DESIGN PRINCIPLES - PROJECTS
09.10.2018 (Week 7 - Week 9 )
Rausha Aminath (0337000)Design Principles
Projects
PROJECT 1: SELF PORTRAIT
INSTRUCTIONS
For our first project we were required to compose a self portrait by expressing and utilizing one or more principles of design concepts. I looked at Pablo Picaso, Frida Kahlo, Leonardo Da Vinci and Vincent Van Gogh's paintings for inspirations. I was inspired by the color schemes and texture used by Vincent Van Gohg and the portraits or Frida Kahlo and Leonardo Da Vinci. I specifically loved the works by Vincent Van Gohg as his style of color use was something which really draws my attention and used texture to create his masterpieces. Most of his work shows alot of design principles such as texture, balance, perspective, repetition, pattern, sizes, scale, lines and etc.
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| Ideas on the self portrait |
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| Visual References (Vincent Van Gogh's paintings) Starry Night - Top Left (Texture and closeup - Bottom Right) Wheat Field - Bottom Left Self Portrait - Top Right |
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| Rough Sketch of the Composition |
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| Charcoal Portrait Completed |
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| Painting and Collage Process |
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| First Attempt at Project 1 |
Ms.Sherry liked my drawing and the background but she was not sure about the composition and the color and texture of the hand and the ball. Apart from that she liked my work. At the beginning of the work even I was not so sure of the ball and the hand so I removed it and placed my work on a black paper to emphasis more on my closed up personality.
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| Final Outcome for Project 1- Self Portrait |
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| Closeup of the Final Work |
PROJECT 2: A SENSE OF A PLACE
INSTRUCTIONS
For our first project we were tasked to express the feeling and sense of places around us. We were to choose a place and really study the place at different days at different times of the day. and present a final piece that represents the sense of the place. I immediately knew I wanted to show a place that has contrasting colors such as black and red. I like places with orange light with different types of contrasting colors, that has an a homy and cozy feel to it. At first I was gonna base my work on a new Sandwich place at the University Campus as it was close and the design of the place was appealing to me. I went there at different days and different timings and took couple of photos.
However, I wanted to incorporate a place I really loved going to. So for my final idea I ended up creating a piece on a little Arabic shawarma place in Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lampur. Since I have been traveling back and forth visiting my friend, who introduced me to this place, and eat at this place it was not that difficult to get photos on different days at different times of the day. I noticed that the place is almost always full and there are many people always eating there even though they did not really have a seating area. In the morning however, there were less people around the waiters had time to talk to me and pose for some of my pictures.
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| Photos I Captured during different visits to the place |
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| First attempt at capturing the sense of the place |
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| Final Work on Project 2: A Sense of a Place |
FEEDBACK:
Ms.Sherry and I both liked the second attempt more so I chose that for final work. She thought that she likes the placement and shows the shawarma well, which is the whole point of the place. And that the placement and photography of the shawarma really makes her feel like she is holding the shawarma and the composition works well.
FINAL PROJECT
INSTRUCTIONS :
For our final project, we were given 3 weeks to work on. We were tasked to study and take photographs of different kinds of billboards in the highways of Malaysia. I travel a bit and took some pictures of the billboards and studied it.
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| Some Billboards that captured my attention |
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| Billboards I took some Inspiration from for Final Project |
By looking and studying the billboards, I noticed a very common and obvious similarity in almost all the billboards. All the billboards have used the colors, red, blue and mostly yellow in the it to draw attention to it. It certainly has created contrast and places alot of emphasis on the subject that is being advertised. Few of the billboards certainly has achieved balance very well, such as the billboard with the teddy bear. I see placement and hierarchy in the small posters in pink showing food being eaten by a funny character on the top. The alignment also caught my eyes. While most of the billboards have center alignment to achieve dominance / emphasis, some billboards have top and bottom alignment, which works well with the composition. I noticed alot of shapes in most of the billboards, creating an easy to look simple billboard, making it easier to be recognized at the first glance. For example the speech bubble shapes and the face of the person and also the girl in the apple poster. Both the posters are easy to look at we understand and recognize what is it by just a glance. Also the existence of clear figure and ground has helped in that sense as well. Size and scaling has been shown in the poster with the girl holding or pointing to a huge apple. Hierarchy also has been very well achieved in the apple poster as well as the watch poster. The hierarchy and placement of the phones makes the poster look very interesting even-though its just two phones. That poster was one of my favorites as it was simple and catches your eye but does not have much colors and still manages to make a statement. It was pretty interesting to study all the billboards and I noticed that I was looking at compositions such as these in a different angle now.
I got inspired by all the billboards to create something that is slightly related to the illustrations in the billboard with the girl and the apple. I loved that different style, which was not visible in other billboards. Therefor I got inspired to create an illustration with the type of art style used in illustrating the girl. I wanted to present something that relates to me rather than going on a commercial billboard.
The use of so much red, yellow and blue inspired me to incorporate those colors as the main color palette. I wanted to show that there are simpler and creative ways to use the colors while keeping it fun.
As it was raining most of the time I went around taking the photos, it reminded me of how much I actually love that it rains here so much, so I wanted to incorporate that into the composition. I wanted to show the atmosphere around me. I used to work with reference photos alot and Ms.Sherry has always told me to draw things that I have seen and not from photographs. So I wanted to create a composition that shows my little bubble in Malaysia. Before design principles, I have always worked with charcoal, pencil and a bit of acrylic colors. So I wanted to show the different style that I have now gotten familiar with, which lead me to work on my final piece digitally.
With that in mind I started thinking of my life here in Malaysia apart from University. The first thing that came to my mind was the extent to which my life here depends on grabs. The other thing that I loved was the rain.
With that in mind I started thinking of my life here in Malaysia apart from University. The first thing that came to my mind was the extent to which my life here depends on grabs. The other thing that I loved was the rain.
With that in mind I started sketching some ideas.
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| Notes for Final Work (Left) Sketches of Ideas (Right) |
I did look at some works inspiration on the color.
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| References |
I started working on photoshop and experimenting with different compositions.
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| Sketch 1 |
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| Sketch 2 |
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| Background and Subject Painting |
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| Progress with color on Two Samples |
After I showed Ms.Sherry Progressed work. Ms.Sherry liked my idea and suggested that I make a three illustration series since she liked all my sketches and since I had still a week. I worked on making the composition work.
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| Experimenting with Composition |
However, I liked my initial chosen artwork. I added more elements to the work to show my message clearly. I added two main things in Malaysia that makes me excited and surround myself with, Nandos and McDonalds food. I also wanted to show show that the place where the girl is standing is Malaysia, so I added twin towers using hierarchy and placement to make it visually apealing and interesting. I used a 1 point perspective towards the twin towers to make it more of a composition rather than the girl floating in space.
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| Final Outcome for Final Project | Billboard studies (Topic: My little experience of Malaysia) |
I added the umbrella show to that sometimes I dont love the rain but its behind her and she is smiling to emphasis on the fact that she enjoys the rain rather than avoiding it. I chose to express my feelings in the cloud by showing two sides. I wanted to show that sometimes I love all these things in Malaysia but I do have off days.
In the end my composition shows texture, hierarchy, placement, emphasis and dominance of the girl, alignment of the girl to the center and edge alignments of the texts. I also wanted to show contrast using the colors of the girls outfit. With the rain I have achieved showing direction and use of lines in a tasteful way.
I feel like my composition shows what my life here has been like. That was the message I wanted to deliver.
FEEDBACK
Ms.Sherry and Ms.Anis looked at my first few drafts and suggested adding a bit more color and see few compositions that could work with this. Therefor I added more details to show the message clearly.
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