Part 3 visual language Exercise: Abstract cities
Key words from brief: - abstract - blocks of colour - series
Historical context of travel guides:
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. And when a writer did visit the place, the descriptions were now so dull, they didn’t exactly encourage people to visit each destination if they were able to. 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. But because everyone sourced from this one book, it would become more widely believed. 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. At this point though, they still weren’t the kind of travel guides you could take with you, you were encouraged to read about a place before you left. What featured within each guide also adapted. Early structures that mirrored the travel guide, suh as the ‘periplus’, was focused on serving the captain. It listed ports and coastal landmarks that would be found along a coast. It served more as a log at this point. By the second century, the format had shifted its target audience, it was focused on the ‘klismos traveller’. Guides were designed that explored the best places, architecture and sculptures of the land. Different countries used the structure very differently. Some were written as continuous prose, a diary, the personal experiences of aristocrats or an essay. The contents were dominated by art and sculpture as this was the way wealth was highlighted, through an art education. 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. This was developed and expanded by John Murray with his first publication called ‘Murray’s handbooks for travellers’. Starke’s use of a rating system was employed but instead of using exclamation marks, he used the star system that we still use. From this publication in 1836 the tour guide continued to develop. 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. The books don’t just exist on paper now, you can download them on your phone to make your packing a little lighter. What emerges here though is the debate or concern that readers don’t read the book until the flight or once they are exploring the cities. Although this may be the reader’s idea of understanding and immersing themselves within the culture, they are instead isolating their experience of the city. One benefit of downloading the file though is that links can be embedded, ready for easy access, and the information can easily be kept upto-date.
Screenshots from Lonely Planet’s website: https://shop.lonelyplanet.com/
Screenshot from Lonely Planet’s website: https://shop.lonelyplanet.com/
Screenshot from Rough Guides’ website: https://www.roughguides.com/shop/
Screenshot from National Geographic’s website: https:// shop.nationalgeographic.com/ collections/books-travel
Screenshot taken from Fodor Travels website: https://www.fodors.com/guidebooks/
Photos taken from amazon.co.uk
Key characteristics of Travel Guides: - Use of orange, why? I would have expected more green and blue. 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. Lonely planet doesn’t always stick to this but as a whole, there is minimal text. - 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. - 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.
Orange works more successfully as a border or as a block at the bottom of the page, as my research suggested. It isolates the two elements which works effectively for the viewing. I did wonder if this was the right method, a reader should view the city and the heat as suggested by the colour as one. Therefore, the concept was tested but, once again, the research proved right. Orange tints proved ineffective but once the image was switched to block colours, the orange became too much of a focal point. The density of colour at the bottom of the page puts too much emphasis on this point of the frame and this goes against another research point (creating a focal point from contrast).
Different methods of making the covers seem abstract? - Block colours - Flattening the subject - Abstracting it from reality. We know what the subject of the first cover is, enough details are retained to not make it a typical abstract design but this is because of the amount of tones used and the textures added in. - Textures can be added in but they are not done to make something seem closer to it’s real subject.
colour psychology
“Throughout history, the way colour is used has evolved internationally. The country, culture and religion all play a part in colour acceptance, meaning and understanding. Shades of colour must be tweaked and changed, dependent upon the audience, product type, culture and design. A one-colour-suitsall cannot work with international business, and the associations we make with every colour is dependent upon where we have been raised in the world. Colour provides non-verbal effective communication.” (McLeod 2016) As was emphasised by the last exercise, our perception of colour is also effected by how it is treated in terms of size and what is surrounding it. Each of these other elements will obviously have it’s own association and these associations build up, depending on the size of the colour, in order to give us an interpretation. What is difficult within marketing is predicting how these colours will be interpreted by the audience who all speak different languages in terms of what they associate to a colour.
“One thing is certain, colour affects our psychological responses and the way others respond to us, our self-esteem, confidence, mood, mental agility, our physical self and wellbeing...We react to colours differently; our reactions are quicker to some colours than others.” (McLeod 2016) We all have a ‘favourite colour’ so to speak but this doesn’t necessarily mean it is our favourite colour, perhaps we need to view it as the one that we respond to best. I know that personally, I prefer blue tones but it has to be the right shade of blue, equally any combination with grey always appeals to me. This doesn’t mean that grey is my favourite colour, to some this is quite a dull and depressing colour, but for me I look at how it compliments every colour it is put with and highlighting this shows me a different colour in a new light, which is why it appeals to me. Equally, I am always attracted to green clothing because I know this is what makes my hair stand out. The way we all respond to colour varies dramatically. You can associate a colour with a friend. I know that a lot of my friends associate green with me because that’s the colour I like to wear. Now whether they respond differently to green when I am not around them cannot be concluded but we each build up symbolic connections to colours that influences the way that we respond to advertising. As a designer, you are not able to know every single personal connection that someone is going to make to an image which is why we rely on the more generic connections in the hope that this will be a more universal language that we can all connect with.
