Exploring Form and Composition
Here we consider how objects can convey meaning through their relationship to other objects and to the given space.
In this case we restrict ourselves to black squares and ampersands in depicting six words — playful, serious, noisy, quiet, dangerous, and safe.
I first thought about the associations I had for each word.
“Playful” evoked memories of birthday parties, whimsical outings, and relaxing afternoons spent with friends. I tried to create thumbnails that felt dynamic, free, and exhilarating, in the same sense that a playground slide or falling confetti would be. On the other hand, “serious” brought an idea of rigour, heaviness, tension, and intensity. The biggest difference, perhaps, lies in the stillness and suspense — one could recall the feeling of holding one’s breath or waiting anxiously for something to come.
Many associations come to mind for “noisy”, for example “busy” and “loud”. Rough textures and activity also work with this idea. The opposite is true for “quiet”: one possible interpretation would feel sparse, isolated, stable, and bare.
When something is dangerous, we feel as though something bad can happen — something could fall, or there might be something waiting for us; we just don’t know. That’s precisely the essence I wanted to cover — a precarious moment frozen on paper, or either an invisible or visible risk of incurring harm. Being “safe”, on the other hand, requires clear visibility, stability, and perhaps even being smooth instead of sharp.
One notes that there is still a lot of available space — perhaps I can add more squares and ampersands to convey a stronger, clearer meaning.
In addition to filling up the space, there is also still much I can do with the existing designs; in particular, how can I play around with the interactions between elements and with the space? How can I align ampersands or scatter squares? How much space should I leave as a border or a cushion? What about gravity — could I “stack” or let things “fall”? Should I scale different elements to provide some perspective?
Another issue is that these sketches are too literal. For example, the fourth sketch for “safe” functions by taking the squares as a stable assortment of physical blocks.
So, key in my revision process was a shift in perspective — instead of looking at my tools as figures or objects, I considered them as shapes and lines — considering my placement of curves next to straight edges, for example, allows me to understand and manipulate more effectively the meaning I convey through these sketches.
I then digitised two revised sketches for each word using Adobe Illustrator.
Aside from the playful and serious illustrations, I iterated upon them with feedback from instructors and friends to create more straightforward illustrations. In addition, I was not particularly satisfied with the ones I chose to digitise and refine, so I also worked to experimented with new designs.
Consider my final designs for “noisy”.
For the middle design, I explored having elements overlap and tried to establish a sense of unbalance to intensify the energy and stimulation. While the ampersand in the middle is aggressive and overbearing, there is enough motion in the background accentuated by the motion generated by the curve of the ampersand to keep things active and busy.
The leftmost design started as an experiment with textures. It eventually took the form of an ampersand with squares radiating out of it, much like a sun has rays. There are squares cut off on the border, implying that there is more yet that is not shown, and to fill up as much space as possible within the pattern provided. In other words, I didn’t want to leave a border because that would have created a “border” of sorts to enclose the radiation, which would have minimised the “noisiness” of the image.
A peer later suggested having the squares be of different sizes to create a sense of depth, which I would like to explore further.
The rightmost image takes advantage of the different sizes of the squares to create depth, inconsistency, and emphasise the largeness (in this correlated with the “loudness”) of the elements. Interestingly enough, looking at this image at an angle can make it seem like the squares are at an angle to each other, which I think creates more disorder that only helps with the noisiness.
Conceptually, the left all-black image was an effective and interesting depiction of “quiet”.
I iterated upon the other figure for “quiet” to produce the above shown image. The four figures at the bottom right allude to an ellipsis, and the blocks serve to isolate and dominate over the humanoid ampersands. Their scale in relations to the available space further emphasise the lack of activity in the sketch, so we have interestingly achieved a very bright depiction of “quiet”.
The left image was very interesting to me, and I realised there was so much flexibility and potential in playing with angles and relative sizes to intensify the acceleration of the falling blocks, and thus the danger posed to the falling ampersand in particular.
Hence, I spent a lot of time optimising the size of the falling ampersand on the bottom left such that it was big enough to be a substantial entity worth noticing, but also small enough to be affected by the falling square. I also had to create some space between the topmost square and the others, and also figure out the ideal placement of the tipping elements in relation to each other to establish that they are past tipping, and are already falling.
On the right, we have a Pacman-esque maze, rife with the intensity that we remember from our childhood. This is a revision from my original lost-in-a-maze concept, where one could not even see the ampersand in relation to the white path bordered by the black squares. After enlarging the ampersand and the path, I lost the mystery and suspense generated from having a very small figure and a very oppressive, dark environment. Therefore I added an antagonistic element to simulate conflict and combat, both of which carry danger.
This design is an evolved form of the rotated ampersands with the tilde generated from squares. Having the curve created a smooth form, but it was still too far from being safe. On the other hand, having a singular square associated with each ampersand evokes an image of someone presenting a treasure. The symmetry also provides comfort and stability, which are commonly associated with safety.
My second concept for “safe” is centered on being shielded. Unfortunately, thus arises the question, where do we draw the line between safe and trapped, or having a buffer and feeling claustrophobic? An intermediate revision involved replacing the two squares of diminishing size with a single black square. No changes were made to the ampersands, which complemented each other and provided a sense of camaraderie to the setting.
Since the black boxes overpowered the ampersands, however, it still felt as though the ampersands were trapped, not protected. This was slightly ameliorated by the extensive white space still available, which still allowed for freedom and autonomy of the ampersands.
Experimentation with block layout and spacing led me to the final version on the right. The ampersands are protected but not trapped, and they are not suffocated.
My final pairings juxtaposed “noisy” with “quiet”, and “safe” with “dangerous”. I added a blue-lavender (#9FAED5) to the ampersands here to conjure vibes of a defenceless, pure baby. By having something so helpless but warm, our concern for the effects of the environment are intensified.
I also explored figure-ground relationships. Initially, my understanding of the concept was lacking, so my sketches were not inspired.
The third and fourth seemed to have the most potential. I thus chose to work with these. However, the issues with balancing black and white were very clear, so I revised them when digitising.
The first figure-ground concept was very effective in that the black towers are very noticeable, and the white curve is also very emphasised too. So, I did not revise this.
On the other hand, the second attempt did not have a stable concept or balance. Hence I transposed the left and right halves of the image with each other, resulting in the first revision. However, the balance of white and black was even worse, so I played around with the design to generate the second iteration.
Even so, however, the first concept I explored still better encapsulated the essence of a figure-ground exploration, so I chose to work with that.
