Visual Dynamics: Week 2, Shape

During week 2, we explored letters as shapes. Below, I experiment with the letter A to make an Eiffel tower as well as some other shapes:

I also explored different fonts and how I could adjust them to carry meaning. I used a wide font and used a warp effect to make it look like it's bulging for 'weight gain':

I used a star-speckled font and changed the perspective on it so that it would lead your eyes vertically upwards, trying to suggest excellence, spirituality, ascension, aspiration, etc. as in the 'etoile du nord' photo below:

excellence, spirituality, ascension, aspiration, etc.

I also created a typographic logo for the James Bond Gold Finger movie. To do so, I used a strong font similar to the one one already used in the gold finger movies to make it seem more iconic. I saw that the L is shaped similarly to a gun, which is another iconic symbol of James bond, and combined it with the idea of a finger gun. (Someone pointing the index/index+middle finger while raising their thumb to look like a gun). The D serves as the trigger of the gun. To tie it up, I made the the letters of the word 'GOLD' a gold color, which simultaneously also helps to highlight the gun shape from the hand. The bottom part of the hand could also be perceived as another gun.

Using Photoshop, I built the body of a dog using round shape paths:

Visual Dynamics: Week 1, Line

Practicing using paths and line in adobe Photoshop:





Used paths to create a sunglasses logo and to remove the saucer from it's background and move it onto a space background:

Redraw an image created by Searle using lines of uniform width. I then created an analysis comparing the two:

Searle image Redraw: A comparison between the redrawn and original

In the original image, Searle uses a large amount of line width variation, while in my redrawn image, no line variation was used. Because of this, most of the differences between the two are a direct effect of the loss of line variation, resulting in a loss of information about light/shadow, emphasis, volume/form and perceived weight. However, by using thinner, uniform lines, the line art itself is clearer and easier to see because the lines do not meld into each other as often.

Through width of line Searle was able to further communicate a light source and shadows by making the lines thicker where there would be shadow, making that area darker. The redraw still shows shadow by having hatching a greater density of lines where there is shadow, but the light source is not as obvious and less shadow is perceived. Line width’s effect on our perception of shade is evident on the skirt:

The original Searle drawing also carries more emphasis through it’s use of varying lines. The thick lines are easily distinguishable against the thin lines, making it easier to see forms against the background. Without this emphasis, the redrawn Searle image looks more like a mess of lines than anything else. The best example of this is the wine-holder’s shoes, which in Searle’s drawing, are distinguishable from the floor because of it’s thick outline, while in the redraw, the form of the shoes are difficult to identify from the floor.

In the redraw, detail about form, volume, and perceived weight was lost as a result of using only uniform width lines. Light and emphasis are crucial for giving us information about the volume and form of the mass, which is why the wine-holder’s form in the original looks like it exists in a 3D world, while the redraw looks flat. On the original, line variation helps to distinguish the form by using thicker lines, show volume through light and shadow, and gives the illusion of the form carrying weight through the thick solid dark lines. A good example of this is the wine-holder’s stomach, which looks chunky and heavy in the original but has a flat look to it in the redraw. On the redraw, the only indications of volume is the hatching (which is seen as shadow) and folds or creases of the cloth or wine cup that follow the shape of the object (such as buttons and crease next to it which follow the shape of the wine-holder’s clothing and body).

While the loss of line variation did result in a significant loss of detail on these fronts, it’s not to say that there wasn’t any gain of information, either. In many places, the lines in the original were overlapping and blending into each other since they were thicker than the distance between them. Because of this, these lines were harder to determine, and since my uniform line was a lot thinner, my lines had to be a lot clearer. As a result of trying to interpret the lines from the original using thinner lines, new information with clearer lines was generated. For example: