a tree being representational and the design ultimately being symbolic in the end.

Symbolic

This symbol denotes transportation and bus stops on maps. Its simple design makes it easy to understand and decipher its meaning. Relating to the other levels, this symbol representational value is perceived with our perception of actual busses and the abstract value is similar. It takes a simpler less realistic interpretation of a bus making it abstract.

Week 14 Application Exercise

This design for a salt and pepper shaker uses representational cloud forms. The design makes putting salt and pepper on your food a bit more interesting. The salt and pepper being squeezed out represents clouds emitting rain. This rubber shaker directly correlates to the actions of an actual cloud making the design representational. To ensure a clear understanding of this design these cloud salt shakers by Anderson Horta are actually rubber. To avoid beating the salt shaker when it gets clogged you are actually able to squeeze the salt or pepper out.

This is an abstract representation of a house. My conclusion derives from the actual shape and characteristics of the house. My visual perception of a house is compromised by this structure because of its design looking more like a compound for sciences or some facility. This example falls under the category of concept-based abstraction. It satisfies the concept of a house but takes a shape like no other. Similar to this concept house is the subject of concept cars. Concepts are meant to be advanced, abstract and out of this world.

This is a symbol that is internationally known. The handicap symbol signifies access or privileges granted to those who qualify as being handicap. The symbol denotes a persons inability to walk without aid. Similar to its meaning, the design shows a person in a chair. The design is very simple but very successful because of its relation to injury. Injury is so often related to wheel chairs making this design successful and easily understood around the world.

Visual Techniques

- Contrast
- Unity
- Balance
- Flatness
- Simplicity
- Transparency
- Stasis

- Transparency
- Instability
- Variation
- Stasis
- Variation
- Intricacy

                       Both posters show an assortment of similar and different visual techniques. For instance both  posters effectively use transparency as a visual technique. As you can see, in both designs, objects are being placed on top of each other using transparency. Another visual technique seen in both designs is stasis. The activity of the design is expressed through this technique. For example both designs show no real motion giving the viewer a different understanding as opposed to a design which presents movement or energy. On another note both designs are composed of many differences. Unlike the second poster design, balance is well composed in the first example. The "Show and Tell" poster stays away from balance by re-arranging the letters in a large variation of positions, providing an absence of balance. The first poster does the opposite by positioning the letters in the center and on top of each other. Another difference between the two posters is variation. The first design lacks variation while the second poster expresses a large amount of variation with changes in font, color, and positioning. This variation also highlights the greater amount of intricacy in the second poster. Last but not least the first poster exemplifies simplicity  on a greater level than the second poster design. By having a very simple order and a small amount of elemental units, it refrains from the characteristics of complexity.

Week 11 Contrast

This illustration is a great example of contrast. It successfully uses contrast in color and line to highlight the coke bottle and the top half of the man. Using color to create this high contrast, the coke bottle and the top half of the man really stand out. This contrast communicates to the viewer. It takes away confusion and causes the viewer to focus on the coke bottle or the aspects that are colored in. The context also makes the colors of the bottle and top of the man stand out. A lighter background color could of been used to enhance this effect but it then would of enhanced the lines of the portion not colored in a little too much, taking away from the focus of the man and his coke bottle.

This is an excellent example of bad contrast. First of all the contrast is to minimal. The color contrast used makes it hard to read the text. Obviously someone wasn't very cautious when they chose the colors in this design. The color contrast only makes this design unattractive and unsuccessful rather than visually easier to understand or read.  Also the context in this design harms the success of the design making some colors look lighter showing less contrast.

Implied Motion

This image communicates the idea of implied motion in design very well. The motion is not actually shown but suggested through the characteristics of the font design. The type is stretched and folded to illuminate a certain idea through motion. In this case, the squeezing, stretching, and folding of the letters, emphasize the necessity of big spaces for big ideas. Also certain characteristics in this poster such as variation in scale and tone suggest movement. Besides the type, the grey box in the background also helps emphasize the motion. The letters look like they are being squeezed out of the grey box, again emphasizing the point that, "big ideas need big spaces".

