For this week’s virtual museum assignment I chose to visit an exhibit called Matter and Form through The House of Fine Art, or HOFA. The works that are in the exhibit are from a variety of artists, and while they are all physical pieces, they also all include a digital counterpart that is available to be bid on. This was the first benefit of a digital exhibition that I noticed while visiting this online experience. In a typical museum environment, there is not an opportunity to purchase any of the works, but this format provides the featured artists with another avenue of income. In a virtual exhibit, I believe that the main role of a designer is to ease the visitor’s experience as much as possible in terms of site navigation and exhibit information. As it was my first time visiting an online exhibit, I needed some direction navigating the space, and this is where a designer comes in.

Unfortunately, I feel that the clarity on this site was lacking. The way of moving through the exhibit was the same as one might navigate Google Earth, but if the user was inexperienced in this it would have been an unintuitive experience. Another difficulty I had with the digital exhibit was that the descriptive plaques on the walls by each piece were too small to read. The site limited how closely I could zoom in on each piece, and I could not zoom close enough to read the information. Though the information was available elsewhere on the site, I thought this shortcoming was a missed opportunity to take advantage of the online environment. A website gives designers complete control of information flow and size, so to see this lacking is a bit disappointing.

One advantage of the online format that I noticed was that I could get far “closer” to the works than I would ever be able to in reality. Especially for prestigious art pieces, there are often stanchions controlling the visitors’ proximity to the work. In this setting though, I was able to zoom in and closely observe the details and textures of each piece. Though I previously mentioned the shortcomings of the signage in the exhibit, I did notice the merit of having an exhibit embedded within a website. Even though the information about each piece was not immediately legible inside the exhibit, I was viewing it through a website that contained a wealth of information about each piece and its artist. If I visited the gallery in person and had questions, it’s likely that I would not have been able to get answers until I was able to search online later. In this environment though, I could find all the information I wanted in one place with only a few clicks.

Visiting this digital gallery was a helpful reminder for me of the importance of easily navigable online experiences. The ease of navigation can make or break a user’s experience, and this is important to keep in mind when creating any digital space.

I greatly enjoyed watching the Abstract episode El Devlin: Stage Design. There is something very intriguing and intimate about getting to look into another artist’s process, and I love spotting similarities between my own personality or process and that of another artist. I have very little knowledge of stage design, so most of what I learned in this episode was new information for me. The breakdown of Devlin’s five “ingredients” was very informative, because it is easier to understand an artist’s specific tools than a generalized discussion of their process. The tools that were most unexpected for me were scale and time. I felt that space, light, and darkness were pretty obvious facets of stage design, but scale and time were aspects that I had not previously considered.

The definition of environmental design that I have been developing was strongly affirmed by this episode. My current understanding of environmental design is that it is the creation of an immersive, intentional experience. This definition could not be represented more clearly than in Devlin’s Chanel fragrance promotional exhibit. Her description of the space reminded me a bit of the Acne Studios environmental design I discussed in my previous blog, but on a grander scale. Devlin’s exhibit was an entire room and experience dedicated to immersing the visitor in the experience that a good perfume can create. It engaged almost all of the senses and created an incredibly compelling experience.

I noticed a similarity between Devlin and the experience designers at NASA; they all are concerned more with creating unique concepts than with the nitty gritty of building. While they are certainly involved at every step of the process, all three of these designers admitted that they are not very capable in terms of building. Instead, they are hired for their creativity, and other artists along the way bring the ideas to fruition. I find it encouraging that simply having bold ideas can be enough to be hirable.

The more I learn about environmental and experiential design, the more I realize what a powerful tool it is. To my understanding, it hardly faces any of the limitations that other forms of design do. Depending on how it is applied, it can tap into any and all of the senses, creating extremely potent experiences. I can understand why artists such as El Devlin are in such high demand; she has the ability to bring to life the very identity of a brand and invite its users to experience it firsthand. Work such as hers can evoke emotions and live in memories in a way that seems completely impossible for a billboard ad campaign. Environmental design is truly an invaluable tool.

