5 Core Concepts

Here I have explored the five concepts in design which are at the core of my own personal design practice. Within my work I use these concepts and experiences to feed into my development and final piece.

When condensing everything that inspires me into five key points it made me reflect on my own personal creative journey and what parts of my design approach is most successful. This way of breaking down my work has allowed me to discover for myself what type of designer I am.

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Negative Space I find negative space in design generates images in which the viewer has to unravel like a puzzle and read deeper into like a good story. The viewer first sees the foreground of the image containing the most important information but as they look closer, forms, shapes and new information emerge to the surface from the negative space forming a natural and exploratory hierarchy of information.

I also love how broad negative spaces scope can be being used within images, layout design, typography and illustrations like that of Noma Bar’s beautiful imagery of interconnected shapes where the form of the positive space also captures an image in the negative space.

A good example of negative space in type is the font ‘Rig Shaded Bold Extrude’ which I have used for the heading of this page. I like how the areas of black appear behind the type captured in the negative space giving the illusion of a shadow being cast as if the letterforms had been cut from the page with a craft knife and lifted from the page like a hinge to cast the shadows. It is this varied, considered and elegant use of negative space which attracts me.

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Silhouette Silhouettes are beautiful to me as the present the subject or object in its purist most simplistic form removing all distractions of texture allowing the viewer to see in greater depth it’s form. As a designer working with silhouettes you have the creative liberty of deciding what elements of the form you will keep in the positive space of the silhouette and what details to remove moving those areas into the negative space of the image. This controlled depth in imagery reminds me of layered paper when I see silhouettes as it is as if you are looking through a hole cut with a craft knife revealing whats behind the image.

One designer who specialises his practice on the three dimensional depth created from layered silhouettes is Eiko Ojala and his digital illustrations of layered silhouettes that he carefully adds highlights and shadows to in order to give his designs the appearance of layered paper beautifully cut out and placed on top of each other. Silhouettes are also a large part of Olly Moss’ design work where he uses layers of colour shades as silhouettes to give his illustrated imagery great depth using block colours as well as dynamic lighting giving a strong sense of distance in his work.

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Nature Walks I find walking through nature both calming and inspiring as it allows you to have time in peace on your own free from technology which bombards modern culture surrounding us everywhere we look. It is this momentary escape from technology that allows me to appreciate the beauty in the colours and forms of natural objects.

I am particularly interested in the wide range of shapes, colours and patterns which can be seen within skylines. Depending on the weather, time of day and season the sky could be a swirl of vivid oranges and yellows, capture the purples and navy blues of the galaxy beyond or be a blank endless slate of white and grey. I enjoy finding ways of using these vivid colour schemes within my designs.

Another inspiring aspect of nature is bodies of water and how they reflect a distorted version of reality within them. This naturally occurring filter on the world is fascinating to me with its endless possible appearances.

My favorite season is Autumn as I can see the changing colours of leaves paving all the ground as skeletons of trees rise.

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Texture Exploration of materials is a large part of my creative process. I enjoy working with a variety of materials as they all have different texture and feels to them when you hold them. I especially love the varying textures of different paper and card and how the choice of paper can completely change the designs context and appearance giving it new meaning.

I also am fascinated with how you can apply finishes to different paper to create areas of varying texture such as embossing and debossing paper to generate three dimensional shape emerging from the surface of the page. Spot varnishing and foil blocking can also be used to enhance specific areas of a design.

With paper I also enjoy using tools such as a craft knife and cutting out shapes with a laser cutter to take away from the page allowing me to create depth within my designs as I can use layers to make 3D graphical objects.

With these created 3D forms I also enjoy exploring shadows cast from objects and the textures that can be seen through these shadows as they can be hard edge and defined or soft and delicate.

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Colour Colour in design is extremely important to me, I enjoy using both natural colours seen in untreated cardboard, leaves and the sky alongside colours that have a strong contrast in my work. I find that limiting my own colour pallet to a handful of colours greatly helps me communicate better as I find a wide range of colour within a piece of design can often confuse the meaning of the design if not executed properly forming distractions on the page.

To create greater depth on the page exploring the use of analogous colours is helpful as colours next to each other on the colour wheel used together gives an impression of a scale such as darker shades of blue being used to represent deep water while light blues mean shallow water on maps generating a hierarchy and meaning to variation in tones.

This Idea of colour creating meaning is demonstrated beautifully within information design and infographics like those seen in David McCandless’ book ‘Information Is Beautiful’ where in many of his designs, colour is effectively used in the communication of information to the viewer to differentiate visually the data that he presents to the viewer.