Art - Update and Week 4 Do Now

For this Art blog post, I will share my progress on my design developments so far. This will also include a document that details what I'm going to do for the remainder of the week. So far I have some vague ideas on what I will do this week. I would like to focus on the 3.1 and 3.2 assessments as that is something I have to complete and it may help me with my designs along the way as well. Anyway, I'll like to share some pictures of my progress so far with my designs. I have changed a few things to maybe help me create a more effective design.

My Do Now's

I was given a document where I would write what I would do at the beginning of each day in Art Class. I have given myself some stuff to do that might hopefully benefit me. Each do now I've given myself is quite vague as I plan to mostly play around with this new style of design I'm going for. Anyways here is the Document.

Logo/Poster Design 

The image above was one of my poster developments. This poster development changed quite a lot of what I was going to design originally. It changed my company's name from Abstracity to Abstrac. The reason why is probably easy to tell from the image above. I had to change the company name to help my logo belong in the company itself, which could be a design element. Overall I believe it is a good change as it looks pretty clean. This design also made me change the overall theme of my designs. Currently, I'm striving for a minimalistic abstract approach to all my designs as I believe it fits the overall theme of the company itself. The poster development also linked to logo development as well. 

Right below are some previous poster developments before I got to the point above.

Bit of Development on the Poster

The image above shows some development I did to try and make that T in the logo pop out a bit more. I don't know if it looks better or not compared to the previous one at the very top. I plan to just work on both the poster and logo a bit more and hopefully something will come to mind that'll be effective.

Next Steps:

Currently, I'm trying to find ways to further develop both the logo and poster. Although, I'm quite satisfied with what my designs are looking like right now. I'm still planning whether to use red and black as my color palette or potentially include different shades of both colors to increase variety in my designs as well.

Art - Catch-Up Blogposts (Blog post 7)

Here is a blog post dedicated to catching up on the previous blog posts that I haven't done yet. This is blogpost 7 out of 11 (unless there's more that I don't know more of)

Blog post 7:

This blog post topic was about getting inspiration for our posters. We achieve this by having pieces of colored paper, cutting them up into shapes, and then using them to form some sort of final shape that'll help us generate ideas. We were asked to also focus on certain elements as well. Here are those elements

• Repetition

• Positive and negative space

• Framing

• Cropping

• Scale

• Layering

Here are my final shapes that were to help me generate poster ideas.

                                Bridge (Normal Orientation)                                           Suit (Flipped Orientation)

For this 'shape', I labeled this one as the bridge. Although this may not be a bridge that you might find outside because I tried approaching it abstractly. In this poster idea, I still had the plan to use a centerline (one that you'll find on a road) to help relate my designs to a city sort of theme. But the main focus on this poster was how you viewed it in different orientations. From an unchanged orientation, it was supposed to represent an abstract bridge with a centerline, but, if you were to flip the poster upside-down or 180 degrees it would look like a collar part of a suit. At first, I really like the idea of this, as it was cool to have like 2 different shapes when viewed from different orientations, but, as I'm writing this from a point where I have tried developing it, I found it was quite hard to develop into an attractive design that I'll like. I might've been approaching the development the wrong way.

I believe that this poster didn't really use much of those elements that I was suppoused to focus on, other than repetition of the centerline dashes and maybe a bit of layering as well.

Attempted Development of the Bridge/Suit poster

T-Shirt poster made by using shapes

Different color variants of the T-shirt Poster.

Here is my other poster idea I did by cutting up shapes and rearranging them. For this poster, It felt more like an experiment to see what I could do by having different colors interact with each other. At this point, I tried using colorful colors and blending them together to see what I could come up with. As I'm writing this from a point where I'm far past the idea of generating posters and have tried developing these 2 poster ideas, I felt it was limited with the development of these two and have proceeded with a different approach on my designs. Although I had a bit of fun trying different colors on this poster with the T-shirt, and maybe that helped me find out what colors I really wanted to use.

Note: The colors used above don't appear bright as I wanted them to be. This is because printing them through a printer might've affected the colors, causing them to be darker and less colorful.

This T-shirt poster does show more of those elements that we were supposed to focus on. In the different color variants picture, the T-shirt poster that only uses black and white do have some sort of negative/positive space going on. This looks like it creates a big 'color strip' on the middle of the poster. There is repetition going on but nothing too crazy other than the color stripes on the poster. Layering could also be an element as in some color variants the T-shirt looks like it's popping out.