The video for this week was a lecture by David Delgado and Dan Goods where they talked through a series of their projects. My favorite project that the two discussed was the light sculpture that provides a visual for the constant communication between NASA and spacecrafts beyond the moon. I loved it because though the concept itself is pretty simple, the information it communicates is remarkable. The sculpture is a clever solution for capturing a big concept in a small and understandable format. It is both visually striking and conceptually strong.

I definitely relate to the feeling that the duo explained, where they have big ideas but trouble actually creating them due to lack or. resources or skills. Like they pointed out, design is much bigger than just creating logos, and sticking to that script can feel very limiting. I would love to be in Delgado and Goods’ position, where my job is simply to have exciting ideas and seek out people who can help bring them to fruition.

The overarching piece of information that was new to me in this video was the fact that major scientific organizations like NASA are interested in welcoming artists into their spaces. I know that all sorts of organizations commission art installations for their spaces, even within the sciences or other fields that people may consider far removed from the arts. However, I was pretty surprised to learn that Goods and Delgado are long term, integral employees at NASA. Many of the duo’s projects reveal the communicative value and impact of strong design, and it is very exciting to find that organizations outside of the arts have recognized this. The more I learn about the breadth of design, the more excited I become. I’ve always known that it’s more than just logos, but to see concrete examples of the vast applications of design is very encouraging.

The project with which I connected the most was definitely the one where people in the amateur radio community around the globe worked together to send a message to Juno. I am always moved when I see design used as a transcendent tool of any kind, and this was one of those instances. Through their creative ideation, Delgado and Goods were able to help a community across the world unite and create connections that likely never would have otherwise existed. Once again, this project reveals the breadth and power of design. Creative minds have the ability to foster global relationships.

For me, a moment of awe is most commonly a time where I can appreciate the beauty and power of nature. For example, whenever I am deep in nature and I get to see the stars at night, I experience a moment of awe. I’ve also experienced it while snorkeling and meeting the teeming life that exists just beneath the water’s surface. I feel it too when I see natural disasters that force me to respect the power of nature, or even the couple of times in my life where I’ve felt little tremors in the earth. In short, for me a moment of awe is a time when I am faced with the richness of our world.

Flag design and logo design share many similarities. Their foundational purpose is the same: to visually communicate the identity of an entity. Almost all of the five rules of flag design can be applied to logo design. Rule one is to keep it simple, which is an integral rule to logo design. This practice is important because it makes a design more memorable as well as making it scalable. If it is properly simple, a design can be scaled to any extreme and still maintain its integrity. Rule two, the use of meaningful symbolism is also relevant to both design practices as they are meant to be communicative without being complex. The third rule, to use two to three colors in a flag is not as essential to the design of logos. However, most successful logos do have a limit of one to three colors, so while this rule is not required in logo design, I believe it is good practice. The final rule of flag design, to be distinctive, is also crucial in logo creation. Essentially, it is a rewording of the rule in logo design to be appropriate. 

Among the rules listed in the TED Talk, the most glaring difference between logo and flag design is rule four, to not use lettering. While it is common for logo marks to lack lettering, it is certainly not a rule. Text can be incorporated into a logo, and a well crafted word mark can be a logo in itself. This is one case where the limitations on flag design do not extend to logo design.

The main thing I took away from this video, though a familiar lesson, is to remember the power of symbolism. Especially in developing my logo, I want to keep in mind that it should be more than just a striking mark- it needs to also visually reflect the meaning of my conference. In a sense, my logo will be the flag for my conference. It needs to be a symbol around which my audience can gather, and a mark which tells my story.

I have never been to a conference before. Though conferences seem very appealing, I’ve never gone out of my way to attend one. I think the greatest appeal of a conference is the idea of gathering with a large group of people with a shared interest and learning more about that interest. It is exciting to be surrounded by people with whom you have something in common, and to know that they too are passionate about the subject. Put more simply, the most appealing aspects of conferences are the content and the like minded people. Therefore, these are the components that should be prioritized in planning a conference; the social atmosphere should be considered as carefully as the content itself.

