DAI 505 Blog 1

I am Shawna England (England, like the country).  I am a senior at San Francisco State University, majoring in Industrial Art. I currently work as a visual aid/ assistant at a Hair and Nail Studio in San Ramon. My favorite aspect of design is creating visuals such as posters, brochures, booklets and anything to do with branding a company. In my spare time, I love making greeting cards, comic books and band logos for some of my pals.  

There's a lot of things and people that inspire me; like Loretta Lynn and Shel Silverstein and Ralph Steadman and sleeping in on weekdays and drinking beer during the day and bike rides, but mostly I'd say my friends and family inspire me the most.

“Just because you're naked doesn't mean you're sexy. Just because you're cynical doesn't mean you're cool.”
- Tom Robbins 

I am influenced by the genuine people in the world. I don't care if you're genuinely an asshole or genuinely friendly or genuinely hilarious; as long as you're genuine I am influenced by you. 

And really, really good music.


My hope in life is to become at least a moderately successful designer with a decent paying job in an atmosphere where I can still love what I do. I'd love to work in an industry that allows me to be creative but also involves some structure and guidelines, like creating posters and brochures for small companies.  But mostly, I hope to still be close with my family and awesome buddies.  I hope I still play in a shitty punk rock band and I hope to go to sleep at night feeling happy.


To sum it up in 6 words:

1.  Friendly
2.  Loving
3.  Witty
4.  Creative
5.  Loud
6.  Talented



Here's a link to my bands page Former Babies for those of you interested in checking it out.
http://bleedinggoldrecords.bandcamp.com/album/bg013-the-blackout-album

Symbolism

This image represents symbolism within itself. This image has been diffused from a face and a hand formed together to represent a stressed mind. The hand is clenched in a fist, therefore symbolizing a stressed situation, the face has a concerned look which goes hand in hand with the clenched fist.













Abstract
This is the perfect image of abstraction. It is not particularly anything, however is represents something colorful and abstract. The focus of the picture is in the center, and the other surrounding holes vary in texture and show a somewhat texture gradient.










Representational
This image represents someone looking down onto the streets from a really tall building.

Week 11- Contrast

The image to the left is an example of good contrast in design. The field of study I am interested in is flyer/logo design. I found this to be a perfect create example showing great contrast. You can tell the meaning subsides in the context polarities. This design in particular show an abstraction of harmony. Although all of the squares are different in seize, the flow of the image is an appealing one. The bright green represents an absence of light, whereas the black squares create this severe contrast.



















This is an example of poor contrast. Since my field of study is centered around flyer/logo design, this shows how adding a light text to a light background can be a poor decision in design. This, unlike the previous picture, lacks a sense of polarity. There is no black and white, light and dark. By choosing the light blue text up against the white background, the designer neglected to consider the finished product. Had he/she put the text on a dark (either dark blue, dark red, black, etc..) then the text would have stood out more and created a more appealing finished product.

Implied Motion in Design

Motion is made up of three Dondis Visual language elements; direction, dimension and movement. This picture shows implied movement, meaning that this image shows two fighters in action, however it is really just a still sculpture. Because this movement implied, one gets the illusion of actual motion. This type of implied movement is universal, meaning everyone who looks at it sees the same thing: A Centaur and a Man in battle. Based on what we see in real life, the viewer is lead to believe that what they are seeing is actually moving before them.

This image is another great example of implied movement. These two men appear to be knee deep, chopping through water. In reality, these are two stone sculptures that aren't moving at all. They don't even HAVE feet. Where do they think they're going? Nowhere, they're made of stone. To the viewer, it appears as though actual movement is taking place, however it is only implied. ("Implied: suggested, but not actually shown" ). It can be related back to the Gestalt Law of Continuation, Dondis Guidline (balance/imbalance), and the Dondis Element of Movement. What all of these ideas have in common is the idea of what we perceive is actually not a reality.

Week 9: Demension/Depth/Space

Dimension is an important aspect when it comes to design. It is the "graphical means of specifying and communicating objects in space." Before such an idea was interpreted, a lot of paintings lacked dimension, therefore something always looked wrong. In the picture to the left you will notice the brick pattern on the floor. This is the perfect example of texture gradient. You can see the texture (the brick) gradually change as the floor goes backwards, the frequency changes. But that's not the only prominent thing in this picture that shows dimension. The flower pots are a perfect example of relative size. The flower pots are obviously the same size in reality, however in this picture the one closer to the camera looks bigger, not because it is, but because of it's dimension. The other depth/size cues include (but not necessarily present in this picture): Overlap, (the closer flower pot overlaps the table), relative height, linear perspective, accomidation, convergence, binocular disparity, and flow pattern.

Magazine Design (Week 7)

LINE: This cover of a Nylon magazine features a couple different Dondis Basic Elements, however I will be focusing on the element of line. The builings in the background of the image are the perfect example using lines in a design. It is said that a line can be described as a "dot in motion" and with these vertical lines the buildings in the background create, they do just that. The line has an enormous energy and it is an extremely important visual element. The buildings in the background are at a slight angle, however the lines that make up these buildings have a linear quality that helps create an image of creativity. The lines in this picture have a direction and a purpose, and that purpose is to create tall, slanted buildings.



DIMENSION: This image in a magazine shows the perfect example of dimension. Although dimension is usually dependent on illusion, it also represents a two dimensional visual format. This picture in particular shows depth and dimension by using a person close to the camera and then showing a person on a horse smaller, in the background. By doing this, it creates elongated visual depth. In reality, the small girl is much smaller than a grown man on a horse, however, by using dimension in this image the girl seems to be the biggest being in this picture, because she is closest to the camera. This image uses lines, in the tree and even in the girl, but that is just it's to plot its effects. The final intention is to produce the feeling of reality.





COLOR: This magazine cover is the perfect example of using color in design. Color itself is full of information that is easy to understand in all languages. This magazine, in particular, is actually a Japanese magazine. Color structure is easiest to understand if you refer to the color wheel. The primary colors are: yellow, red and blue. The secondary colors are: orange, green and violet. Multiple combinations of these colors are combined to create any color. In this magazine, almost all of the primary and secondary colors are used, giving the image a sense of chaos, yet makes the viewer feel comfortable. The perception of color is one of the strongest conveyance of emotion and uses its great force to express particular feelings.

The image to the left is the perfect example of the syntactical guideline of balance. There is a perfect centered, and even appearance of this image, as the people in it are evenly balancing the world up with their pitchforks. It gives the image a sense of normalcy, at least visually. The reason I chose this particular image is because of it's stylistic qualities. I am really into sketching right now, and a picture like this really appeals to me. I like bold lines combined with shadowing. Since this appears to be a french cartoon, the analogy seems to be that even though we balance the world together, we are still going to do so using pitchforks.

This image conveys a message entirely different. Although it uses bold lines, it also uses bright colors and neglects to use the syntactical guide of balance. This picture seems to be using everything else but balance. The male figure in the image is wearing only one shoe, has fallen off his bike, and is in complete disarray. There are hot dogs, peppers, the letter "W" and even a strange little angry baby angel up in the corner.