Katie Smith // 520237 // Graphic Design 1:Core Concepts // Part 3: visual language // abstract cities exercise
Key words from brief: - abstract - blocks of colour - series
Historical context of travel guides:
“Orange has a loyal following; in colour terms it evokes feelings of sociability, sharing and encouraging togetherness with a unique, extra special identity and happiness vibe going on.” McLeod, J. (2016) Colour Psychology Today. John Hunt Publishing: Southampton.
“To the human eye, orange is a very hot color, so it gives the sensation of heat. Nevertheless, orange is not as aggressive as red. Orange increases oxygen supply to the brain, produces an invigorating effect, and stimulates mental activity. It is highly accepted among young people. As a citrus color, orange is associated with healthy food and stimulates appetite. Orange is the color of fall and harvest. In heraldry, orange is symbolic of strength and endurance.” http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/colormeaning.html
Tour books have served many purposes since the concept was developed. However, they did have their pitfalls. Homer failed to identify exactly where he was describing. Herodotus would write about places he hadn’t visited for people that also wouldn’t visit these places.
Key characteristics of Travel Guides: - Use of orange, why? Initial research shows that orange promotes activity and you have the link to hot weather with this colour. EasyJet use it for the main marketing colour which works successfully, but still why? - The images used are very picturesque and selected to advertise the place. The images also help to identify it it’s a place that you initially want to visit. - Minimal text, mainly just the city name and company name. - Rectangles are the main shape - no circles. Everything that highlights the text or features an accent colour is a square or rectangle. Why? The harsh, affirmed lines suggest a strong, factual link to the books, it makes the contents more trusted. - Sans Serif fonts to further enforce the trustworthy nature of the information. - If fonts are paired together it is generally an upper and lower case version of the same font.
Some of the descriptions were incredibly inaccurate as authors would use other’s writings as their source instead of visiting where they were writing about. This fuelled stereotypes that had maybe only been observed by one author. During the years that followed the 16th Century, as travel was more widely accessible, the quality of travel guides improved to portray a more accurate version of other countries. The earliest sign of the guidebook as we now know it was written by Mariana Starke who took a bit of a different approach. Her books looked at not just the destination but what you needed to get there in the first place like what luggage and how to get a passport. A ratings system was even put into place. We now have guides specific for every country, city, budget or style of holiday, whether you want long scenic walks or to find the best food on offer.
Interesting to point out that although orange seemed to work really well in terms of the colour and logo, why did it change to such different colour combinations when Orange became EE? What works better about these two colours?
- Contrast is not used to create a focal point, the focal point created is minimal and it is about emphasising the title of the place.
Katie Smith // 520237 // Graphic Design 1:Core Concepts // Part 3: visual language // abstract cities exercise
Madrid
Initial Book Cover Designs
Katie Smith // 520237 // Graphic Design 1:Core Concepts // Part 3: visual language // abstract cities exercise
learning points from initial designs I OVERCOMPLICATE EVERYTHING! - I’m starting to learn how I do overcomplicate things and what needs to be adapted in order to simplify this. Block colours have proved a successful way of reducing down the visual noise. - The focus of a book is to look at readability and with these covers, it needs to sell the place. Using picturesque photos before helped for other covers but how can I mirror this with abstraction? - Depth can be created through the scale and perspective applied to the colours as well as the blending modes selected. But abstractions main aim is to not create depth. - Previously I viewed abstraction as a method that distorted the graphics to a point beyond reality. After further research, it’s clear that abstraction doesn’t have to go this far, it needs to be disconnected from reality but not as far as I take it.
Visual language
The purpose of these designs are obviously very different to designing a book cover which means the visual language techniques used are very different. The posters by Lundberg are supposed to capture the essence of the city, which it does by using a recognisable landmark and then bold colours to capture the vibrancy. The books, as emphasised by my research, need to simply communicate which city this is about and use graphics that encourage someone to visit the city.
Techniques used by artists
The techniques seen above helped to move me towards a more readable version of abstraction in order to fulfil the brief. Nicholson uses a very muted palette whilst accenting areas with small red squares and rectangles. This piece has no connection to reality and instead, as an audience we are encouraged to build up our own perception of the original image through the ways in which the blocks of colour interact with each other and the red accent. Galpin’s work is slightly different in terms of there is a much clearer connection to his original image. The shapes are arranged in such a way that depth is created. Not only do the shapes help with this but also the tonal changes as your eye works around the frame. All of this is once again flattened by Horvath who uses even fewer tones than Nicholson but this time there is more variation within the structures created. This shifts our focus on to appreciate the changes in movement, much like Lundberg’s work as there is a combination of movement and colour within his pieces in order to characterise each city.
