Elements & Principles of Art and Design: A Basic Intro

Sketchbook Assignment:

In order to fully develop our LTP’s, we need to have a good understanding of the Elements and Principles of Art and Design.  These are the basic building blocks for any piece of artwork.  For this task we will keep it simple.  Later we will learn about the many different branches that stem from these basic concepts.


Using the internet, do some research on the following terms.  Once you’ve got an understanding of each concept, try to find a minimum of one example of each element or principle being used in Graphic Arts.  Put the terms, definition/explanations, and image examples in your Digital Sketchbook.

Terms:

Elements of Art                    Principles of Design

Line                                        Unity
Shape                                     Emphasis
Form                                      Balance
Value                                      Proportion
Texture                                  Contrast
Colour                                    Movement
Space                                     Variety
                                              Pattern
                                              Rhythm

ATC #2 - Typography

Typography is “the art of printing from moveable type, including the skilled planning of typeface and size, composition, and layout, to make a balanced and attractive whole.”

Whether you are using text for communication, decoration, or both in your artwork, you need the tools to do so. Photoshop will allow you to explore the possibilities of text manipulation that suit your own style.

Assignment:

Using Photoshop, you are to create an ATC that incorporates the manipulation of text in some way.

For Consideration:

Translate an image into text

Incorporate text into an image

Create your own design using text

Arrangement (side-by-side, overlap, morphing, reflection)

Styles, symbols, capitals, italics, punctuation, different alphabets and languages

Criteria:

/5 Minimum of 10 letters/symbols (feel free to do much more-
            eg. word/paragraphs)

/8 Minimum of 4 highly manipulated letters/symbols (editing/selection tools, options bar- morphing, adjustments, incorporation of part/whole of an image)

/3 Incorporates a theme/idea

/3 Composition incorporates a center of interest and the rule of
            thirds

/3 Composition is unified (overall tone, colour scheme etc.)

/3 Effort- class time is used wisely.

/25 Total

ATC #1 - Juxtaposition

 Juxtaposition: the act of placing two seemingly unrelated images side-by-side to create new meaning.

One of the trade secrets or strategies of advertising and contemporary art is the unexpected juxtaposition of things unrelated to attract attention, shock, puzzle, or question people's perception of those things.

It’s important to understand that interpretation comes from the viewer. As an artist, one would create a piece of work that places unrelated images together to communicate their interpretation of its meaning. This, however, does not mean that the viewer would interpret what he/she sees as this same intended meaning.  Any interpretations are formed from previous background knowledge of the individual.  So meaning doesn't necessarily always come from the work, but from the viewer.

A simplified example would be a Popeye action figure next to an olive fruit. Although these two are unrelated in the type of object they are, when juxtaposed together in the same scene the olive fruit gains new meaning (because of our knowledge of Popeye's wife's name "Olive").

Assignment:

Part One: 
Use your image bank to randomly place images together.  Spend a few minutes thinking about each juxtaposition for your interpretation of what the message could be.  Come up with 3-5 juxtapositions with solid narratives. Share your juxtaposed images with a partner.  See what their interpretations are.  If different, discuss where the ideas come from.


Part Two:
The challenge is to create an ATC that contains an interesting/shocking/thought-provoking juxtaposition.  Try to create unexpected or almost random juxtapositions, and not simply pairs of opposites, that create new meanings. Digital manipulations allow for very obvious placement of images to communicate your intended meaning.  Try not to completely “spell things out” to the audience; leave SOME interpretation to the viewer. Make the viewer think or try to interpret it in different ways.

Artist Trading Cards

Document Setup Info

Document Size:
(Vertical)  Width: 12.5” x Height: 17.5”
(Horizontal) Width: 17.5” x Height: 12.5”

Resolution: 150

What Dreams May Come

This film allows us to look at some key components of the Long Term Project through the means of a visual masterpiece.  It highlights the importance of having a narrative in a body of work and visual components to support that narrative.  In this sense, a long term piece of artwork should resemble a film in many ways.  Though it is simply a selective snapshot, it can still tell the same story…

                                                        ...a picture is worth a thousand
                                                                       words after all. 

Preview:  As you watch the film, I’d like you to consider the following questions.

Theme:  What are the underlying ideas?
Imagery:  What images or scenes are used to support the theme?
Personal Imagery:  What imagery is used throughout the film that is personal to various characters in the film.  (eg.  Imagery, that’s connected to a character, that shows up in various places).
Mood:  What different moods are shown/felt throughout the film?  How are they created? (What colours? Dark vs. Light values? Images? etc.)
Narrative:  If you had to create a single image to narrate the theme of this whole movie, what would it look like?

Review:  After watching the film, form groups and discuss your ideas on these questions.  Reply with your answers as a group in the Comments section of this post.  Minimum requirements are as follows:

Theme:  (at least one major idea)
Imagery:  (minimum of three ideas)
Personal Imagery:  (minimum of two examples)
Mood:  (minimum of two ideas and descriptions of how they are communicated to the audience)
Narrative:  (describe, in detail, the images components and why they are important)