Design Principle: Final Project
29.10.2021 - 26.11.2021 (Week 10 - Week 14)
Britney Chow Pei Jun / 0350043 / BDCM
Design Principles
Lectures and
Final Project: Visual Analysis
LECTURES
Visual Analysis
- A method of understanding design that focuses on visual elements and principles
- A description and explanation of visual structure for its own sake.
- The purpose of visual analysis can also recognize the choices that a designer made in creating the design, as as to better understand how the formal properties of a design communicate ideas, content, or meaning.
- A critical part of visual literacy, a skill that helps people read and critically interpret images, whether in a museum on social media, in entertainment, etc.
- Constantly confronted with visual media, thus practicing visual analysis sharpens critical judgment skills and helps people seek out answers instead of passively receiving information.
How it works?
3 phases:
Phase 1: Observation
- Closely looking at and identifying the visual elements of a design, trying to describe them carefully and accurately in your own words.
- Do not read beforehand about the design at all.
- The observation phase is about looking, thinking, and finding good language to communicate what you notice.
Phase 2: Analysis
- Analysis requires you to think about your observations and try to make statements about the work based on the
- evidence of your observations.
- Think about how the specific visual elements that you’ve identified combine together to create a whole, and what
- effect that whole has on the viewer.
- How your eye is led through the work and why?
Phase 3: Interpretations
- Your observations, description, and analysis of the work are fused with facts about the design work (and in some cases the designer) and historical context that you find in trustworthy published sources.
- What is the meaning of the design? What was the purpose for it to be created?
INSTRUCTIONS
VISUAL ANALYSIS
fig 1.1; Rise by Yuumei; sauce: (https://www.deviantart.com/yuumei/art/Rise-340662745)
Yuumei, aka Wenqing Yan is a artist I've always admire since I was
young. This is one of her early works that had me falling for her
art. This art was published on 2nd of December 2012.
Observations
This piece of art is in a landscape format. From the first look, we
can tell that the boy in the middle is kneeling down to the
intimidating police officers, as if surrendering to them. However,
if we look closely, the boy's hand can be seen showing a 'V sign'.
There's also the words "YOU ARE FREE" at the backside of his hoodie,
as if saying he may be surrendering, but not exactly submitting.
This piece of art is mainly consisted of dark colors, though we
could still see some bright colors around the middle part of the art
which indicated light reflect. The sky here is also painted in grey
and white. We can also tell that it is raining and one can also feel
the sadness anger, and dissatisfaction in this magnificent piece of
art. Though, if looked from a different perspective, one can also
see hope in the art as well as the feeling of "not willing to
submit". Speaking of perspective, this art is viewed from a third
person point of view, however it can also be view from a first
person point of view (as if we are behind the main character and
kneeling down as well).
Analysis
fig 1.2; Rule of Thirds;
fig 1.4; Repetition;
There are quite a few of design principles and elements used
in this piece of art. It can be seen the Rule of Thirds has
been applied by the designer when doing this art. One of the
other design principle used here is repetition, this can be
seen by how the designer here has drawn more than one police
officer (shown in fig 1.4). Furthermore, the designer has also
used one-point perspective when working on this art, this can
be seen by how she had drew the building (shown if fig 1.3).
Moreover, she has also used another design principle, emphasis
in this art, this can also be seen by how she has drew the
main character at a size larger than the others and also put
him in the middle (shown in fig 1.5). One of the obvious
design principle used in here is symmetrical balance, same
goes with word and image. Last but not least, contrast was
also seen to be used in this piece of art, for example, the
color of the sky compare to the color of the buildings and the
main character.
Interpretations
Yuumei was inspired by a case happened in 2012. She has
participated in a free Bradly Manning Protest. They were a
small group of people, about 20 to 30 peaceful protesters met
by an overkill of riot police. They dissipated peacefully
because they do not want to be arrested, however the image of
facing against the riot police remained in Yuumei’s mind, and
thus, inspired her to draw this magnificent piece of art.
Bradley Manning was the person who leaked the Collateral
Murder video. The video is about the slaughter of Iraqi
civilians and journalists by American soldiers. More can be
known at
www.bradleymanning.org/. However, Bradley was arrested for leaking the video and as
sentence to 35 years of imprisonment. Yuumei actually drew 2
versions of this night and day, for the day version, it
focuses more on hope while the night version focuses
more on oppression.
fig 1.6; Rise by Yuumei (Night version); sauce: (https://www.deviantart.com/yuumei/art/Rise-Night-Version-341342298)
IDEA EXPLORATION
After discussing this piece of work with my lecturer, there was a few questions that made me think a lot. "What was it that you want to do?" and there may be tons of things that I want to do to tell the world as well, but I have to make a choice.
There are really quite a lot of things that I wanna tell about the
world, one of the things is about how our world has changed so much ever
since the industrial revolution.
fig 2.1; Countdown by Yuumei; sauce: (https://www.deviantart.com/yuumei/art/Countdown-217677913)
fig 2.2; Rebreathe by Yuumei; sauce: (https://www.deviantart.com/yuumei/art/Rebreathe-859394760)
I then started to think if this situation continues on without
anyone doing anything, our world definitely wouldn't be the same as
the one we're living right now. It's like, right now if we're
traveled to the future, and compare it, I would think, "Is this
really the earth?"
Below is my sketch:
fig 2.3; First idea sketch;
This is the first idea sketch I have and basically the idea here was
to show how it would be to live in the future, perhaps year 2121?
fig 2.4; 2nd sketch
This is actually from a picture from when we celebrated one of my
friend's birthday before when the pandemic happened. This way, it
could be more relatable.
fig 2.5; Adding the camera frame;
I tried to add a camera frame to it to make it look like a more
"at the moment" type of feel. I then added the colors for the
contrast.
fig 2.6; Final Outcome of Visual Analysis design;
fig 2.7; Final Outcome of Visual Analysis design in PDF;
In this artwork, I'm trying to portray a life in the future, where humans can still live happily, but not in our way. Instead of going out to travel around the world to admire the pretty landscapes, they might be staying at home, looking at their electronic devices the whole day. Our breathtaking scenery may just be a history to them, and they may have to live their lives off with gas mask.
FEEDBACK
Dr. Charles told me that the first sketch has too much things going on. I should focus on one thing to say but then can tell what I wanted to.
REFLECTIONS
For this project, I actually have a lot of ideas that I want to try out. However, I do not have a lot of time to try them out one by one as there are other assignments that needed my attention too. It is actually very sad for me because when I finished this, I thought of a completely new idea and have a very strong urge to execute it. It was quite sad for me, as I really do want to try it but then I have other things to do as well, and the more I think about how to execute that, the more I feel dissatisfied with this art. However, I think this artwork is okay, as I was able to expressed what I wanted to. And for the other ideas, I want to try and do them when I have the time during my sem break.
From this, I also learned that I have a lot of things that I need to improve, especially for choosing the right colors to use as I'm very poor at coloring. I also realized that I need to improve on my composition skills as well, as I tried to squeeze everything that I want to say in an artwork and made the artwork look too full and no focal point at all.
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