Thursday, December 20, 2012

Visual Techniques


STILLS FROM "CATALOG"
JOHN WHITNEY, 1961

VIEW PIECE IN NEW WINDOW 


VISUAL TECHNIQUES USED:
ACTIVENESS OVER STASIS
COLOR OVER GRAYSCALE

(BACK AND FORTH BTW):
 SYMMETRY / ASYMMETRY
SEQUENTIALITY / RANDOMNESS
UNITY / FRAGMENTATION







"POSTER FOR AN EXHIBITION OF ART BY HENRY MILLER" 
TADANORI YOKOO, 1968


VISUAL TECHNIQUES USED:
CONTRAST / HARMONY
COLOR / BLACK AND WHITE
BALANCE / INSTABILITY
ECONOMY / INTRICACY
NEUTRALITY / ACCENT
SIMPLICITY / COMPLEXITY
ACTIVENESS / STASIS


     
     Above are two examples of Visual Communication that inspire me in my own pursuit of a career in design. Below I will compare and contrast the different uses of visual techniques both designers underwent in order to deliver their intended message.

     The most obvious contrasting element between the two is the use of activeness vs. stasis. The motion graphic piece by Whitney utilizes the elements of motion to bring his piece to life, while Yokoo's poster design is one stoic, unmoving image. Both techniques lend well to each composition; where Catalog is achieved by moving elements, Henry Miller is defined by balance and harmony brought forth by its compositional structure.  

     The content of Whitney's piece is structured along the horizontal axis of time. We see colorful shapes rotate, move, and mutate within the frame during the duration of the film. The effect achieved is of time itself; that the shape elements are given life as they move and change within the piece, creating a powerful effect that is heightened by the expressive use of color that Whitney utilized. 
     During the duration of the film, the changeable nature of several visual techniques are utilized. For example, the technique of simplicity vs. complexity exist on a continuum from very simple to very complex. There are moments in the film where this relationship is expressed as we see a simple circle transform into a complex amorphous shape.

     The Yokoo piece is not only static, but is essentially about stasis, as the designer chose to balance the composition in a nearly symmetrical way by placing the figure of Henry Miller dead center against a leveled backdrop of pure blocks of color. The choice of economy over intricacy here does well to further emphasize an idea of stillness, as our eyes are confronted with a very simple POP-art like image, devoid of extraneous detail, that Yokoo chose to create for the historic writer. Like the Whitney piece, an emotional reaction is achieved in Poster, however in this case it is from the opposite visual technique of a profound stasis over activity.




Tuesday, December 11, 2012

CONTRaST



Effective Use of Contrast


"Metamorphosis" by Joel Arias

First, there's a great contrast in tone going on here between the values of grey, white, and black. Although there is an almost harmonious balance of the amount of each tone, the shapes representing each do well to sharpen the composition. Dondis states that by "comparing the unlike, we sharpen the meaning of both," and this is definitely happening here between the regular rectangle shape and the irregular, liquid-like shapes drifting on top of and within the regular (Dondis, 1973). This contrast in shape creates a dynamic statement. There lies a pleasing tension in this piece between balance and imbalance represented through contrast. I think the liquid white and grey shapes would be powerful by themselves, but with the added element of the solid rectangle, the juxtaposition happening between leveling and sharpening makes them that much more meaningful; the organic ideas here are more effectively explained by being contrasted with the mechanical, and vice versa.

There are also other elements of contrast at work here. Scale is contrasted between tiny to large shapes, and texture is contrasted here in the stippled grey shapes against the solid black and whites.




Lack of Contrast



There is a use of contrast in tone and color here, but it is not being done in an effective way. Rather, it is contributing to a failed design. The piece is far too sharpened, beyond any effective communication of a message. Firstly, if one were to take and convert this image to gray-scale, some of the type would be completely lost (ex. the 'in' in 'sin'). The rainbow background is  presenting warm and cold colors, which are confusing our minds (as cool colors recede, while warm colors expand) creating a way too busy background. A solid color would have been a better choice, perhaps one complimentary to the color of the text, or even better, contrasting in tone. Contrast in scale could have helped this piece as well, where if the text was larger, it might stand a chance against the glaring color bands it unfortunately rests above.

I do have one idea that could save this piece without having to totally redesign it: The flying red letters presented at the top of the page are really the only element not lost in the bad juxtaposition between the colored figure and ground. If all the text was done as red with the dimensional 'flying' addition, it would thus all be separated enough from the crazy background. It would still be a jarring piece, but at least the written message would be visible.




reference:
Dondis, D. A. (1973). A primer of visual literacy. (p. 96). Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

IMPLIED MOTION IN DESIGN



(Both examples below can be found @ revisionarts.com)



 Joe Melhuish "Metamorphosis"



I look at this odd graphic and my immediate thought is to see it animated. I envision the webbed-matrix form circling the land spike both rotating and moving in a wavelike fashion, similar to water. This is because of its diagonal nature, which suggests stress rather than balance, and also the lighting effects mirroring water surface, and most importantly the optical effect created by the web-like pattern inside the shape tricks our eyes into seeing movement.

The cap of the land spike is being blasted-off. The blurring effect applied between the pieces of the spike suggest this action. Also, the designers decision to show a lot of textured gradient in the shadows of the dunes helps to create the illusion of an actual environment in which movement would be possible. All these factors contribute to the perception of an even taking place. Perhaps the story is that the web matrix created a causal effect on the land spike, blasting its top off into space so that the pyramids can fulfill their destiny in the stars...





MODE poster by Travis Stearns


"In the MODE experiment I wanted to synthesize the four letter forms, already in their abstraction,
with their revolved forms to generate new, ancillary graphic forms." -Travis Stearns




We see several factors of implied movement going on here in this poster piece. Over all, the highly contrasted forms create a downward directional path of eye movement. The static-y imagery of each form implies a sense of movement, as if each shape was on an old television set that wasn't coming in right. Also, as we see a morphing from actual letter-forms to abstract globs, we sense a process of change. It's as if each descending shape is a still image in a film roll; we can easily imagine watching the footage of this succession of stills, so media motion is addressed here as well. Through the combination of the strong vertical eye-path created, along with the repetition of the figures as they morph, a stroboscopic effect is created which makes us imagine all the steps of change happening between each neighboring form.

 A narrative is created by the metamorphosis of these letter forms, it is the story of abstraction. I included a bit of the designers statement of process because it describes that he captured these odd shapes by rotating the forms, perhaps in 3d modeling software; it seems the blur caused by such movement was maintained, creating something similar to an aftereffect of seeing a bright light in a dark room that suddenly goes away leaving a ghost image. All in all, this static image captures he energy of movement extremely well.