DESIGN PRINCIPLES EXERCISES & PROJECTS
5 April 2019 - (week 01)
Ahmed Baahy Suhail (0333925)
Design Principles
Exercises & Projects
PROJECTS
Final Project
Observing Billboards
I noticed that most of the billboards are just advertisements for branded products and only saw two billboards which had a meaningful cause. This goes to show that in this day and age, humans are more interested in superficial things rather than directing their energy to causes that actually matter. They worry about themselves more than the environment and this is an issue that needs to be resolved. There should be more billboards in Malaysia that encourage people to do more good or at least make people more aware of the environment and social problems we face, etc. I never really noticed the billboards much until this project but now that I have identified the problem, I can't help but search for more meaningful billboards.
 |
| Billboard of EITA |
 |
| Billboard in KL |
 |
| Billboard of X-TRAIL |
 |
| Billboard of CUCKOO |
 |
| Billboard in Jaya |
 |
| Billboard of SUBARU |
 |
| Billboard of HONOR smartphone |
 |
| Billboard of Burger King |
 |
| Billboard for no plastic |
This billboard in particular caught my eye because of the contrast and it made me think about the world's abuse of plastic and all of the pollution that exists. This got me thinking about my own country and how careless Maldivians are when it comes to caring for the environment and marine life. There is so much pollution all around Maldives and I feel that this has to be made aware as the tourism industry has, in a way kept this a secret from tourists who come to "paradise." When you think "Maldives" you think about all the beautiful white sand beaches and villas by the clear ocean but that's what we have been taught to think. No one sees the other side, the unadvertised side,the side only those that live there witness. Here are some examples of the overload of plastic on the beaches and sea.
 |
| Pollution in Paradise |
 |
| Pollution in Paradise |
Sketches
 |
| Ideas |
 |
| Ideas |
 |
| Ideas |
First idea generation
 |
| Progression |
 |
| Progression |
 |
| Progression |
 |
| New composition |
 |
| Phone case of the Maldives |
 |
| Maakanaa |
 |
| Sketching it out on A3 |
 |
| Using soft pastels for the sea |
 | ||
Using soft pastels for the beach
|
 |
| Progression with the Acrylic |
 |
| Using acrylics for the sky |
 |
| Using acrylics for plastic bag |
Using acrylics for silhouette of Male'
 |
| Using color pencils for palm tree |
 |
| Using acrylic for plastic bottles on beach |
 |
| Adding final touches |
 |
| Final outcome |
The design principles I used for this are, hierachy, scale & size, pattern, texture, balance.and contrast. I used blue and orange as they are complementary colors and it contrasts well whereas in my previous draft it mostly consisted of only blue hues and lacked contrast. Texture is their through the materials incorporated. I used soft pastels for the sand and water and hoped to replicated sand texture through the pastels. I also used Acrylics for the bird, the water bottles. the sky and the silhouette of Male'. Lastly, I used color pencils for the palm tree. I added this tree so my composition is well balanced and does not appear heavy on one side. There is an inconsistent pattern in the waves which drags your attention all the way across. I used hierarchy when adding the plastic bag in a different color as it is a change of tone from everything else. Even though it is not the biggest, the color draws a lot of attention. I would say the part that grabs the most attention are the feathers, and these are directly pointed down to the plastic bottles, emphasizing the message of this artwork.
Go to an area (outdoors) that is near where you live, during day and night. Analyse the visual language of the location through sketches, photos, etc. Are there elements of design apparent? Are there some aspects that are constant while others change? What other senses are you using: Sounds? Smells? Touch? Your artwork should utilize 3 or more principles, consider why the principles you chose are most appropriate to communicate how this particular place is unique.
*Using any medium or combination of media express the sense of the place, in A4/ A3/
Pictures taken of Dlatour in Black and White
Why this color choice? The exterior of D'latour has a very monochrome to dual tone so I wanted to capture that in an attempt to express the place better.
 |
| Bamboo |
 |
| My cousin taking a stroll in the pool |
 |
| Leaves |
 |
| Waves |
 |
| Wall |
 |
| View from the floor beneath the pool |
 |
| Lights |
 |
| More nature |
Explanation:
Why D'latour? The exterior of the building has rhythm around it. There's a flow in the shape of the design as it not completely straight lines. My artwork depicts of a young boy who is alone yet not alone. He wondered through the concrete building to find a little spot of nature for himself. I used to go to this floor a lot and despite this place often hectic due to the overload of people, I always find comfort and solace within the limited nature of the area and from the calming sounds of the waves by the pool. It's a good distraction. The different types of leaves symbolize the different races and religion of people that live here. What brings them all together is that majority are students. The main thing I wanted to capture a sense of wonder in my final composition and the reason for this is because there's still lots to discover about this place. I am constantly amazed by the different discoveries I make whenever I choose a different route around the building.
First Idea Execution:
 |
| Layered the bamboo on top of each other |
 |
| Adding water |
 |
| Placing silhouette beneath the bamboo |
 |
| Initial final- A Sense of Place |
This one felt like there was something missing. Although I liked the composition of it, I realized that more effort needed to be made. I realized I had to add a picture of the building somehow as then only my idea will come across much more clearly. So, I went back down and took just what I needed.]
 |
| Apartments |
 |
| FINAL 1 - A Sense of Place |
Second Idea Execution:
 |
| Contrast Idea |
 |
| Adding building to the background |
 |
| Increased the contrast |
 |
| Experimentation with high contrast |
 |
| Adding water t |
 |
| Testing out difference between black and white |
 |
| Back to white |
 |
| FINAL 2 - A Sense of Place |
These two final artwork shows pattern and rhythm through the duplicated bamboo. It creates a a flow of movement which your eye follows from top to bottom or vise versa. The pattern on the outside of the building is replicated by the pattern in the background. It shows the two different types of building that are curved and the two that are straight, I wanted to convey this through the juxtaposition of my artwork. Last but not least there is hierarchy of the boy as my intention is to make him stand out but also blend in in the sense that he belongs. I live in block A which is the tallest building in D'latour itself and I thought of connecting that hierarchy with my work.
Project 1/ Self Portrait
Consider your purpose, your audience and the design principles of observation of create a self-portrait. (This is not a literal translation of the way you look but a means to show us who you are.) You are free to use any medium, in A4 size. Include at least one to three design principles and be prepared to discuss/defend your thinking.
Explanation:
Before I show you this self portrait, you have to understand the type of person I am. This will be a bit hard but I will attempt to give you the best insight about me. I find myself to be a lost soul, drifting through life. I am still on the journey to identify my true purpose. I am one who is very disorganized, messy and I feel just utterly confused. I don't want this portait to be a reflection of my interests, I want this portrait to be a reflection of how I feel and who I am. I want to express my emotions through the use of odd color combinations. These colors also depict the type of person I am, weird and unusual. I want it to look unfinished, as that is representative of what I am. Most of the time, I feel blank and my mind just feels like a void, I do not feel any of my thoughts running and I have a very forgetful memory. Thus, I want it to be executed on black paper, to portray the void and blankness I feel. I also want my features to be scattered and disheveled, in hope to express my confusion regarding my purpose. I want my features to bring out some emotion to convey that I do not like being stoic minded. Another thing to focus on is my eye movement. I want my eyes to look around, to show that I am still searching, trying to figure myself out. I want there to be lots of eyes, as I believe it is my best feature, yet funny enough it is also one of my biggest insecurity as I suffer from a condition called squint/ crosseye. So, I want to there to be more eyes than any other feature, I want to flaunt it and also attempt to show that I am trying to overcome this insecurity by accepting who I am.
 |
| Sketches |
 |
| Exploration of layout |
 |
| Soft Pastel Colors |
 |
| Placement of features |
 |
| Process |
 |
| Process ( Applying soft pastel) |
 |
| Process (Adding more and more features) |
 |
| Process ( Nearly complete) |
 |
| Final outcome of self portrait |
The principles I used are hierarchy, rhythm, scale and size, perspective and lines. Hierachy because I enlarged the right hand corner eye so that it stands out and scale, size and perspective are also implemented by the different angles and size of my features.
EXERCISES
Week 8: Rhythm/ Harmony/ Movement
Based on what we learnt about this week, our exercise was to create a collage. I spent a lot of time going back of forth between ideas. I first wanted to focus on 'movement' so I thought of some activities I liked or used to do. After a while, I chose to based it around swimming as the way I started learning how to swim or in fact, the journey was pretty interesting. I witnessed the 2004 Tsunami right in front of my eyes when I was just 4 years old, which left me mentally traumatized to go near the ocean for another 3 years. I finally started calming down and bit by bit. my fear started to fade. I was ready to overcome this and so I started learning how to swim, found a knack for it and even got accepted into my school's swimming squad. I wanted to do a piece which payed homage to a particular experience in my life.
Process
Final Outcome
Week 7: Dot/ Line / Size / Scale
This week we were given more than one option for our medium. These were pencil, pen, ink, paper or watercolor. I wanted to explore lines and since I am very enthusiastic about using pencil and I haven't used it solely on an exercise yet so I thought I would just work with that only. My idea was to focus on the eye and the wrinkles around it as I love drawing portraits and I got inspired from an Olevel piece I created., which was based on very detailed closeup drawings of the elderly. My initial idea was to recreate that piece however I wanted to be a little more creative and thought of extending the lines of the wrinkles beyond what it was and experiment with lines and portray a sort of rhythm within my piece. I did not want to for a too realistic approach so I tested out a different style.
Inspirations
I got inspired by an instagram account.(samebeear art).
My old drawing which I used for reference to draw the eye and wrinkles.
Process
Final Outcome
Week 6: Alignment/ Hierarchy / Perspective
Our task was a bit different this time around. In previous weeks, we have just stuck to A4 paper but this time, we were told to use our laptops and edit pictures taken through Photoshop, specifically on campus grounds, and create an artwork which consists of the either one of these three . I walked around campus a bit and took some pictures. I managed to get some nice ones of the U residence windows above 7/11. I also took a picture of the stairs as I was making my way down.
Pictures used
Final Outcome
Week 4: Repetition/ Pattern/ Texture
This week we were asked to bring a potato to class however Ms Sherry said anything with a texture is fine. We were assigned to create either a consistent or inconsistent repetition of a pattern that portrays a texture from objects like fruits/ vegetables. The only thing in my fridge was a pomegranate at the time and I thought this particular food and the texture it's print will create would be visually interesting. The outcome after pressing the pomegranate onto paper was surely different than I expected yet, I am satisfied with how it turned out.
Process
In order to make the print clean and cut off I used paper. First I started creating a border, leaving spaces for the other green half of the pomegranate to overlap the red.
Border complete
This was the challenging bit. I had to arrange and tape multiple papers around the template of the next pattern inside the border, at the center of the paper. I wanted a space between the border and the pattern in the middle so that it does not become too complicated.
Final Outcome
This is the final product. Very pleased with how it turned out and I love the boldness of the colors. Chose to use complementary colors as I wanted the pattern to stand. I went with a pretty consistent pattern. The main inspiration behind this were kaleidoscopes.
Week 3: Symmetry/ Asymmetry/ Balance
Today we were given the option of creating a watercolor composition of either one of these or a combination of all. I decided to implement both symmetry and asymmetry and came up with a piece inspired by a first hand picture I took at the Hamilton Gardens in New Zealand. I work best through observation thus I need a reference and for these, I always use my own pictures.
Inspiration
Process
Applying color to everything else & enhancing the tones
Final Outcome
This piece demonstrates both symmetry and asymmetry and I also believe it is well balanced. The India inspired traditional architecture is the symmetrical aspect of this artwork whereas everything else,( the running boy and the scenery in the background) makes it asymmetric. I made the colors more vibrant than the picture so it stands out and is more attractive.
Week 2: Gestalt
This week we were tasked with using black markers to create a visual illlusion using the principles of gestalt, incorporating the use of negative space to make two or more things appear.
Concepts
At the start I wanted to infuse hands to create a bird. I decided to think of some more ideas and thought of using the outline of a head to make a silhouette of a bird. I liked this idea better and thus worked on improving this and figured out which color organization suited it best.
I wanted to intensify the effect of illusion and so decided to make the outline of the face look like the outline of a tree. Then I upgraded it to match the lines to make it look a horizon with mountains in the background. After that everything fell into place and the whole gestalt came together.
Process
Final Outcome
Week 1: Contrast
Our first exercise was to play around with the concept of contrast by working with A4 black and white paper. I started sketching out ideas and originally, I thought of cutting out lines of black paper onto white to create a shattered glass effect. However, I realized that it would be too tedious as the lines were too intricate.
Concepts
Process
Final Outcome
FEEDBACK
Exercise 1: Ms. Sherry said it was nicely done so I am happy. She also asked me why I chose to make it diagonal and I did not know how to respond at that moment in time so I said because I thought it would be cool.
Exercise 2: I was not prepared for the critique as I thought they were on Thurdays and so my work was incomplete. I just had the draft so quickly outlined it in marker and put it up. Ms told me to make sure to fill it in to make it more interesting.
Exercise 3: I got great feedback from everyone. Even before I got to present I got a round of applause from my peers which caught me by surprise. Ms sherry loved the way I did the trees and mentioned that she liked the shadows as well. She was intrigued by the way I painted the scenery and asked me how I went about it. Overall, I got very positive feedback and so I am very satisfied.
Exercise 4: Ms Sherry said I executed it well and also said that I finally figured out a nice pattern as she saw me struggling whilst doing lots of samples in the earlier class. She also pointed out that the colors are much bolder than everyone else's.
Exercise 5: All the edits were displayed on the projector and when my one popped up, everyone seemed impressed. My teachers said I accomplished in bringing out all the principles we learnt the previous week. Ms Anis asked what made me twist the window to which I replied saying that it was to show hierarchy, and for it to stand out.
Exercise 6: Ms Sherry commented that my drawing was intriguing and weird and said overall it was very nice. One of my peers said my piece looked like an elephant's eye which I found funny. My classmates also said that they like the shadows.
Exercise 7: My teacher pointed out that she could see rhythm and movement in my piece which was the intent so I was satisfied.
Comments
Post a Comment