GDS 108 Design Principles

PDN, December 2014. Page 52 For  this week's blog, I talk about "creative" pieces.  Of course everyone here knows what being creative means, but it is a rather general term that can be applied to lots of different topics.  The topic of creativity for this blog focuses a lot on critique, particularly subjective critique, which involves a peer or instructor to look at the piece and identify the strengths and weaknesses. As mentioned in the textbook, subjective criticism  focuses on the the compositions meaning, emotion, intent, and relationships to different cultural events.  Unlike objective criticism , critiquing subjectively does not directly focus on simple observation, but it is more interpretive and thought provoking to say the least.  With subjective criticism, viewers can go deeper into what an art piece represents as a whole.  Such discussion does not always focus on the art, but it can also go towards emphasizing the current issues in society.  The p

For today's blog, I discuss the rules in color harmony.  The types of color harmony include analogous, monochromatic, complementary, and color harmonies.  Unlike the previous blogs, rather than put a photo on top and explain the significance in the bottom, I will divide each paragraph with the photo that corresponds to it, so it would not confuse any of the readers.  Each rule mentioned here will have one photo, meaning there are going to be more than two photos to show. 1. Analogous colors Mentioned on page 48 & 49 of the textbook, analogous color schemes are the adjacent colors on the color wheel, which are green, blue-green, and blue.  The composition above is a great example of the analogous color system as it has a mixture of blues and greens.  In addition to the blue and green, there is some violet in there which is kind of a third wheel (or in this case fourth wheel) because it is an extra color to a three color combination.  The piece itself is unique in how

HOW, September/October 1999. Page 120 For today's blog, I talk about the most recent subject the class covered, color themes. As mentioned in the textbook, there are six different types of color schemes which are, monochromatic, analogous, complementary, split complementary, triadic, and chromatic color schemes. In addition, we also talked about primary (red, blue, and yellow), secondary (green, orange, and violet), and tertiary colors.  With all of that now in our thought processes, we can now look at compositions while paying particular attention to the types of colors that are present. Or maybe not. Whether you analyze colors or not, we have some sense of the colors that are displayed before us. This art piece found in a 1999 copy of "How" magazine interested me in a lot of ways. I for one like compositions that have a wide range of colors. I also like the fact that the artist can use up space with out leaving any untouched areas in between. Those two pre

Communication Arts, January/February 2017. Page 101 For this week's blog, I cover positive and negative space.  Positive Space being the subject of the composition and negative space being the background.  I initially was confused at first when I saw positive and negative being paired with space.  At first I thought that it meant positive and negative emotions, but after some assistance from classmates as well as looking in the textbook glossary, I found out that positive and negative space meant the subject and background of a composition.  As all of us know, we just finished a Lynda assignment on how different colors represent different emotions, that was not the case so this was completely brand new to me.  I chose this photo off of an ad in an early 2017 issue of Communication Arts magazine and immediately thought it was interesting.  Not only is this a good example of positive and negative space, but the fact that the positive space was composed entirely of words made t

How, November 2010. Page 53 For this week's blog, I talk about finding something that is interesting and connecting that interest into graphic design.  I quickly looked through a magazine and immediately this photo caught my attention.  It is a photo of typewriters.  Most of us have probably never used a typewriter before, but at least we know what they are.  We know that before there was Microsoft word or printers, the typewriter was the tool to use to type essays, letters, and just about anything related to text.  Why would I choose type writers to cover this topic? I chose it simply because it is considered to be obsolete technology.  Like cellphones replacing payphones, many people just prefer the technologically advanced tools that are easier to use rather than using older tools that require more maintenance.  As technology becomes more and more advanced, many people are abandoning the the tools of the past and are not looking back.  Sounds sad right? It is, but there i