Katie Smith // 520237 // Graphic Design 1:Core Concepts // Part 3: visual language // abstract cities exercise
Tutor’s Comments:
You were asked to create a series of ten designs for city guidebooks in which you balance blocks of subordinate, dominant and accented colours. At times you push the boundaries of the brief, but I don’t mind that because you are experimenting much more and testing things out. You have produced some interesting designs often they are pictoral rather that abstract. Reflect on your use of blocks of subordinate, dominant and accent colours. Try removing the lines and work with just the blocks of colour.
My reflection from this:
Looking back on my designs after a period of time and after reading my tutor’s comments, I completely agree that these no longer have the abstract nature that was asked for in the brief. At first my designs were very abstract and I tried to make them a little more understandable however, I have now gone too far off the spectrum of abstraction. I think the white outlines do need reconsidering and perhaps experimenting with the left over structure could provide some successful results. The tones will remain the same but maybe the orientation could be changed on the cover.
Defining Abstract Art and Abstraction:
The Tate’s website defines abstract art as ‘art that does not attempt to represent an accurate depiction of a visual reality but instead use shapes, colours, forms and gestural marks to achieve its effect’. Therefore, it could be said that the brief is expecting shapes, colours and forms that represent each city. The history of the travel guide however, suggests that instead the front cover needs to highlight the city in it’s best light. It needs to be the first selling point of visiting the city. Although buying the travel guide hints that the reader will already be visiting, the images and contents are there to excite its reader about what they are set to experience.
Hodgkin, R. (1984-9) Rain
Louis, M. (1961) Alpha-Phi
Wadsworth, E. (1913) Landscape
Katie Smith // 520237 // Graphic Design 1:Core Concepts // Part 3: visual language // abstract cities exercise
Evaluation: This module was a real turning point for my thinking. I knew from the start that I had a tendancy to overcomplicate everything and it wasn’t until this exercise that I really noticed how much visual noise I add to the graphics. Being able to compare this to my research, with a more direct eye on the individual components, made me realise that the readability of the graphics is an important part of this exercise and in no way could my original designs be understood or connected to each city. Although my original submissions to my tutor perhaps over simplified the designs, it was good to revisit this exercise after I had completed everything else. It made me consider abstracting the designs further, but not to the point my original experiments had taken me. For some this may seem like a small thing, but for me, it was a huge visual skill to have learnt. I was able to start identifying a different creative voice that I have seen emerge. This voice uses a more refined, yet still bold and abstracted style, to communicate a clear message that is becoming more and more informed by the visual research undertaken. Early observations for this exercise saw me test out various ideas, mainly experimenting with the use of orange within logos and book designs. The appearance of each travel guide varied dramatically between each company but the two things that tied each design together were the use of a picturesque image (to sell the city) and the use of orange. The connotations had with the colour orange helped to strengthen my designs after revisiting the exercise and the shade of orange became an integral part to the success of the covers. In a way the abstracted designs are a good metaphor for the trip. You go to a new destination with a very biased and abstracted view of a city, but once you leave it becomes much clearer. After visiting each destination, these covers become clearer in terms of understanding the forms (as they are based on each skyline) and colours. The focus of this exercise was problem solving and it is clear to see that there was a lot of problem solving to undertake within my own style. In regards to other components of the exercise, I also had to look at how to solve issues that I had less control over. One of the issues that I had towards the end was the length of words that I had to use on the cover. Because some words were so much longer than others, it meant that to put the text across the middle of the page, I couldn’t use a large font size like I had intended. A comment made by one of my peers, said that the larger text has more impact. However, we both concluded that by putting the text at different sizes, it meant that the designs weren’t considered a series as the colours and forms within the background were different, there needed to be something that tied everything together. And this needed to be the text. In order to problem solve, I was able to experiment further. Initially, I did think that it would be helpful to research the history of travel guides in order to give myself some context. However, the final designs were in no way reflecting this history. To develop my designs in the future there are two ways of looking at this. I either need to undertake more direct research in terms of the context or, the designs need to be able to communicate a more subtle message alongside the main focus of the project. In further projects I would also like to be able to implement this style that I am developing, away from the overly abstracted work in order to show how else visual communication can be employed. Doing this whilst developing more technique skills would be an added bonus as at the moment I am using Photoshop a lot and although it is helping me to understand the programme more, and be able to use the shortcuts quicker, I also need to understand Illustrator so that the image quality is always maintained in larger projects.
Katie Smith // 520237 // Graphic Design 1:Core Concepts // Part 3: visual language // abstract cities exercise