The psychology of orange
“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
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?
What makes this exact shade of orange work for the logo? Why doesn’t blue work more effectively when this would be a colour you would perhaps find a penguin naturally surrounded by? Why did the design house pick orange instead of one of these colours that would have looked better on a cover? Does the orange stand out better on all their covers? Well yes it does stand out better which means you can always identify Penguin House as the publisher which has the advantage that it stands out as effective advertising.
Top - Instagram images Middle - Advertising images Bottom - Tourist images Looking at the covers with these different images not only shows the effect that the images have on the cover, but how tourist approach capturing images whilst on holiday, they will take photos of literally anything! Although these photos were selected partly because of how bad they are (for the bottom images), it highlights how different audience have a different focus and this needs to be acknowledged when selecting the image that I choose to abstract.
Madrid
Image credits: Emma Boileau, 2014
Image credits: Emma Boileau, 2014
Image credits: Elizabeth Nord
Image credits: Elizabeth Nord
Too abstracted and don’t function in the same way images on travel guide images do
Ben Nicholson
Nicholson’s work reduces abstraction down to the construction of a few blocks of colour. It is unclear to anyone but Nicholson what the subject matter is of each painting however, as the audience we are forced to interpret each shape and tonal difference to build up our own original image. The forms that are created don’t form a focal point, they create an easy path for the eye to follow that doens’t take much of it’s own reading. Red seems to feature in every one and after some of my readings around colour theory, it is clear to see why. Red is a bold colour that always demands attention. In some of these paintings, the red segment is the smallest one on the page but it still demands your attention more than any other colour or section. A lot of the background tones are more muted than others which is where I think my own work is failing. There is so much content to process that it becomes difficult and there is no break for the reader’s eye. Although it is easy to read in terms of form because the same shape is constantly being used, other components of the covers make the reading even harder. As I develop these designs, I think it is important to focus on keeping it simple and using these muted tones in the background with maybe one accent colour in the foreground.
Trying new designs based on the architecture appeared too flat. Even when something is abstracted in my previous work, there is depth. This lacks any kind of depth and therefore, looks very basic and boring. If I am going to base it off of a picture, then the picture itself needs to have more depth than the above example offers. It isn’t about finding interesting looking architecture because I can create my own interest from a generic image through the abstraction method that I use.
Inspiration Ideas
Bo Lundberg
Each of Lundberg’s posters utilise the same basic colour palette and layout whilst then using silhouettes or objects/ buildings that add in different tones. In many ways this helps to highlight to the audience that these are intended to be viewed together however, by using such a limiting palette, Lundberg isn’t highlighting the individuality of each city. However, the colour palette individually does work, you have the warm tones of the orange and red that make the connections that were earlier described to have a positve holiday vibe due to the connection to warm trips away. The pink adds something more exciting, suggesting that the adventure you can undertake in this city is going to be a fun and exciting one. I therefore, understand why these colours have been picked but it wouldn’t work for the purpose of the brief that I am undertaking. Each city’s colours can be made to look exciting based upon the way in which they are combined together and presented, as I learnt from exercise 2.
Tamas Horvath
In terms of abstracted cities, I think this could be a really strong way of presenting the book covers. There isn’t too much visual noise and instead the eye becomes intrigued by the constantly changing lines and forms that are involved. Because the photos are abstracted to begin with, it doesn’t take much to take this photo a step further with the abstraction but it is done in such a way that it isn’t too noisy or too complex for the eye to understand.
Why has Horvath selected the colours that are used on the cover? They obviously don’t have the intention of book covers but the lack of orange and warm tones within the work still make the place inviting. Is this because this is the style of work that I like and appreciate? Perhaps. Would other members of the audience find that there is too much blank space? If I use this style witin my own work perhaps, instead of using an already abstracted image, I should use something that has more content in order to attract the eye.
Richard Galpin
There is definitely more content here to appease the eye however, the constant shifts in dimensions and blank space becomes difficult to interpret on some occasions. A beneficial way to use tints and shades is to highlight the change in dimension, to show which sections of buildings would be in shadow. However, here instead of using this, Galpin using lines, the use of slanted lines and changing directions still gives the appearance of these buildings not being flat. However, they are once again more complex to understand, and this is also partially due to the thin lines, instead of using thicker lines.
The New Process Process
I didn’t want to just mimick a photo I had seen in terms of creating shapes on a page, I had decided that I wanted to select a photo of the city, zoom in so that it became less identifiable and then turn each building into a set of lines. By doing this, I was able to change the colours used on each building so that they fitted in with the colours that I had identified for each city. Using varying tints and shades helps to add an element of depth that I often struggle to add.