If I were to attend a conference, I would be interested in going to PAX. While I have a very limited knowledge of gaming, I love the visuals and the artistic nature that surrounds gaming. I think it would be very exciting to be surrounded by people who are similarly interested in gaming, and I would be quite interested to learn about what new games and technologies are on the horizon. The competitive aspect also sounds like it would add to the atmosphere of excitement, since gaming competitions with big prizes are happening throughout the entirety of the conference. Being among such a large group of people interested in gaming, I’m certain that I would find people who appreciate the art and design of gaming as much as I do, and that would be an exciting thing to share with people.

The more I consider it, the more I realize that the social aspect of conferences is every bit as important as the informational sessions. People gather at conferences to learn, but they also gather to network and to make friends. This is something I would like to take into consideration when planning my own conference. Offering informative, insightful sessions is hugely important to actually drawing an audience and garnering their interest in my conference, but allowing space for networking and socializing is what will keep people engaged and make my event a success.

I have never done professional design work for a client, so it’s a bit difficult to relate my experiences presenting design to a professional setting. I believe the closest I’ve come to giving a design presentation would be introducing a class project for critique. While the experience of “selling my design” may be carried between these occasions, in the class setting I have always presented to people with design education equal to my own. Still, I think I can draw some comparisons and imagine how I might be in a professional setting based on my classroom experience.

One pitfall that I have noticed myself falling into on occasion is that of starting with an apology (or including an apology, even if I don’t lead with it). Though I usually am happy with my designs, I tend to notice their shortcomings too, or places where they still need work. Therefore I’ll sometimes say things like, “I’m not convinced that this part is working, “ or, “I feel like this bit could use some improvement still.” While these statements might be honest and even correct, if my job is to inspire the client’s confidence in me, then I ought to keep them to myself.

I also can easily imagine myself as seeing the client as someone I need to please. While I understand the logic behind calling this attitude a pitfall, I don’t think it’s entirely fair. If I were to deliver a client a design they really hated, even if it fits the project description, I doubt they would want to work with me again. I absolutely see the merit in winning a client over to a design that I know is successful, but I still think that working to a client’s tastes is valid.

As a student, it seems to me like the client for my class design is the professor. They are the person who puts forward a design challenge, and who I want to see the merit in my work. In class, my goal is to solve the design problem in a way that my professor finds suitable, and I think that makes them the closest thing to a client at this point in my career.

The brand design of financial technology company Droit is an example of well executed identity. Natasha Jen of the Pentagram design studio is responsible for this project. Droit helps investors make decisions and provides financial insights into trading for companies across the globe. Studio Pentagram was interested in visually representing the combination of live, evolving technology and trustworthy and safe advising that Droit provides.

The primary way in which Pentagram represents Droit’s values is through the creation of an original typeface. The typeface was developed by combining two other typefaces: one pixelated sans serif bitmap font and another more typical geometric sans serif. After the development of these typefaces, they were merged into a new typeface composed of half pixel and half rounded sans serif letters. The resulting typeface offers a familiar, trustworthy softness and a digital edge.

Color and consistent branding carry out the rest of the Droit identity successfully. The pixels seen in the typeface are used in imagery on the Droit website and physical documents. Black, white, and a bold royal blue are the only colors used across all Droit branding, making for a consistent and striking appearance. The typeface secondary to the pixel display font is an angular sans serif, and the body text is a legible, standard sans serif. All layouts are simple, gridded, and linear.

I think this project is very successful. All the design choices were made with intention and thoroughly applied. Though I would not consider this a major shortcoming, I think the project would have been better if the pixel art was integrated beyond just imagery and the display font. It was certainly a successful project though, and it helped me recognize the story-telling ability of typefaces. I also realized that a minimalistic identity can still be unique, distinguishable, and consistent.

https://www.pentagram.com/work/droit/story

As important as it is to study the technique and formal principles behind quality art, the best part is always looking at the art itself. That’s why I liked the reading for this week more than any of the others we did this quarter. It was great to see many of the principles that we have discussed put into practice, and to hear the thoughts of actual artists.

