Design Communication
Content This book talks about how the whole process goes in the project - Design communication. This project forcuses on the basic elements of design dots, lines, shapes and composition. 1. Dots 2. Lines 3. Shapes 4. Composition 5. Group Project
Dots
Week 2 - Dots Class Activity
Week 2 - Dots 1st home assignment - Arranging of dots
Research & Testing :
What I needed to do was to keep creating different kinds of dots & put each type of dots onto an 1�x 1� square. To demonstrate one of the design principles by arranging the squares in 10 rows by columns, thus holding the best 100 types by dots.
Week 2 - Dots
Moving the suares around and exploring the arrangment so that the composition falls into one of the design principles.
Week 2 - Dots
Week 2 - Dots 2nd home assignment - A3 drawing (Version 1) In fact,this drawing is not A3 size because I misunderstood the instructions. Therefore, the drawing looks incomplete. Moreover, the contrast of the drawing is not strong enough and the dots are pretty ugly.
Week 2 - Dots
Based on the comments given by my tutor, I drew another A3 drawing. Version 2 (final work)
Week 2 - Dots
The best arrangment of 100 dots - final work
Lines
Week 3 - Lines (Some notes about lines) 1.Lines can be created in many ways, addition, subtraction, folding, etc, like dots. 2.Line can be seen at the joining of two faces. 3.There are emotional lines: Ragged, curving, terror, turbulent emotions. 4.There are smooth and delicate lines, symbolic lines. Contour lines are used to define forms. 5.Parallel lines (Hatchings) and intersecting parallel lines (cross hatching) are used in modeling. 6.When lines are bent or twisted, they can also become forms. 7.Clear and simple lines are used in drawings, to render a solid figure in a fluffy dress. Lines are applied on design as pattern, texture. 8.Light beams are very effective. 9.There are lots of lines in the nature, they are around us everywhere. 10.Lines as direction and emphasis. Lines can be formed by types. Lines are used as the essential
element on some products. 11.The meanings of the yellow lines we see every day can vary from protection to safety, no loitering, caution, dividends, etc. 12.Lines create speed, directions, movements, textures, force, rhythm, gradation, noise, music, stimulation. 13.Lines can amplify. Broken lines create movement, they create dots in movements. 14.Lines have strength. Lines create textures that become pattern, and this pattern creates the repetition of a movement. 15.Lines create textures and textures become forms. 16.Thick and thin lines combined to create depth and volume. 17.Lines are everywhere. 18.Lines are used to define the atmosphere of a space.
Week 3 - Lines Expressive Line: Discover the expressiveness of line through your own drawing. Using a variety of media, tools, and techniques, draw lines and/or groups of lines that respond to the definition of the following list of words: (Try at least ten of them) • angry • jagged • fragile • bold • dynamic • heroic
Assignment 1: Prepare nine cubes which feature 54 different types of expressive lines. The begining and the ending of each side of the cube should have at least one line touching the middle of the top and the bottom edges so that it can “connect” with the line(s) on the adjacent cube.
Techniques: Contour – vary line weight within the subject and try to create an illusion of mass. Outline – The work is on the next page. use only one weight or thickness of line. Draw the subject in the style of a contemporary or historic artist or designer. Draw the subject using only vertical lines (vary the weight of line or not). Draw the subject using only triangles, circles, squares, and rectangles of one line weight.
Week 3 - Lines Cube 1
Week 3 - Lines Cube 2
Week 3 - Lines Cube 3
Week 3 - Lines Cube 4
Week 3 - Lines Cube 5
Week 3 - Lines Cube 6
Week 3 - Lines Cube 7
Week 3 - Lines Cube 8
Week 3 - Lines Cube 9
Week 3 - Lines Comments given by the tutor: 1) some of the cubes are not “connected”, so they have no relationships between them 2) too many shapes, this shows that I don’t have much understanding about “lines” & “shapes” These are actually the work of failure because they are shapes not lines. I got confused with meanings of “lines” and “shapes”.
As a result, I redrew some of the cubes, which are cube7, 8 and 9.
Week 3 - Lines
Photographic documentation on combination of cubes
Week 3 - Lines
Week 3 - Lines Extra activity: I chose the best six lines I created and put them all on one single cube.
Week 3 - Lines Some practice on lines:
Week 3 - Lines
Assignment 2: Sketching with lines: Expressive representations with lines in black and white. Produce 5 pieces of drawings in different techniques.
Week 3 - Lines
Week 3 - Lines Comments given by the tutor: Since the backgrounds of each drawing are similar, so the “expressions� of the trees are not outstanding.
Shapes
Week 4 - Shapes Assignment 1: Take twenty photographs on “Silhouettes”. They should cover all kinds of shapes.