What have I learnt at this point? - I still like to overcomplicate everything, especially when I see the word abstract. But the development here is that I am understanding when it becomes too much for the reader instead of looking at it from a personal point of view for what I like. - There is a spectrum to which abstraction can be applied and it isn’t about making everything completely different to its original form as I would have previously done. - Harsh lines always need softening. Colours are a hard way of doing this but small changes in the typography work well. Here, I wanted a strong font however, selecting one that reduced certain letters down to lower case instead of all being capitals, is a small and simple way of softening certain aspects. If the lines were too harsh within the design, it wouldn’t encourage me to read the book, let alone anyone else. - Achieving a colour balance that is simple but reflects depth and the city. This is a different concept to the flat colour combinations in response to Itten. There had to be a consideration to scale and proportion here for which colours should dominate.
What works well? What doesn’t? Does this fulfil the brief? These covers provided more of a challenge to me than I thought, but I was able to put into practice the areas of development that I have been able to undertake over the previous parts of the module. Being able to understand when my designs get too much, and are effectively just visual noise, is something that I am beginning to be able to do more. And from here, being able to adapt the designs so that the effect is reversed, is something that I am also becoming more successful at. This isn’t to say that these designs are perfect or they are fully successful in their aim. Although orange features in varying shades across each cover, I think that the orange connection, one that I found prominent within my research, could have been emphasised more. It isn’t just about colour theory and then disregarding it, I had decided to utilise the colours that had been selected from images of each city. This builds up a stronger connection to each place instead of the abstraction taking away from the city itself, something that happened within my first designs. However, although the connection is now stronger to each city, and each book links well to each other in terms of a connected style, the encouragement and positive effects of an orange tone are definitely missing from this. It is hard to say though, where would be best to put the orange on each cover. Should it be the same shade of orange for each one? As it currently doesn’t work or build a connection by having varying shades. This is something that I could develop through further designs however, I am unsure where abouts this orange should currently go. Equally, not all of these destinations are hot! The colour psychology theory still applies even if the country isn’t hot. The colours at the moment highlight the vibrancy and different atmospheres of each city. In a way I think this is more important than the portrayal of orange however, it is something that I will experiment with further prior to submission. Isolating elements of each skyline helped here as although the technique abstracted the designs, in some ways, the cropping of images also helped to further this process. If I were to try and fit the whole skyline in, the design would be cramped, there would be too many segments and not enough varying colours, but also the segments wouldn’t have had much colour inside them. This would stop the portrayal of each city’s vibe and atmosphere. In terms of fulfilling this brief, I think it works well, but perhaps could work better with the inclusion of more orange tones as explained above. The books fulfil the size requirements alongside all other details that have to be included and the research undertaken has been able to inform my designs further whilst exploring the packages that I had. Although I only used photoshop, a program that I am very confident in, I was able to experiment more with the construction of more considered abstraction. On multiple occasions whole segments that didn’t need to be coloured were coloured and it was about working out why the design hadn’t worked and what I could do to fix this whilst keeping in line with the design.
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 pictorial 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. How can I pick out shapes and forms that highlight a city? I already have characterised the colour palettes but it’s the tones.
Hodgkin, R. (1984-9) Rain
Wadsworth, E. (1913) Landscape
Louis, M. (1961) Alpha-Phi
Nakanishi, N. (2005) 1-5 Layer Drawing - Cloud/Fog. Inkjetprint on film.
How can I visualise the city through abstraction? The methods (like Nakanishi) is not going to be the method of abstraction here, it has to be the piece itself. Using an image as my base like before could prove successful but blending the lines between sections will help. These pieces use block colours and more free flowing shapes. Currently my work seems very rigid, movement isn’t encouraged and part of the beauty of abstraction is the fact it is so easy to flow between sections as your eye is constantly being shifted across the page.
Went from the left hand image to the right hand image but it still wasn’t abstract enough in my mind.
New Method?
Revisiting the key words which were:
Abstract Block of Colours Series
Main peer feedback was that the larger text works best but the length of the words effects the impact and therefore the ability for this to look like a series. I revisited my evaluation from before and the first thought was that orange still wasn’t dominant enough in these designs and if the text were a little smaller, and the orange was a block of colour instead of an outline, this could work more effectively.
What have I learnt from this exercise and the developments that I have made? - First and foremost, the designs need to fulfil the brief. Focusing on the key words and revisiting research helps to make sure that this is going along the right path. - Consistency is key within a series. Having the text at the same size and in the same position helps to keep an element of consistency and portray to the audience that this is a series. - Always revisit the brief even after responses are created. I revisit it a couple of times throughout the project but I become so focused on one part of it instead of looking at the bigger picture. - Abstraction doesn’t have to be created through adding visual noise, it can be created through blocks of colour, zooming in on segments and changing the orientation. Sometimes the simple methods are the most effective. - Mockups help to elevate a project and help visualise the way a product will finally look by transforming a 2D design into something more 3D. I revisited this exercise after completing a later exercise (the French Hen) that asks for mock ups. It wasn’t something that I thought to do until that point and I can now see how much it benefits a product. It will be a step that I add to my design process in the future as it is another form of the research process.
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.