Icons

The assignment was to find a visual of a simple object and create an icon image of the object. The icon should be able to represent the image strongly that you know exactly what the image represents. The visual that I chose was a picture of a fork. Just as the examples that are given in Krause's book, I highlighted the part of the fork that was the most representable. Naturally, the part of the fork that is the most recognizable is the head of the fork. Therefore, in PowerPoint, I used simple shapes to recreate the fork image. I used triangles to create the prongs of the fork, then used a trapezoid and a rectangle to finish the icon. To make the icon look more complete, I added a box around the image to enclose it. I believe my work is successful because I believe that my icon fully represents a fork. When I look at the icon, a fork comes to mind instantly.

Gestalt Principle: Closure

The principle I used was closure. With closure, you create an image by using other shapes, however the shapes do not touch. In my visual, I used the simple shape of the triangle to create a pentagon within the triangles, and even a star shape as a whole. I believe my work is successful because this is a good representation of the principle closure since the triangles do not touch in the visual, yet you can still see other shapes. I also enhanced the image by making the shapes black, so it's easier to see the other images and also gives the idea of an edge.

Critical Reflection

Connection:
Yes, the elements that are thematically connected are placed in association with each other visually. One activity that shows that the elements are thematically connected is the Grouping and Theme blog. I kept the same shape of a doughnut throughout the composition that shows that they are thematically connected.
Some adjustments could be made, mostly because work can always be critiqued.
The pieces do not feel scattered. Each blog and activity are grouped together and shows a logical order to each activity and blog.
The connections between certain elements should be cut off to create a visual break because that's most appealing to the eye then an intentional interruption of the flow of the piece. The descriptions flow with each other, describing step after step and finally if I was pleased with my work. Each blog post has different titles, therefore showing a visual break between each composition.
Yes, there are strong visual and thematic connections between the blog entries. They all describe composition descriptions; i.e. Horizons, Grouping and Theme, Alignment, and Color and Emphasis.
Structural connections consistently are applied since we were working on composition throughout this unit and shows unity among the blog portfolio.

Alignment:
Overall, my portfolio isn't completely aligned, each blog post has it's individual alignment. I would post the visuals to the left extreme side (flush-left) with the text on the right of the visual. I attempted to put each before and after picture on top of one another, however getting alignment exactly right in a blog post is quite difficult. I looked over my alignment again and even though it is difficult to get it perfect, I believe I did a good job aligning the visuals. There are areas of trapped space that could be erased, but then again, I attempted to delete the empty space, but then the alignment gets moved out of place. It is hard to get alignment perfect with a blog post. However, the open space does allow the blog portfolio to flow nicely and not seem too busy.

Priority:
If I were to look at this portfolio after a lunch break or across the room, it's eye catching. All the visuals that are placed onto the portfolio are interesting and make you want to read about them. Having bigger text for titles and separating titles from the visuals and descriptions highlights the hierarchy in the blog portfolio. Some of the titles could possibly be made larger to stand out, however, they do not come with a size range to fix. There is a good balance of color and value that bring attention to the subject matter by the colors in the visuals. Also, having a lighter text background allows the visuals and the text to pop on the blog portfolio. There is visual flow throughout the portfolio having the separation between each blog posts and flow within the blog posts themselves. The flow and balance of color, etc allow the eye to be directed towards the composition and not reared off the page. Your eye catches the visuals and there are no distractions among the portfolio to direct your eye away from the work.

Old and New

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For our Old and New activity, we were to select a busy street visual and make the surroundings of one object color while the rest of the picture looks old with either a black and white coloring or sepia coloring. I uploaded the picture in Photoshop, magnetic lasso-ed the taxi, selected inverse and changed the Hue and Saturation as well as the Selective Color to make the background of the taxi black and white. Now, the taxi stands out a lot more than the original visual. Your eye is drawn instantly to the yellow taxi. I am pleased with my work because the color and emphasis on the yellow taxi draws the eye right away. The rest of the photo looks old while the taxi looks modern.

