Right, Design Principles.

What are design principles?

To me, design principles are guidelines which help artists in creating their artwork. They are also methodologies which have been proven to work over the past centuries. Creating artworks and design with these principles, everyone will have different end products. These end products will reflect the artist’s thoughts and ideas, as well as the message or objective that they want to bring across.

Having said so, what exactly are the principles of design?

After some research on the various design principles, I’ve a few design principles which I found them to be more interesting.

- Definitions quoted from an online PDF article:

https://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/building_lessons/principles_design.pdf

Balance
Pattern
Movement
Rhythm
Emphasis

Balance

Balance is the distribution of the visual weight of objects, colors, texture, and space. If the design was a scale, these elements should be balanced to make a design feel stable. In symmetrical balance, the elements used on one side of the design are similar to those on the other side; in asymmetrical balance, the sides are different but still look balanced. In radial balance, the elements are arranged around a central point and may be similar.

Pattern

Pattern is the repeating of an object or symbol all over the work of art.

Movement

Movement is the path the viewer’s eye takes through the work of art, often to focal areas. Such movement can be directed along lines, edges, shape, and color within the work of art.

Rhythm

Rhythm is created when one or more elements of design are used

repeatedly to create a feeling of organized movement. Rhythm creates a mood like music or dancing.

Emphasis

Emphasisis the part of the design that catches the viewer’s attention. Usually the artist will make one area stand out by contrasting it with other areas. The area could be different in size, color, texture, shape, etc.

Project 1 // Putting them together.

Short reflection;

This project was an interesting one to kickstart the module, and it has definitely allowed me to be more creative about creating my work as well as making me think out of the box. My objective for the final product was to show a contrast of the different emotions so that the overall work would not be dull, but interesting.

Putting strips of 391mm x 44mm onto a piece of A1 was sure a challenge, but the results were rewarding. The final work turned out to be nicer than I thought it would be. Totally worth my sleep.

Final artwork.

Project 1 // a line is a dot that went for a walk.

how would you express your emotions through lines?

Project Brief:

Use the concept of lines to interpret a set of 18 different emotions, with the use of different mediums and method in creating the different emotions being anxious, embarrassed, bizarre, exhausted, fragile, systematic, lyrical, turbulent, nonsensical, psychotic, ambiguous,, spontaneous, distracted, sloven, sensual, aggressive, awkward, and indecisive.

Research & Exploration:

By looking up the definitions of all the emotions on the internet, I started the journey on creating the emotions. Having to know more of each emotions and what they really are, it gave me a better idea on how to approach this project.

Stage 1 | Ideation

With all the definitions on hand, I am able to start sketching and generating ideas on the different emotions.

Anxious: shaky, tremble, up and down

Embarrassed: shy, exposed, blushing, centre of attraction

Bizarre: weird, unusual, mysterious

Exhausted: tired, used up, empty

Fragile: delicate, brokeen, weak, brittle, shattered

Systematic: uniformed, patterned, repeated, automated

Lyrical: music, poetry peaceful

Turbulent: violent, impactful, agitation

Nonsensical: foolish, absurd, meaningless

Psychotic: crazy, mad, disturbed, insane

Ambiguous: several possibility, doubtful, unclear

Distracted: bored, lost focus, loss of attention

Sensual: fleshly, lewd, arousing

Sloven: untidy, messy, sloppy

Spontaneous: sudden, unplanned, natural reaction

Aggressive: fierce, anger, force

Awkward: inconvenient, unfamiliar, clumsy

Indecisive: unsure, uncertain

Stage 2 | Execution

Having sketched out the different ideas on the emotions, I proceeded with the execution on a smaller scale of the final product. The main mediums used were markers, fineliner pens, and pencils. I also had in mind what were the possible mediums i could use for the final product.

↑↑ possible mediums that can be used.

Finalising the artwork.

(Description in order with sequence of strips)

Exhausted: The use of thick markers and slowly dying down to finer marker lines depicts the sign of exhaustion and being worn out.

Bizarre: Using organism-like illustrations is how I think of bizarre, as microscopic cells, which we cannot see with our naked eye and it could look like anything.

Embarrassed: Having the black dots as a person, the lines around it, be it going towards or distancing away, conveys the idea of one being the centre of attention when done something wrong/ unexpected, hence feeling embarrassed.

Anxious: Thick and thin up down arrows would be how being anxious can be shown.

Fragile: The use of the cross section of a wooden chopstick with ink stamped, shows the structure, and by dapping the ‘broken pieces’ with the broken tip of the wooden chopsticks, shows the pieces broken when something has snapped/ been broken into half.

Systematic: An abstract of the DNA structure.

Lyrical: Curvy and wavy lines; as though leaves are bristling through the wind. Done with calligrahy pen.

Turbulent: Impactful and fast, with thick markers and thinner markers to portray the fast movement.

Distracted: a sudden surge in activity after a period of constant concentration. Thick and thin lines can be related to different people with different kinds of distractions.

Ambiguous: Organic shapes, and then geometric shapes. What could it be?

Psychotic: The doctor said to the mad men, ” Now, draw me proper squares, circles and triangles.”

Nonsensical: Curvy, yet with some illegitimate scribbles in it. You call that a curve? That’s nonsense.

Aggressive: Hard, sharp lines. Even tore up the paper. You,ve gotta chill man.

Spontaneous: Let the dot be a soccer ball. Imagine someone kicked it and its going everywhere out of a sudden.

Sloven: I drew it on a piece of crumpled paper. Acceptable i guess?

Sensual: Inspired from the human muscles, curvy and sleek with different tones.

Indecisive: Not sure on which medium to use. Used correction tape to make amendments over and over again.

Awkward: Let the lines be some sort of a construction. You have to get from Point A to Point B. The black tape is path you have to take, awkward.