“If you come across something of value and tuck it away in your metaphorical suitcase there’s sure to come a moment when you can make use it”. -Jurgen Bey
In the first part of this process, we used computer paper to simply start experimenting with the paper. We created dozens of paper skins to get an idea of what we wanted to do. I initially struggled with this portion of the project, until I started working on a larger scale and started to work with how the light affected the paper.
Written reflection on how your word construction, placement, photos contribute to the meaning of the word
The construction of the word eliminate was strategically done to help define one particular definition of the word: “to eradicate or to kill”. We purposely did not construct the letter “M”, and planned to have this letter always missing in various crime scenes. The final decision to cover the letters in newspaper also incorporated the tragedy aspect of the meaning, indicating that the story was in the news.
We used a few different scenes on campus in order to show the meaning of our word. The first was in the lower level outside area of Wescoe. This was a dark, concrete filled area in which we arranged our letters as if it were a crime scene. The missing “M” was drawn in chalk and we used tape to mark off the area, similar to caution tape. The next scene we used the shredder in the woodshop and placed shredded paper where the “M” would have been. And for the last scene, we staged another crime scene in a kitchen in one of the dormitories on campus. This was complete with detective scenes, evidence bags, weapon, etc.
The photographs also contributed to the meaning of the word, using various angles, contrast, blurring, etc. In some photos we used people or our group members to reenact scenes; i.e. detectives, bystanders, and friends of the “victim” looking distraught. Overall, I feel that our group was creative in coming up with various scenes and ways to demonstrate the meaning of this word in this context.
In this project, I was very impressed with our team dynamics and how well everyone worked together. I am confident in saying that every member contributed to the final project and was willing to put in a lot of hours outside of class in order to achieve the final product.
As with any group, problems that arise involve deciding on an idea everyone can agree with. Although I tend to be less assertive than other team members, I was really happy with this group and found that my ideas were listened to and utilized for several parts of the project. Overall, the dynamic our group, with differing personalities and majors contributed to the success of this project.
In this project, we were put into groups and each given a word. We then created prototypes of the word, practicing techniques and testing out materials to build the final product. The final letters were to be 3 feet tall, three-dimensional letters, made out of cardboard.
Once the letters were built, we displayed the letters on campus in various locations and arrangements with the goal of expressing the meaning of the word through construction, placement and location.
After taking several photos of the process and the letters on campus, the next part of the assignment was to create a photo essay book. We experimented with various methods to construct books and created a photo book that demonstrated our process and expressed our word’s meaning through photographs.
The first part of the project, constructing the letters, was definitely a learning process. The first challenge was how to build 3 feet tall letters out of cardboard, how to outline the word in that size, how to bind the pieces together most effectively, and then choosing which material to cover the letters in. We decided to answer these difficult questions by deciding how we wanted to represent our word, based on its meaning. Through this process, we decided to “eliminate” one of our letters, through various scenes on campus. Because of the nature of the scenes (tragic), we decided to cover the letters in newspaper – signifying the tragedy “in the news”.
Another challenging part of this process was the photo essay book. My first challenge was narrowing down the 120 pictures I had taken and editing the best ones. After this, I struggled with how to create the actual book and what theme to choose to tell the story the best. I decided to go with a “cold case” file theme, however this proved to be quite a challenge. Trying to mimic a criminal file while not making it too literal, was the most difficult part of the project to achieve. However, I think my solution proves to be effective in balancing the look.
For the word eliminate we are considering several options including:
Setting up a "crime scene" in an alley or parking lot on campus. We are considering having part of the word being run over by a car or written in chalk with police tape in an area.
Other options we have thought of:
-"eliminate calories" at the gym
-trash can- "to get rid of"
-janitor's closet
We are leaning towards the first idea. We will be building the letters using recycled cardboard, masking tape, scotch tape, and glue. The letters will be wrapped in newspaper, playing on the crime scene idea as a news story.
In this project I became very familiar with the word absent, how it appears in the font Futura, how it can be arranged, removed, placed and/or repeated in order to convey the meaning of this word. Problems that I initially encountered involved finding ways to define this word using only a flat picture plane, black and white, and a single font. I was only thinking surface level and after brainstorming and hours of experimenting with designs and arrangements, I ended up so many ideas it was difficult to narrow it down to three designs.
After this stage of the project, adding color was another challenge that I encountered. Finding ways to create space without losing the idea of the original design was somewhat of a test. However, I feel that I was able to successfully implement the color studies with my design and even strengthen it in some instances. I learned quite a bit about color, including which colors go well together and most importantly, which do not. All in all, this was a fun and successful project, and I learned a lot through each stage of the design process.
In this assignment, we were to select a word and find ways to effectively convey the meaning of the word using space, placement, arrange and modification of the letters. In the first part of this project, we limited our explorations to two dimensions and black and white. We created a minimum of 20 hand-crafted collages, using tracing paper, black paper, white paper, and a sharpie. The idea was to familiarize ourselves with the word itself and begin to come up with ways to express the meaning of the word using only a 6 X 6 square piece of paper as a plane and the following techniques:
·Spacing
·Placement
·orientation of the letters (rotate, reflect)
·overlapping of letters
·cropping of letters
·slicing of letters
·omit or repeat letters
·black letters and white letters (positive and negative)
. After this portion, we then used Illustrator and the pathfinder tool to create ten compositions. When this was complete, we chose three of the best to refine. The last part of the two dimensional project involved adding color. We did five different color studies for each of the three designs, using a minimum of three hues. The following techniques were required to be explored for each design:
·show space using a dark background--lighter values and strong chromas advance in space;
·show space using a light background--darker values and strong chromas advance in space ;
·show a shallow space using the illusion of transparency;
·show flat space that experiments with positive/negative, ie. figure/ground relationships;
·show an ambiguous space: some shapes are advancing on a light background; other shapes are advancing on a dark background.
After creating a total of 15 color compositions, we were to select six of these to refine and hand in with the final three black and white compositions.
