Week #9 Blog Exercise – Dimension/Depth/Space

http://www.flickr.com/photos/designrecipe/

Graphic Design includes the essentials of depth, scale & dimension to grab the viewer's attention and to convey a message. In this photo, we see that the text in the sand is standing at different levels. Although the words "FROM" "RUSH" & "HOUR" seems to be different scales because they are placed in various areas, I would assume they all would be relative to height if they were aligned side by side. The depth of each of the text creates the illusion of being farther and farther away from us when being closer to the horizon point. By observation, we use a combination of perceptual cues to figure out what the photo is trying to tell us. For example, there is a course of overlapping with the sand on the text, the texture gradient of the sand has depth and the atmospheric perceptive of a beach which connects to the text. We can depict what is real and what isn't in this photo because of the dimensions of the objects. Obviously, the hand holding the photo is a 3 dimensional object that is actually real whereas we see the texts as 2D objects because it only has 2 spatial areas.

Creative Designs

Week #8 Blog Exercise - Tone and Color

http://thisisastupidblog.tumblr.com/

The photo above is a great example for my interest in Graphic Design. It has an equal balance between color and tone which gives the audience an idea of perception. The bears' faces have different tones to show that light is being cast from above. The different colors on the person's neck is a good example that distinguishes light and darkness. By going from a darker Hue and adding white to that Hue, it'll become more saturated and brighter. I love the various colors being used on the bears' faces because the orange and yellow colors gives me an idea or belief that sun rays are the source of light in the photo. The importance of tonal information in this picture is grateful because it gives the audiences a story with emotion. The hues of the person's hair/beard go from yellowish-brown to dark-brown which is a process of  tonal informational as well. If we were to give a sense of direction as a graphic designer or any type of artist, we would first take a hue and add its complimentary color. For example, in the persons' shirt, we know that it is red right (or some kind of red)? So, if we wanted the audience to know where light is coming from or just give shadows to the subject, we would add green to the red. By doing this, it will desaturate and become darker. I remember doing this for my Color class last semester and it really helped me experiment with colors. In addition, I learned various ways of obtaining certain colors without having to go out to the store and buying them. Colors and Tones are important for any kind of medium because it grabs the persons attention and feelings. That's how I was drawn to this photo :)

Creative Advertising on Billboards

Week #7 Blog Exericise - Graphic Design

MOVEMENT
From the picture above, we can see that the element of Movement is present through various reasons. First, the angle of the ropes from the fingers to the seat shows that the swing is in motion. If the ropes were going straight downward, we would assume its not in motion. Another notion that this design gives us a sense of movement is the way the person's hair is. The person's hair is going in front of their face which tells us that the person is swinging back up to gain momentum. Finally, we see how the person is leaning forward which also tells us that they are going backwards. Thus, these are components of "felt axis" where a subject is either going up-down or left-right.Even though we don't have additional framework to tell us that this photo is in motion, our eyes scan the design to find areas that helps us be aware of movement which I have listed.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brentcouchman/4832655221/

SHAPES
In this design, the element of Shapes is used repeatedly. The designer has duplicated numbers amounts of bikes to form one big circle. In addition, the bikes look like its going in a circle because of the way the outside bikes are placed. In the bikes alone, we can see shapes such as triangles, circles, rhombuses, stars, lines, etc. As the design forms a circle, it seems like there isn't an end point and it keeps going and going. The style of triangles that are formed by the bike frames and tires causes tension and clutterness. Therefore, the designer's mission was to show the different shapes you can form with bikes by putting them close together. I love this design because I am a biker myself and when I look at this photo, I feel like the all the bikes form one wheel. Thus, the message from this design is "keep going and going" because it seems endless and looks like its rotating.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/alana13/tag/movies/10/

Color
In the photo above, the element of Color is shown to depicted certain phases of the subject. For example, cool and vibrant Hues are used to give the picture a certain feeling/mood of sickness or some sort of troubled state. Also, the designer used complementary colors of Blue-Green for shadows which show direction of where the light is coming from. The photo shows different areas of saturation such as the 2 phase of the person and so on. In addition, the person starts to look more dull and starts to drift towards a grayish color tone. As the subject starts to come closer to the frame, it comes darker and easier to see whereas when you see the subject in the far back, it looks more brighter and blurry. I love the colors the designer used for this picture because it gives a relaxing and calm vibe to it but from the look of the subject, I can tell it represents illness.

photoshop design

Creative design for living spaces

Week #6 Blog Exercise - Design Success and Failure in Relation to Syntactical Guidelines

Credit of photo: http://www.herecomesthefuzz.com/designvic/

I chose this design because my major/interest revolves around Visual Communications. I want to create posters, CD cover art and other graphical art for all-kinds of musicians, especially rock. The photo I chose has various Syntactical Guidelines. For example, the words being used are lyrics, song titles and descriptions of James Brown which develop a perception of him singing. We aren't entitled to know that its James Brown until we see the the infamous James Brown hair and his teeth which connects together to form a head. This design is also well-balanced because certain phrases or words illustrate his facial features, but with his head being tilted, it gives a sense of imbalance. There is stress going on with the photo where the words in the background are diagonal but it is attention-grabbing because it creates a sort of glow or aura around James Brown. The Syntactical Guidelines work well with this design because the wording is grouped precisely  and will attract users who are interested in James Brown.

Credit of photo: http://www.youthedesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/graphic-design-portfolio-chuck-anderson3.jpg

This design I chose does not work with the Syntactical Guidelines. I couldn't get the message when looking at this photo because there was a lot of things going on. For example, there are mountains, I'm not sure what the design overlapping the mountains is, the sun is not that visible on the right-hand side, there is a curve over the hills which I am guessing is a temperature gauge, etc. The design isn't balanced because there are various shapes that don't work well with others which creates a lot of stress. Also, its not leveled because I feel most of the weight is being shifted to the left side of the page which creates a more sharpening effect. The only pattern I found that are grouped is the mountains, other than that I feel the designer just started putting random objects to fill in the picture. When looking at this photo a couple of times, I developed the message of "night life adventure" because of the colors being used and how its neon which represent partying. Furthermore, this design was unclear and hard to breakdown for me.