Art - Pragnanz and Closure (Photoshoot)

Here is an Art blog post that showcases my photoshoots. These photoshoots are to help me gather real-life inspiration for my design work. I tried taking photos that related to my art theme somewhat. Here we have photos that are mostly landscaped with some photos featuring the road, as that is an element that is present in my design work. I choose landscape cause I thought that might help with the theme of being abstract as it is somewhat minimal, and doesn't seem to convey any messages behind the picture. Although editing might've helped convey the feeling a bit more.

Anyway, let's talk about the Pragnanz and Closure aspect of these photoshoots.

Pragnanz essentially means the law of simplicity and order. 

I tried conveying this by creating a 4x3 grid with each row having its own 'theme'. e.g. in the top row we have pictures that depict the countryside, in the middle, we have a beach, and lastly, at the bottom, we have a town surrounded by water. Every single picture also features the sky as well. This was my way of trying Pragnanz. I don't know if this is a good example but yeah.

Closure Is where if there's a break in a object, our brains try to fill in the empty spaces for us to create a smoother object. 

I don't know if closure really applies to any of these photos. However, maybe the white background for the pictures might be. The background creates a grid because the placement of the pictures is even and symmetrical. 

Art - Annotated Examples (Blogpost 5)

 This blog post shows my annotated sketches on select artists from different periods of time and an artist from New Zealand. We have Traditional, Contemporary, and Aotearoa works which I have roughly sketched and annotated.

I have annotated these on the notebook itself, but I think it may be hard to read, so I'll rewrite them (better) here

Contemporary: Barnbrook

- The focal point of the work would be the Japanese letters. They contrast the other typography on the artwork because it is bigger and bolded. 

- I don't think they are exactly leading lines but, there are these outlines of these boxes that contain the text. This is probably to draw our eyes to the text within them. The outlines of the box also contrast with the background

- The color choice of this work is white and then a bunch of vibrant colors. The white makes up the typography and the outline of these boxes for the text. The vibrant colors however make up the background. The vibrant colors on the background feel very unintentional as it looks like a spill of colors. The white also contrasts the background to make the text pop out more I think.

Traditional: Saul Bass

- The focal point would be the clover in the middle as it's centered and contrasts everything else.

- There are only two colors present in this work, Red, and Black. Red is most likely the main color as the red element is in the center of the work and it does contrast everything around it. The black is the other 2 designs on the work which surround the red to create a stronger contrasting effect.

- The repetitive element could be the hearts within the outline of the clover. The 3 different hearts are just different variations of rotations to make up the outline of the clover.

Aotearoa: Stuart Geddes

- The focal point of this work would be the lines on the right side guiding us to the center of the artwork. 

- The colors used in this work feel 'realistic'. The color palettes sort of make a cold environment with lights and shadows.

- There isn't really a repetitive element in this work, but maybe the use of lights and shadows can be one.

- The typography used in this has a very minimalistic theme. The font and the color choice help with the minimalist feel. There are two texts 'groups' in this work, and they are very vastly spaced. One at the top of the work and one at the bottom; this might be a use of hierarchy as the top would capture our attention first then the bottom.

Art - Catch-Up on Do Nows

 School Holidays let's go. Homework time

So in Art class, I'm quite behind on some tasks (Do Nows). Since the school holidays are in progress; I'll use this chance to do some catch-up work.

Week 6

- Redraw your company name in different styles 

Here are some initial quick concepts of trying to draw my company name (Abstracity) in different styles. (These were already drawn pretty early on but I had not shared them until now). To be honest I reckon that the drawings above are quite bad and can be improved. Although I believe around this time I was still trying to figure out the identity of my company. I will probably revisit this and draw more up-to-date and higher-effort concepts.

- Take Notes on Aaron Draplin's Logo Design Challenge Video

This was actually done as a separate blog post, I believe it's under this exact blog post too. Probably won't repost it here as it does take quite a large amount of space.

-Redraw the First letter of your Company Name in different styles

This goes the same as the other drawing task above. It had been drawn around a time when I was still trying to figure out what exactly my company is. I would like to revisit this in the future and improve it. For now, I'll keep this here to remind myself what I had started with and ended with. 

Week 7

-Folio Layout + Initial Brief

Here is a part of the portfolio. The portfolio is still a work in progress, but the initial brief is there :)

-Notes on Aaron Draplin's Video

I don't know if this is the same task as the previous week's one, I'm just going to leave it blank here as I had already done it. I believe the notes I had taken were good enough in length and cover a good amount of detail too.