These are the original work. But some of them don’t meant to be “shapes” (silhouettes in red circles). Be reminded when taking photos: *natural shape *geomatric shape *abstract shape *non - objective shape *organic shape
Week 4 - Shapes Presentation of assignments on “Silhouettes” & some of the others’ work:
Week 4 - Shapes Some practice on shapes:
Week 4 - Shapes Assignment 2: A3 drawing with shapes These are the work of failure: It looks like “dots” more than “shapes”. It has too many “lines”, doesn’t seem to be a drawing on shapes.
Week 4 - Shapes Final work
Comments given by the tutor: Since the brightness and contrast of the bag are not strong enough, so the drawing of bag doesn’t look real.
Composition
Week 5 - Composition 3 sets of photos needed to be taken, each contain 10 images, to describe/narrate: 1. a location 2. a simple incident (a simple story of what had happened) 3. a process of work
Presentation of assignments on ‘Composition’:
Week 5 - Composition My Work: Location Start
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Week 5 - Composition (cont in
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The End
Week 5 - Composition
My Work: How to...
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Week 5 - Composition (continued)
The End
Week 5 - Composition My Work: Event (version 1)
Week 5 - Composition
In fact, version 1 is not good because the photos don’t have “relationships” with each other, so the “story” can’t be made up. Thus, I took another series of photos.-
Week 5 - Composition My Work: Event (final version)
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Week 5 - Composition
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Week 5 - Composition Assignment 2: Using “How to...” photos to draw a story board using all dot, line, and shape elements. As I misunderstood the instructions of the assignment, I put the focus on “emotions” more than “composition”, so some of the work needed to be redrawn. Work of failure:
Week 5 - Composition
Week 5 - Composition Final work:
Week 5 - Composition
Week 5 - Composition
As the drawings’ compositions should base on the real photos, I need to have improvements on the drawings, but at least the new drawings are more “reasonable” than the original onece.
Group Project
Week 6 - Group Project The last assignment of the course was doing a group project. My group did a research on how exhibition and campaign posters use lines (one of the design elements) as part of there design.
First, I did some general research.
Then, as there are different types of lines, we grouped the lines according to repetition & perspective, radiation & symmetry, direction & movement. I did the part direction, and I found some exhibition & campaign posters using direction of lines to present the ideas.
The final PowerPoint:
Comments given by tutor: She said that in general, our presentation was okay, but we put our focus too much on what poster is and its applications. We should foucus more on how the lines interact with exhibition & campaign posters to present the ideas and the design.
Self - evaluation report When I first studied this subject, I thought it was just something about basic design principles. However, it was not as easy as I think. Since I was a Science student when I was in secondary school, I had not studied anything about Arts and Design before. Therefore at the beginning, it is a bit difficult for me to keep up with the lessons. I try to find some reference books recommended by the tutors to learn more about what design is, and to familiar myself with the topics of each week. The first topic taught is dots. In fact, that was the first time I heard about design principles and design elements. I was a bit confused because I had not learnt about design-related things before. And I have already started worrying about my studies in this course. But I think I can get through the rest of it, though I know it will be a hard time. The first assignment about dots was creating 100 dots and making the best arrangement using those dots. Finally I used “contrast”(one of the design principles) to arrange my dots, although it was not a very special arrangement of dots, I think what I did was okay. I think the problem was the A3 drawing. The last time that I produced drawings was the time when I was a F.3 student in Visual Arts lessons. It was such a long time that I did not draw. Thus, that A3 drawing produced at first was not a good piece of work, and I knew that there were a lot of mistakes in my drawing. Then, based on the comments, I try to draw another A3 drawing. Personally I think it is better than the first one. After the first week, the second week was all about lines. When I drew those 9 cubes, I found that I could not “identify” the difference between lines and shapes, maybe it was because I did not have a clear definition to define lines and shapes. So I had to redraw some of the cubes. Another assignment is the line drawings, generally I think they are okay. But since the backgrounds of the drawings are similar, it is hard to highlight the characteristics of each drawing. At week 4, the focus was changed to shapes. I needed to take about 20 photos to make silhouettes. As I did not really apply different kinds of shapes (e.g. geometric, natural, abstract, non-objective) to all the silhouettes, some of them were failed. On the A3 drawing of shapes, since I only used black, grey and white colours, the contrast was not strong enough. The next week I needed to take three series of photos to demonstrate three stories. The photos that I took were okay, but the problem was the drawings. I knew that a mood was needed to apply on those drawings, so my main focus was about how to apply the mood on those drawings, and I forgot about the compositions. That’s way I made a big mistake. I redrew some of the drawings based on the comments. For the group project, my group had some research about how lines can be applicable on exhibition and competition posters. I think the main problem is not the content. I think the content is quite good, we do find some appropriate posters to bring out the relationship between the use of lines and posters. I believe the main problem is our time management on doing the research and on doing the presentation. The time we did on research took us a lot of time, so we organized the content in a hurry, this would affect the time management on doing the presentation. Maybe that’s the reason why we ran out of time.