This image incorporates a lot of implied motion. The colored lines and other objects such as the elephant, bicycle, and deer emphasize motion. For example the elephant looks like it is moving because of its stance. It is a perfect example of expectation in implied motion. Based on prior experience in the world, we can interpret how an elephant looks when it is moving. The deer also shows movement with the help of the streamline of colors and its stance which makes it look like it is walking. Another element that shows implied motion is the direction of the stars and line. They imply a shooting movement because there direction going upwards.

Dimension/Depth/Space/Scale

         This is a very interesting and unique design. If you cant tell, the wall in the center of the image is actually wallpaper. The wallpaper sets up an illusion which when applied to a wall will make a room look larger. The designer used relative size, linear perspective, and depth cues to achieve the effectiveness of the wallpaper. As you can tell the objects closest in the image appear to be larger than those in the further background. By changing the size of the objects in the wallpaper the designer successfully makes the room look larger because objects closer in distance look relatively larger. Another way the designer enhances the distance of the room is by using linear perspective. He or she makes the lines of the room converge as they reach a farther point. A larger convergence indicates a greater distance.

Tone and Color

         In this particular design for the word "speak" there is a lot of tonal information in the crowd of people. The picture contains a lot of absolute black that shows dimension. The tonal range gives depth to objects such as all the top hats.
        The tone in this design works well with color. The black and white tonal range of the picture works to enhance the boldness or emphasis of the word "speak" with the combination of the color red. The use of color highlights the main feature of the design.
        The color, because it is the only bright color in the design, is used to bring attention to the writing. The context effects the relationship of tone and the font color because of the contrast shared between  the colors black, white, and red. Similar to the concept of where an image context's effects tone in relation to type design.
        Color also interacts with the element of shape. The grid of squares centralizes the type and also fuses the picture with the type in a way.

Graphic Design

       The basic element I want to highlight here is scale. Scale here is used to express increase in exports. The size of the arrows correlate with the the percentages. The number 2,126 is the largest number thus having the largest arrow. As described by Dondis, scale is used as a visual measuring tool. The scale helps the viewer distinguish where the largest amount of exports is going in relation to this image. This also highlights the reference of juxtaposition. The large arrow is next to two other arrows, showing contrast.

        This poster highlights tone. One reason tone was used here was to give off a sense of horror. Both faces are also drawn using tone to build on lines but mainly to highlight a mood. Tone was also used to communicate depth as the face in grey scale is in front of the portrait of the devil.

        In this image I wanted to point out the use of color. The use of color is used to correlate the "return" of a depression that the United States once lived. They make the man holding the sign in black & white to emphasize the depression that occurred in the 1930's. Color is dependent on the context and that is why the designer intelligently made the human figure black & white. The books title, "The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008", uses black & white to relate and highlight similarities that a depression in the 1930's has with a new more recent Depression in 2008. 

Design Success and Failure in Relation to Syntactical Guidelines

           I chose this poster because of my interest in graphic and clothing design. I absolutely love this particular example of graphic design because of its simplicity, use of different fonts, shapes, and the balance the poster portrays. Its horizontal balance is emphasized well with the use of lines and shapes. For example the words in the center, "with the", are beside three circles on either side for balance. Also on each side both center circles are filled in. I also like how the poster stresses the word "chaos" by making the letters a lot bolder and even a little larger. The font is constructed in a vertical manner like that of the idea of the personal vertical and the human relation. I say this because of the top to bottom visual reading that occurs when looking at the poster.

          I chose this piece because of my interest in clothing design. This is a fall 2010 lookbook cover for a street wear clothing company named 10.Deep. I enjoy its simplicity but I wasn't to happy with the picture that they chose for the background. First of all the image of an upside down stairwell throws off the balance the lettering/description gave. It fails to essentially provide a horizontal or vertical construction. Second of all the image they chose also takes attention away from the real focus of the cover which is to describe what the book is. Upon first glance I focused on the upside down stairwell by actually turning my head sideways and not on the actual lettering or description of the book. Lastly, the picture is to random, it fails to put its finger on any target group or consumer. The image holds no importance.