Stephen Farrell made a couple points that really resonated with me. He mentioned how analogies “challenge us to bridge the gap between two pieces of data,” which was fun for me to read because this is something I’m trying to utilize in my poster design. By using pixelated type and a static texture, I hope to help viewers draw a connection between media and the lack of connection between parents and kids.

The section on Farrell also noted that the typography in his broom project echoed the movement of sweeping. This connection between type and other content is also something I’ve taken into account in my work, especially with the lockup project.

Farrell made a comment that humans naturally want to find relationships between any two sets of information, regardless of how unrelated they might be. This reminded me of when we sorted our posters in class on Monday. Of course they all shared the same shape and size, but in terms of content the posters were pretty varied. Even so, we were able to quickly identify similarities in the pieces and sort them accordingly. To me this seems like an excellent example of the connection-seeking that Farrell talked about.

The thing that struck me the most about Julie Green’s work was how much thought she put into selecting her medium. I think there’s an assumption among myself and my peers that all of our works will be flat, rectangular, digital pieces. To be reminded that the frame and medium are as much a part of the piece as the content itself was really helpful.

Though Christy Matson, Morningstar Inc., and Mark Napier’s works all varied hugely, they shared the common thread of mixing art with some other discipline, which always excites me. It’s really cool to see art expand beyond the art community and infiltrate or be mixed with other fields of study. Using different mediums, Matson and Napier both combined their art with modern technology to develop a new style or method that would not have been possible a few decades ago. I think this harnessing of technology is very progressive and important for fine art to maintain relevance. As for Morningstar Inc., they did a wonderful job of making complicated information accessible to the average person through artistic means. By focusing on type, illustration, and other formal artistic elements they were able to make information approachable.

Below are some images that relate to the reading.

1. Image 1 demonstrates how designs vary depending on the audience. This Spice Girls album cover was censored for audiences in the Middle East to make it more marketable.
2. The second picture is the Beats logo, which exemplifies both a sort of analogy and a connection between type and meaning. While the shape within the circle is clearly a letter B, it also resembles a music note.
3. The next image is an example of good information design. It is eye catching, and though it contains a lot of information it is not difficult to understand.
4. The final picture is a familiar one, “The Persistence of Memory.” It uses analogy to demonstrate the passage of time by depicting clocks melting away, and a vast landscape.

https://stepfeed.com/13-album-covers-that-were-censored-in-the-middle-east-9733

Information Design

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Persistence_of_Memory

https://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Beats-Electronics-EI_IE404453.11,28.htm

Bowers, John. Introduction to Two-Dimensional Design Understanding Form and Function. John Wiley & Sons, 2008.

Good designers use a variety of technical tools to make their pieces stand out. One of these that is especially important in my opinion is the focus on positive and negative space. This is one of the concepts that I paid attention to most thoroughly in my logo mark design. For such a simple design, it was important that the limited lines were very intentional. I tried to develop negative spaces that were as fluid, dynamic, and visually interesting as the positive ones.

I found the section on tangents interesting, because it’s not something I’ve explicitly learned about in the past. From observing though, I think shapes that are perfectly tangent create a lot of tension. They draw the eye, whereas shapes that overlap or are compound do not hold as much tension, and they draw less attention.

There were two definitions that I didn’t think were super necessary. The first was the concept of coincidence. It seems to me like two shapes that exactly overlap are really just a single shape. To talk about coincidental shapes could be difficult because the concept allows any one shape to actually be infinite coinciding shapes. However, I do understand that coincidence is included as the continuation of overlapping.

The second definition that didn’t seem necessary to me was the combination of modification and variation. I feel like only one of the words needs to be used because they seem to describe the same thing. Though their specific applications differ slightly, they both are essentially methods of warping a shape while still maintaining its basic structure. 

There was a short section on angle, which I really liked because it’s so important to interesting design. When reading the section, I immediately thought of some of the famous Bauhaus posters that use an angled grid. Generally speaking, angles are a great way to add interest to a design. If every line in a composition is parallel to the frame, it runs the risk of looking boring. By angling some of the lines in the composition, or the entire underlying grid, there is more visual interest.