- Moodboard Revision

Here is my recreated Moodboard in Google Drawings. I don't think I've shared my previous mood board though. The previous mood board was pretty bland and boring as it was just 3 separate google slides. For this one, I just kept it simple enough while still being somewhat pleasing to look at.

Here is the link to the Moodboard as the image might not be the highest quality: Moodboard

- Logo Generation

I had previously made a blog post on my initial concept logos that I had already made. I'm going to rather just put my most updated design yet, and share a few details on it as well.

Here is what I'm currently working on. I'm just to incorporate what you would see in a Cityscape/Urban setting into something that reflects apparel-related. My idea here is to sort of make a suit shape out of shapes to keep in the theme of being abstract. However, my teacher had suggested an idea where I make the center of my design which is supposed to be the suit's tie into a centerline. This centerline also takes perspective into account for a more engaging design. My next steps for this are probably trying to refine it. The side shapes of the logo also look like buildings which is a potential design choice as well.

-My Portfolio with the addition of the mood board

Hey, It looks pretty good, doesn't it?

Week 8

-Share logo work with another Senior Designer

Currently doing this at home and during holidays. Might have to put this off until I have a chance to share with it someone else during class. 

-Revisit Brief 

For this task, I revisited the brief I had filled in earlier on in the term. This brief isn't the one you see in the portfolio but rather a proper brief that covers the details of your company. For this task, I had rewritten some of the stuff for more clarity and to also add more to it as well. The things that we were asked to add to our brief were: The Look and Feel of our Product, Existing Competition, and Budget. 

I had complied this into a page in Google Doc. But Here's the whole Brief.

- Share Illustration Work and Brief

Here is all the illustration work I've done so far. It's just logo design at this point, and very early concepts as well. 

I've already shared my Brief above as well.

-Reflection

So far in Art, I have a lot to do. I think the area I need to focus on is to take a step back and try to create a strong foundation to work off. To me the foundation is the identity of my company and color choice/palette. Once I get that sorted I should be able to have a solid plan of what to do. Other than that I just have these catch-up work to do for now.

Week 9

The majority of Week 9 Do Nows require me to swap my logo idea with another designer student. This isn't a good time as everyone is in School Holidays. I'll do this once I get back at school and have it done as a seperate blogpost.

Week 10

I have done majority of the task for Week 10, and they have been uploaded as blogposts. I'll Link them down below

Blogposts:

Poster Concept

Poster Inspiration

-Logo Concept Drawings

This tasks ask us to draw 6 new logos again. This is probably because we now have a better understanding of what our company is. Since I have developed/illustrated a potential logo; this would probably serve as further inspiration for me. I do like Numbers 1, 3 and 6 though.

Ok, that probably is everything. My next steps are probably to start working on a poster once I get the logo sorted.

Art - Aaron Draplin Notes

 Previously in Art, we had watched a video from an established designer. We watched his process of designing to learn/ get some hints on how to create an effective design. I have taken some notes that I'll like to share from the video of Aaron Draplin explaining his design process.

Here's the Video: Aaron Draplin Takes on a Logo Design Challenge

Here's my notes:

With Logo Design start off by writing your company name over and over in different ways like lowercase and uppercase. This is to get a feel of what you're working with. Knowing what your client/business does can give you a context of what kind of color palette would be appropriate to work with. It can also give you an idea of what your design would also look like.

After sketching around in your fields notebook to generate ideas you then create them by designing software. Starting off simple can help create the foundation. Once you have developed a design; you should duplicate it as you may want to go a step back just in case or to remember how you started off. After you made a prototype design that you like you should experiment with its size to see its feel from different approaches.

You should also work with other designs you sketched in your fields notebook rather than work with the one you've gotten. You could even incorporate the two together to create more variety-wide designs.

You should also work with other design elements like the background/materials the design is going to be on. Working with typography is also another element you should experiment with.

Art - Poster Concept

 In Art, We had begun to research the poster component of our designs. This can be seen in an earlier blog post which shows 6 different posters that I had manually selected due to preference. That was essentially an 'inspiration' to help us find a type of design we would want for our posters. From that research, I'm most likely going to stick to geometric shapes with bright vibrant colors, and a theme of minimalism and potentially contrast too. I'll upload my concept designs on posters when I believe they are at a level where I'm satisfied with for concepts.

The Earlier Blogpost