Design Challenge 2 had us creating three images that were mainly monochromatic. As my unifying theme, I used photos all taken on different vacations/trips I’ve been on recently.
First, we have a stylized image of eight gasoline mortars.
Next is an image from SIFE’s trip to National’s in Philadelphia, I really played up the blue in the image.
Finally, is an image from the trail up to St.Vrain mountain. This was already heavily green, I brought out the green a little more, and kept the water fairly white-blue.
2. What is unity as it applies to design?
Unity is the thought that all the different parts of a design should look as if they belong together. There are two types of unity, conceptual unity and visual unity. Conceptual unity would be those connection made on a non-visual level. The book gives a good example of this by showing a picture where the number 5 is represented in numerous ways – the number 5, a clock set to 5 o’clock, a dice, the letter V. All of these conceptually have unity, but visually are very different. To contrast this there is visual unity, which is where the objects all have similar design and look to belong together.
4. What is the layout of a design?
The layout is the arrangement of all the elements of a design in the space piece.
5. How can the grid be used as a layout tool?
The grid is a series of intersecting line that are used to align the elemts on a page. This can often create an implied line by lining up different elements. I use this technique all the time when I am working in photoshop or illustrator as they have the nice rulers that can be turned on, you can then click and drag “guides” out from the rulers that make either splitting the page in sections or just lining up items very easy.
7. Give an example of a metaphor used in a nongrid layout.
The simplest example that comes to my mind is the various names places use for shopping carts online. No matter if they are called shopping carts, bags, backpacks, baskets, etc… the overall understanding is the same. The items in your cart are items that you wish you purchase. Another great metaphor that is often used (especially in browsers themselves) is the simple drawing of a home to represent your homepage.
This week we did a color scavenger hunt where we went around town and found examples of color schemes.
Here is what we found -
Triad:
This is a fantastic example of the classic triad red, yellow and blue. This particular color scheme popped up several places, as evidenced below:
Another classic triad:
Analogous:
This is an excellent example of how analogous color schemes are often found in nature. In this photo we have yellow-green, green, and blue-green. This would have been even easier to find earlier in the summer/fall, but we still managed to find these evergreens that worked just fine.
Here is another analogous example:
Alternate Analogous:
Here a fantastic example of an alternate analogous color scheme including blue, green, and yellow. Also, not when including the wall, ceiling and painting a nice classic triad is also seen in this picture. These alternate analogous were fairly easy to find.
Here is another example:
Split Compliment:
In this particular photo one of my group members is highlighting the split complement of red-orange, green, and blue on the Boulevard Brewing sign. This was a fairly difficult color scheme for us to find. However, we did find one more:
In this split compliment we have violet, orange-yellow, and yellow-green.
And that’s what we found on our color scavenger hunt!
For this week’s open mic blog, I am going to discuss some of the websites I like to visit for design ideas.
CSS Zen Garden:
This is one of my favorite sites to visit if I want to get a great look at creativity. It consists of websites all designed using the same HTML, where the only thing that changes is the CSS. It is really hard to believe all the different websites listed are the same HTML until you start read the content. This really gives you a first hand example of how dramatically the design of a website can affect the mood it projects.
Ten Ton Books:
They have some amazing free tutorials on Adobe software (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, etc…). They also have whole series of tutorials which you can purchase which I am sure are also amazing, but I have not personally purchased any of those. I have referred to some of their free tutorials numerous times when I am looking for a quick memory jogger on the best way to accomplish something.
Pbase:
Pbase is a photo-sharing site, however unlike some of the other photo-sharing sites out there, it is more focused on amateur or professional photographers showing off their work, instead of just Joe Citizen uploading vacation pictures. While it can take some effort to dig through all the different galleries, there are some truly amazing photographers on this site. There is a good number of photos that have been completely re-worked in photoshop as well.
I may add more as they come to me.
Exercise 2 – Make an image that uses complementary colors.
Exercise 4 – Create a simple illustration that uses the three color combinations. Make the same image several times but use different combinations.
Instead I chose to color some of my emotion squares.
Anger (Analogous):
Contentment (Triad):
Fear (Analogous):
Frustration (triad):