Color and Emphasis

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For our Color and Emphasis activity, I had to select a simple object to work with. I used the magnetic tool in Photoshop to only select one of the strawberries. I then created four copies of the strawberry and used free transform to edit the position the strawberry was taking. To put emphasis on an object, I had to change the color of only one of the strawberries. Therefore, you are not drawn to the position of the strawberries, but more of the color and difference one of the strawberries holds. I am pleased with my outcome because right away you are drawn to the different colored strawberry. I really like the green color I used since green and red are complimentary colors on the color wheel.

Composition

The purpose of our work was to show alignment in our design as well as still having the object as the main focus of the image. I first uploaded a picture of a simple object. I placed text directly underneath the object as well as text on the bottom of the photo. Once I placed the text onto the image, I stretched the sides of the text boxes to extreme left and right, and clicked center alignment. I made sure that all three boxes, the image and text boxes, were all aligned by holding down the shift key. After maneuvering the boxes with the keyboard, they were finally aligned. I believe my work was successful because the image is aligned with the center of the page and the object is still the main focus of the image.

Grouping and Theme

Our assignment was to create seven slides with the same ten shapes, but each slide was a different description. I created these slides in PowerPoint using the basic shapes of a doughnut. We were able to change the shape and color of the shapes as long as it related to the theme of the slide. The first slide I have shown is the Logic slide. First thing that comes to mind for me when Logic is brought up is "thoughts". To me, the image linked with thoughts, is the symbol "?" simply because logic always deals with questions. I am pleased with my work because the circles strongly represent a "?" which was my goal overall.


The second image that I have is the Anarchy slide. When I looked up Anarchy in the dictionary, one word kept popping up, disorder. Therefore, in my image of the doughnuts with Anarchy, I am representing disorder. All of the doughnuts are scattered and none of them are the same color. I am pleased with my work because I believe the visual successfully represents disorder using the same circle shapes.




The third image is my Escape slide. The image is to look as if there was a change of doughnut shapes holding the yellow doughnut back. The yellow doughnut breaks through the chain, escaping from them. I am pleased with my visual because the yellow circle really looks like it's breaking free from the blue chain.






The fourth image is my Intimidation slide. When intimidation comes to mind for me, I always pictures "big" and "scary" objects surrounding a smaller, scared object. Therefore, in my image, I have enlarged 9 of the 10 doughnuts and changed their color to black to be "intimidating". The one object in the lower right corner, is smaller and "scared", therefore backed into a corner. I am pleased with my work because the tiny circle seems intimidated by the bigger, black circles.




The next image is my isolation slide. Again, I grouped 9 doughnuts together and changed their color all to orange to seem as if the one left over doughnut was an outcast, isolated away from the group. I am pleased with my visual because using the colors really highlights the isolation of the blue circle in the bottom corner.




With my Celebration slide, I think of happiness. And what comes to mind when you think of happiness?? Smiles. Therefore, I arranged the doughnuts into a smiley face, adding the red color to be striking. I am pleased with my visual because when I see the smiley face, I think of celebration and happiness which was the example that needed to be shown.




Lastly, with my Unity image, all of the doughnuts are all one color, green, and all in one big circle. Being all one color and all in a circle, it creates unity among the images. The fact that all of the objects are together and doing the same thing, unity is apparent. I am pleased with my visual because the fact that all the circles are green and all put in a circle, I instantly think of unity.

Activities 1,2,3

1. In the first exercise, we demonstrated the Principle of Unequal Spacing. We used point placement on a gridded sheet of paper. Dots were placed all over the page in which each of the horizontal and vertical distances were different to the margins of the paper.

2. In the second exercise, we were to demonstrate the rule of cropping by being given a picture and cropping most of the sky out to only see most of the road. The picture is below. I am pleased with my results because now all of the focus is on road.
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Before

3. In the third exercise, we were to demonstrate the opposite of exercise two and crop most of the road, so most of the sky was showing. The picture is below. I am pleased with my product because now all of the focus is on the sky.
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Before

4. Lastly, we used the Golden Section ruler. The Golden Section ruler is defined by Krause as "as an aesthetically pleasing division of space that is often used by artists as the basis for measurements within their composition". Using Photoshop, I designed a rectangle picture to look like a 15 inch ruler that was divided unequally. The proportions of unequal in that unequal is more appealing to the eye. I am pleased by how I was able to represent the Golden Section ruler and was very easy to make.