fundamentals of design

For the first week in my fundamentals of design class I had to create a design with equal parts positive and negative space where the figure/ground relationship would fluctuate.  I came up with two designs for this assignment (the other one is at the bottom of this post), one of the designs I tried to create an image and the other one, the one the teacher preferred I just used squares and circles in overlapping patterns.  With this being the beginning of the class I wasn't confident with the process and just played around with adobe illustrator until I came up with something that had an interesting look to it.  In some ways I think that a lack of the "rules" helped this design and I think that remembering to sometimes forget the rules can be an asset in future design work.  I do think that the feeling that you have to know something about design in order to appreciate certain designs was prevalent in the class, the teacher tended to choose designs that seemed almost inaccessible to the general population.  This attitude tends to bother me since I think one of the best aspects of design is that it can be appealing to a broad spectrum of people.  You shouldn't have to know about design in order to appreciate a well designed composition.  As the class went on I think I started leaning more towards the teacher in my designs but I tried to hold on to my original ideals as well as I could.  As I look back at my designs and write about them I hope I'll see how well I did.

For most of the assignments in this class I submitted several different designs for my teacher to choose from, I will post the one that was ultimately graded at the top but will post the others at the bottom.





magazine cover

This is an assignment for my computer literacy course.  This class was designed to give me a chance to create something using several different "standard" computer programs.  The only one I thought was creative was when I had to use photoshop to create a magazine cover.  Although I like my cover I feel like I didn't take enough time with it and could have done a lot more.  I did this because I really hated my teacher in this class and just couldn't make myself spend much time on anything she assigned.  After the class was over I thought about it and realized that I missed out on a great opportunity to not only be a bigger person but to learn to still give my all for the sake of the design.  As far as the design itself goes I was more interested in having a creative idea then in making something creative out of a crappy idea.  This leads to an interesting line of thought, since this is a classroom exercise where the goal is to learn the program should I spend less time on the concept and more on dressing it up or more on the concept less on the window dressing.  Since it is a classroom exercise the obvious answer would be spend more time on the dressing to learn how to do the dressing, but the purpose of taking the class is to learn to be a designer so shouldn't the entire project be done as if for the real world?  I don't have the answer but I know for me I just don't like the idea of taking a crappy idea and trying to dress it up.  

4th perspective drawing

This is my 4th and final assignment in my perspective class.  For this drawing I did an exterior 2 point perspective house inside of an interior 1 point perspective room.  While this drawing didn't take as long as the last one it was a bit more difficult to do.  In the original design I had the overhead light on which made for 2 different light sources and therefore overlapping shadows in some places.  Also it made the shadow under the stool go the opposite way of the other shadows and since I turned the light off the shadow is now completely wrong.  I also put the table to close to the doors so they wouldn't actually open.  But all in all I think this came out really well.  I took the idea from one of my favorite books, Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk, where the hero builds model houses, although he destroys them when they are finished.  I tried to inject a little comedy into it by putting a bong on the back shelf but once I had to shrink the original down it is hard to see what it is.  All in all I think this is a good culmination of what I learned in class and was disappointed when the class ended, but ultimately I feel I learned a lot that will help me in future career.

3rd perspective drawing

This is the 3rd drawing I did in perspective class.  This is the first time we used shading and in order to see the overall tone we were instructed to put a value scale in the picture.  Technique wise I think I did an ok job on this.  Their are some mistakes, the corners don't stand out , their would be some differences in value in each corner, and some of the areas aren't dark enough.  Overall though I think this is a really solid piece.  The basic shape of the room is my living room and kitchen, I went with simpler furniture and rearranged it but the basic design came from my house.  We had to add people into this picture, which is another first but I like the father and son staring each other down across the house while the mom is in the kitchen trying to stay out of it.  This doesn't represent how my teenage years were and hopefully doesn't represent how it will be when my son becomes a teenager but it reminds me of the feeling of being a teenager in the 90's.  I like that now I am a lot closer to the dad in the picture and it's set in my current home but evokes the feelings of being a rebellious little punk, it has an odd mixture of seeing it from both sides.  This drawing probably took me the longest of any drawing or any project I have done so far, I spent upwards of 20 hrs working on it, but now looking back I loved every minute of doing it and I really like this piece, mistakes and all.