P2. Form and Composition
Introduction
For this project, the main task is to be able to portray sets of word pairs only using squares. With this, we should carefully explore how the placement and size of squares in relation to each other can convey particular words, keeping Gestalt’s principles and design principles in mind as we sketch our thumbnails. Gestalt’s principles include similarity, continuation, closure, proximity, figure ground, and symmetry, and design principles include balance, emphasis, rhythm, contrast, and unity.
Part 1. Sketching thumbnails (2/6)
Playful/Serious
In sketch 1 for the “serious” concept, I used the idea of identical stacks of squares positioned symmetrically across the center of the thumbnail. I felt this evoked a sense of order and seriousness with how organized they looked, as well as their adequate proximity to each other. Generally, the thumbnail sketches for “serious” had negative space forming neat shapes, as well as symmetric placement of squares. Contrastingly, the “playful” sketches had more irregular shapes of negative space, as well as varying proximities of each square to its neighbors. Overall, I wanted to show the difference in the sense of order with these sketches.
Noisy/Quiet
In my sketches portraying “noisy”, I drew the squares in sketches 1 and 2 very close to each other, since this proximity created a “bunched group” concept. The concept of a large group of squares with varying sizes created a overwhelming feeling, which I felt evoked similar emotions to a noisy crowd. I think that using a larger number of squares and varying their proximities to each other generally portrays a noisy feeling, with the opposite bring true for “quiet.” In my ideas for “quiet”, I wanted to take advantage of the negative space, making sure it was very open and blank. This creates an empty vibe, similar to what I picture silence to feel like. In the fourth sketch, the contrast between the single square and large pile of squares was created using varying proximity.
Dangerous/Safe
With my ideas for the “dangerous” thumbnails, I wanted to portray the squares falling or toppling over in some way. In the second sketch, I varied the similarity of square sizes to create an overall sense of imbalance. The differences in the placement and angles of these squares made very harsh shapes seen in the negative space (ie. jagged lines, sharp spikes).
For “safe”, I wanted to show a sense of security, making stable “towers” that showed balance and emphasized protection. I liked using dissimilar square sizes and placing them close to each other, showing the smaller square being protected by the larger square. Overall, these sketches showed balance and stability.
Creating these sketches was really fun in exercising the different ideas I had for representing each of the words. When coming up with my sketches, I tried to think about things and activities that evoked these words (ie. falling for “danger”, bouncy for “playful”, etc.), or how I would feel upon seeing each of the thumbnails. For the next step of this project, I will be receiving critiques from Ji and Anna and refining my work from there.
Part 2. Digital Iterations (2/10)
For the second part of the project, I picked the 4 thumbnails that I thought had the most potential to be developed and moved them into Adobe Illustrator. The word pairs I chose were dangerous/safe and noisy/quiet. Notes from my critiques with Anna and Ji are seen below.
When getting feedback from Ji, she pointed out the balance of negative space in each of my compositions, making sure that the figures I created were as effective as they could be. When making my digital iterations, I applied this to my “noisy” composition, since the negative spaces created at the edge of the composition had unwanted irregular shapes and patterns.
My initial idea with the “noisy” thumbnail was to vary the square sizes to create a dynamic feel, as well as portray the feeling of being surrounded by noise. After meeting with Anna and Ji, a really thoughtful critique was to create more of a rounded “C” shape in order to accentuate this idea. The addition of smaller squares near the left corner would also draw less unwanted attention to the much larger square in the bottom corner.
For the “quiet” thumbnail, I decided to keep the concept of separation when creating it digitally, but I decided to make the square sizes smaller for emphasis on a minimalist feel.
I also chose to include color in this pair. I picked a dark shade of blue to represent “quiet”, adding a sense of both serenity and calmness even amongst the “noisy” concept.
The second pair I picked was dangerous/safe. From my critique with Ji, I really liked sense of motion from the falling block that she pointed out, as I felt this mainly contributed to the feeling of danger. I chose to keep this in my digital iteration.
To emphasize the feeling of safety, I slightly adjusted the sizes of the squares, making the difference in their sizes more drastic. For this piece, I was inspired by a feeling of protection, with the smaller square placed up against the large square for comfort and safety.
For my figure/ground composition, I came up with a couple sketches, although it was hard for me to create something at first. For the first one, I started with a chessboard pattern and applied Gestalt’s principle of closure to the smaller squares within the white spaces. The figure of black squares complements the ground image of 4-way arrows. I also tried a railroad-inspired design with the second sketch, but wasn’t really leaning towards it. I felt more strongly towards the third sketch, where I tessellated both upright and tilted squares, where the ground space formed arrows. I changed the design slightly though when creating my digital iteration.
I further developed and tweaked the third sketch when creating it in Adobe Illustrator, which you can see down below.
Overall, I really enjoyed experimenting with my digital iterations in Adobe Illustrator. I thought it was a lot easier to make thumbnails neater, and this made Gestalt’s principles stand out even more. I’ll be further tweaking my digital iterations based on the next 1:1 critique I have coming up.
Part 3. More Digital Iterations (2/16)
I met with Anna for another 1:1 critique on my digital iterations. This was the final 1:1 critique before submitting the final project.
For the “noisy” composition, Anna’s main critique was making sure that the forms of the squares weren’t lost when overlapping or spilling over the edge. I also altered the continuity of the trail of squares by adding a square spilling over the edge on the upper right, since the openness of the ends of the circular path were off-putting. I also made a couple changes to where color was added — I removed the black outline on the center square, and I added blue shades to a couple squares in the outer ring, since having all black squares in the outer ring didn’t come across as “noisy.” Specifically, I tried to incorporate color into squares of varying sizes, since I thought this created a more spontaneous, noisy feeling.
After making these alterations, this is how the final noisy/quiet composition turned out:
In my “dangerous” composition, the main critique was again to maintain the square form since the rightmost block appeared to be more rectangular. I accidentally also made the falling square rectangular when creating it in Adobe Illustrator, so I fixed it by making sure it was a square.
To make my “safe” composition more interesting, Anna suggested that I experiment with asymmetric placement. After testing out a couple placements, I decided to shift the squares to the right and applied the rule of thirds, aligning it on the right-third of the frame.
This is how the final dangerous/safe composition came out:
For my figure/ground composition, Anna pointed out how the squares falling off the edge of the composition formed triangular and rectangular shapes. This problem also arose since my composition was off-center, creating the rectangles on the left side. To fix this, I decided to make the squares smaller in order for the overall pattern to be more visible — the columns of squares as the figure, and arrows as the ground. I think this alteration made the composition a lot more desirable to look at and resulted in more evenly spaced figures.
Reflection (2/17)
Going into the group critique, I was a bit scared because I was self-conscious about my designs and didn’t know what comments to expect from everyone. But after it was over, I really enjoyed hearing about other people’s designs, as well as their thoughts on my final compositions. I loved the idea of the post-it notes with comments about what they enjoyed vs. could be improved, and I’ll definitely keep these in mind for future designs. The group critique was a great way for everyone to showcase their ideas and designs, and I really enjoyed it!
Overall, while this project was challenging, it really stretched the boundaries of what I thought I would be able to produce. Exercising my breadth of knowledge when creating sketches for each of the word was really challenging for me, but it was fun to experiment with different square sizes and angles to convey each word pair. Bring my sketches to life with Adobe Illustrator was also really fun, and I loved learning how to use the software. I’m looking forward to future projects!