Subtraction and coincidence were interesting for me to read about because these are tools which I use almost daily in my designs. The pathfinder tool in Illustrator enables both of these methods, and it is used regularly. It was fun for me to read technical descriptions of a process that I use so often, and it was a good reminder that even though I’m only beginning my career, I am a legitimate designer with legitimate methods.

Below are some images that relate to the reading.

Wyeth, Andrew

1. The first piece is a famous painting, “Christina’s World.” Through a variety of methods, Wyeth develops a very nice example of distance, or the appearance of distance, in art.
2. The second image is something I’ve encountered on the internet that shows an interesting use of positive and negative space. The subject is actually contained in negative space, but since we’re used to looking at positive space, it takes a moment to see.
3. Third is the pathfinder tool from Illustrator. Its options are add, subtract, intersect, and exclude, all of which can produce very different effects.
4. Finally, image four is the poster that came to mind when I read about angle. It is clearly made using a grid, but the way it is angled to the right makes it extremely unique and visually interesting.

https://www.internationalposter.com/product/strawinsky-berg-fortner–tonhalle/

https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/illustrator-in-60-seconds-how-to-use-the-pathfinder-tool–cms-25572

https://www.etsy.com/listing/588674104/have-you-found-jesus-black-and-white

https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/11/21/a-closer-look-at-christinas-world/

Leborg, Christian. Visual Grammar. Princeton Architectural Press, 2006.

As much as people might think that design is simply about creating things that are “aesthetically pleasing,” there is a huge amount of technical principles involved. There are countless technical considerations that good designers will take into account.

One of these principles that I had to use recently was the concept of the optical center as opposed to the real center. For the lockup project we just finished, I wanted to center my lockup in the square frame. When I aligned it exactly in the center though, it looked like it was too low in the frame. I had to move it up so that it was actually higher than the center, but it actually made the final composition look more balanced. 

I enjoyed the section about space because I thought it demonstrated a good use of the grid. I have an (admittedly inaccurate) perception of the grid that it is limiting, and that all designs that use it are static and harsh. The composition in the text used grid though, and it was very active. It demonstrated that even when restricted by a grid, it is entirely possible to create movement and interest using other visual tools. 

As I read, there were a couple things that I questioned a bit. The section on groups talked about how a group of forms can be named after the underlying structure that they follow. It showed examples of triangular versus rhombic groups, but to me the rhombic group just seemed like an extended triangular group. It made me wonder if a rhombic group really needs to be named as a separate type. The other thing I didn’t completely agree with was in the section about weight. At the end it said that a composition that focuses strongly on weight can create the illusion of something that flows. While I’m sure this is true, in my experience rhythm and movement are better tools than weight for creating a flowing effect.

I noticed while reading the neutral section that many patterns could probably be neutral. They can add visual interest to a design without making it too busy or saturated. This is a very useful tool to remember, especially when trying to improve designs that appear bland.

The concepts discussed above are just a few of the many tools that designers use when creating their works. Though art can be and often is “aesthetically pleasing,” it is not created by accident or by “feeling things out.” Good designs are developed with intention and technique.

Below are some images that relate to the reading:

The dead Christ and three mourners *tempera on canvas *68 × 81 cm *1470-1474

1. The first image demonstrates a balanced composition. If the flowers were not included then the mountains would dominate the piece without resolution, but the flowers balance them out and improve the composition.
2. Image 2 is by a painter I follow, named Conrad Jon Godly. His piece shows how even in abstract compositions, weight can be instrumental in creating a readable picture.
3. The third image is one of the slides from the famous ink blot test, a psychological analysis test that uses symmetrical ink blots.
4. The final image, “Lamentation of Christ,” is a famous study in foreshortening that uses several of the “nine ways to create and impression of depth” listed on page 69 of the text.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamentation_of_Christ_(Mantegna)

https://www.visionnaire-home.com/wunderkammer/genesis

https://www.amazon.com/Rorschach-Inkblot-Devised-1884-1922-Psychiatrist/dp/B07C8D6JM3

Photo Composition: Balance