DESIGN PRINCIPLES | Final Project
|| 09/06/23 – 11/07/23 (Week 10 – Week 15)
|| Liau Kah Man, 0339084
|| Design Principles
|| Final Project: Visual Analysis.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. A RECAP OF FINAL PROJECT BRIEF
Final Project: Visual Analysis (40%)
Select one goal from United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG) and identify an art/design piece that bears some relevance to the chosen SDG. Proceed to analyze the artwork and create one of your own, using the selected UNSDG as the theme.
- Final Project – Visual Analysis blog link
- JPEG image of the final design, labelled as <Your Name_Final Project_Title of Your Final Design>
- PDF of Final Project blog
- Considers the references made to clarify the message/ purpose. Uses the design principles to enhance the work.
Marking Rubrics
- Beginning (0-6) - Idea is not fully realized and execution is poor.
- Developing (7-9) - Limited success in expressing the idea visually. Lacks sense of the overall composition and how it communicates.
- Mastering (10-12) - Expresses intention with moderate success though not fully in control of outcome.
- Outstanding (13-15) - Identifies the problem critically with an insightful solution that clearly communicates the intention.
Learning Goal
- To apply design principles covered during the semester to your work.
- To create an awareness of how materials and composition are critical to your communication.
Timeframe
Week 10 – Week 14 (Deadline on Week 14)
2. WRITTEN VISUAL ANALYSIS
2.1 Artwork
Figure 2.1.1. The 17 United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG), Week 10 (3/6/2023).
The selected UNSDG goal for this project is UNSDG 11 - Sustainable cities and communities. According to United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (n.d.), the aim of UNSDG 11 is to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
Figure 2.1.2. An artwork that I identified related to my chosen UNSDG 11, Week 11 (16/6/2023). Source: Adam Simpson (2014) on New Scientist.
I chose this artwork because it delivers a message to me via some of their small details, which is related to the UNSDG 11. Besides that, it is interesting to see what stuff they used as the opposite object for another side, specifically the chopped trees on the left and humans on the right.
2.2 Observation
The design work is in portrait format. It is drawn mainly with 2D shapes. However, the whole world is actually in a 3-dimension space, perhaps a cube, and distinctively separated into halves of two different dimension (world) through a same angle. As for visual elements, the main colours observed are yellow on left side; green and blue on the right side. Overall, the left side have a darker tone, while right side has a brighter tone with colourful colours (clothes and buildings) on it.
2.3 Analysis
Overall, there is a contrast between both sides due to the choice of colour usage and overall brightness, but also keeping the colours on the illustration harmony. Repetition can be found throughout the illustration --- the factories, cars, chopped trees, ships, humans, trees, buildings and wind turbines. The design is asymmetrical, using the sun and clouds to balance out the empty spaces.
2.4 Interpretation
This is a poster is probably self-initiated, not additional information can be found regarding this artwork. It is featured in New Scientist, in an article called "We can build a sustainable world – if you want it", via the link https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329760-500-we-can-build-a-sustainable-world-if-you-want-it/.
Overall, the left side looked dull and dirty, depicting a "bad, dark" future; while right side looked colorful and joyful with the balloons flying in the sky and specks of colourful colours (clothes and buildings) on it, giving a bright, happy future vibes.
At the centre bottom of the illustration, there are people from the polluted side climbing the stairs to reach the clean side. This can be interpreted as the urge of human willing to move forward to achieve a better sustainable world, or sarcastically they abandoned the polluted city and live in another city that they newly built, although it's has more sustainable design now.
3. PROCESS WORK
3.1 Visual References (that have inspired my own)
Figure 3.1.1, Figure 3.1.2, Figure 3.1.3. Visual references, Week 12 (20/6/2023).
3.2 Idea Exploration
Figure 3.2.1. Sketch 1-3, Week 12 (21/6/2023).
Further development of my ideas for Sketch 3 with leaves.
Figure 3.2.2 & Figure 3.2.3. Visual references for leaves, Week 13 (23/6/2023). Source: Pinterest, Pinterest.
Figure 3.2.3. Sketch 4-5, Week 12 (21/6/2023).
At current progress, can't really think of any good ideas to develop it even more, so I began round 2 research to develop my current ideas and saw Figure 3.2.2's great idea of the hands holding something important --- life, protecting it from disasters. Then found another artwork (Figure 3.2.3) as references for the hands, but more hands. It may indicate a meaning of a lot of people protecting something together.
Figure 3.2.4 & Figure 3.2.5. Visual references for hands, Week 13 (28/6/2023).