Visual vs Symbolic Language

- look of discontent

- hard times

- financially unstable

- financial problems

- consequences

- facial expressions

- reality

- long line

- struggle

- no jobs

- exhausted

- hopeless

- rainy weather

                  The image reflects the problems of the economy. Up front you see a gentlemen with a nice suit on but with a face that resembles the hard times of the period. His facial expression is a look of struggle and discontent with the position he is in. There's a very long line of people that exemplify the reality of the unemployment problem. The guy closest to the viewer in the picture also looks like he is taking a deep breath, a deep breath in response to his situation and the exhaustion that it has caused him. 

Visual Thinking Research

This first puzzle I chose looked simple but was actually very hard. It took me a while to find all 21 squares. For mostly all the squares I used the technique of pattern completion. In a sense this wasn't a pattern but I looked at it as if it was and connected 4 dots to complete a square. I was essentially filling in an incomplete pattern. Another interesting way I came to the correct answer was by the technique of inverse drawing. As I started to draw/find larger squares I realized that these could be duplicated by just drawing the reverse of the one I just found. 

The goal in this puzzle was to identify which illustration consists of a single piece of rope that has its ends joined just by using your eyes. One of them consists of 2 separate pieces as you can see while the other is just one single piece. To be completely honest this puzzle took me a while. You would think any person could do it in a second but even after I figured it out I used a pencil to make sure that I was right. Every time I would visually follow the rope my eyes would be somewhere else by the time I got to the center. I did eventually get it. Like the pulley example McKim used, I visually followed the rope for a reasonable amount of time till I came to my conclusion. I even felt some kinesthetic energy and caught myself moving my finger to the lines of the rope in which my eyes were following.

This was the attempt my roommate had at the first puzzle. He obviously could only find 9 of the 21 squares. I don't think puzzle solving is his forte but after I showed him mine he thought that you couldn't form a square of a different size then those he did in the image above. He informed me that he simply just took his pencil and essentially just connected the dots similar to pattern completion.

My roommate actually wrote his explanation on the paper. He attempted to do it visually but failed to solve it and then took the easy way out by just tracing the rope with his pencil.

Feature Hierarchy and Visual Search

          This is a screen shot of "Supremes" online shop. Supreme is a huge street wear clothing company that has now been around for over sixteen years. Supreme is my favorite clothing company for many reasons and has never let me down every year as they introduce there new lines. Supreme is well known as being the top street wear clothing company in the industry and has came to be very influential in my design work and in my desire to create a clothing company. There whole website is based off of simplicity similar to the clothes they manufacture. The use of color in this screen shot highlights the Supreme logo and makes it the first thing I acknowledged on the page, known as a color feature channel. This feature led my visual search then towards the assortment of skinny glimpses of the products they are selling. What I found to be very smart was the use of these small glimpses at the clothes because it makes you click on more of the items. When you click on one of the images it will take you to a new page where you can see the product in a larger scale. Basically the small pictures on this beginning page makes the customer view more products because of curiosity which will ultimately lead to more products being sold. The feature hierarchies in this image basically only apply to the red logo at the top which stands out so much because of the sites white background and then the assortment of small skinny pictures of the clothes. I say this because the rest of the page is so simple, even the text they use below the scroll bar. This ultimately was a great decision in design because it allows the viewer to focus on just the clothes. Overall this page uses one of the most or most powerful feature channel of color to attract the viewer to certain aspects of the page such as the clothes and logo in this example, ultimately setting up a visual pathway to the main focus of the page, the clothes.

Screen shot from: http://www.supremenewyork.com/

Top-Down Visual Processing

            When in need for an image to describe top-down visual processing, I thought it would be very helpful to use an image that demands completion. Ware describes the top-down process as being "driven by the need to accomplish some goal"(P.12, Visual Queries) and with this image my eyes move around in the order of my action plans that need to be achieved. Every look I take, if I was in the process of making the actual burger, is goal oriented. For example, if the ground beef was cooked I would immediately grab the cheese but also look for the buns ahead of time in order to be ready to place them into the toaster. When we talk about eye movement, mine would consist of focusing on the products that need to be attended to first. Some may have different eye movements because of different goals. Ware describes this as being, "goal-directed eye movements"(P.32, Week 2 lecture, Ware,Visual Queries).

Works Cited

1.Ware, Colin. "Top-Down." Visual Queries. Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann, 2008. Print.