Then I saw another artwork, I like the light shining down on the top part of the leaves, looks like it's giving hope for it to survive in the dark cave (sunlight is one of the important elements for plants to grow). So I thought of sketching something like that with buildings and sustainable city on top of the regular non-sustainable buildings.
Figure 3.2.6. Visual references for composition and concept, Week 12 (28/6/2023).
Figure 3.2.7. Sketch 6-8, Week 13 (4/7/2023).
Proceeds draw it in detail. Progress was stucked after illustrating the leaf, as not sure what to draw to fill up the empty spaces, thus did more visual references.
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Figure 3.2.8., Figure 3.2.9, Figure 3.2.10, Figure 3.2.11. Visual references for the objects, Week 13 (5/7/2023).
Changed the overall composition for seeing this leaf photo below, thus produced Draft 1. Turned upside down Figure 3.2.12 and modified a little, thus have the layout of Draft 2.
Figure 3.2.12. Visual references for the overall layout of poster, Week 13 (6/7/2023).
Figure 3.2.13. Draft 4-6, Week 14 (9/7/2023).
Details are slowly added: buildings are colored, shadows under the leaves to make it more stand out, fruits, plants, wind energy, solar panels, humans, playground (lifestyle).
Figure 3.2.14. Draft 7, Week 14 (9/7/2023).
Overall, the poster is quite harmonious on the green to brown colour spectrum. The size and colours of the text and objects are adjusted in a way to establish a visual hierarchy, ensuring the most important word or image attracts viewers' attention first. Repetition is also seen throughout the poster: the houses, barns, wind turbines. stars are placed to balance out the overall composition and colour distribution of the illustration. The illustration also considers the figure-ground relationship using:
- Contrast of colour (front leaf is brighter overall)
- Size (front leaf showing more parts thus appear larger than other leaves)
- Also, due to the position of the front leaf's shadow, it seems higher above other leaves, perceiving other leaves as the background)
3.4 Feedback
Week 12
Good to see you have on thoughts adding the details on sketches. Sketch 5 delivers better message compared to others.
Week 13
The hands element in Sketch 8 is quite typical, not prefered. The leaf idea (Sketch 5) is still better.
Week 14
For Draft 7, overall the design reflects your message well.
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Figure 3.4.1 Put more trees on the red marks for better contrast, Week 14 (30/6/2023).
3.5 Reflection
Experience
I had a bad time choosing the UNSDG, especially between UNSDG 11 - Sustainable cities and communities, and UNSDG 14 - Life below water. End up I chose UNSDG 11 as I realized I always use blue in my artwork, which I think I should try practice using other colours and later found out finding the combination of blue and green is so hard haha.
The main difference compared to previous task is this time I experienced analyzing others' artwork "formally" with proper steps, from what is seen, the relationship of what is seen to why it is there. By doing so, it kind of reduces the chances to miss out any details of the artwork. It is quite amazing to realize the relationship between the details. For example, how Adam Simpson uses chopped trees as a comparison with newly planted trees and signboards (which the shapes are quite similar) for petrol station for environmental friendly cars. Besides that, the way he places the humans also create differences between two sides.
A funny thought came up when doing this project: I am not just doing creative media design, but also somehow architecture😂
Observations
It's interesting to see how everything I joined in this semester somehow integrated UNSDG. For this module, when it comes to illustrate these environmental-friendly themes, I always find it hard to start, as there so many cliché posters out there that I want to avoid.
On the bright side, during the discussion class for this project, I have seen a lot of interesting ways my coursemates did to express their theme. The most memorable one is the one using Gestalt theory wit forks and spoon to show a skinny unhealthy body for UNSDG 2 - Zero Hunger. It was an eye-opener and proofed that there are definitely more ways to avoid cliché work, with smart usage of design principles.
Findings
Learnt to have some thought on the reason of designing so, instead of merely due to aesthetic purposes. One of my weaker areas is still about how to deliver a clear message in simple design, would need more design experiences focusing on simplity to improve on that.
4. FURTHER READING
The mass and shapes in this illustration are quite randomly placed without consideration of harmonic placement, thus I researched and found a website sharing some great insights on designing pictorial composition: The Art of Composition. Here are the summary for the steps to refine the overall composition:
Step 1: Choose a composition “Type” to explore for your subject matter
The current composition of my artwork will lead an eye movement similar to "O" (or circle) starting from the centre (solar panels on the orange and red buildings), the title, subtitle, yellow buildings to the "wilted" leaves in the background. After that, viewers may only notice the wind turbines and other small details in the poster. The flow of this eye movement is due to the placement of the objects as well as their size and colours.
Step 2: Integrate your choice of a compositional “type” from step 1 onto a harmonic armature
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