Design Principles / Final Project: Visual Analysis
Design Principles
Final Project: Visual Analysis
LECTURES
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| Fig 1.0: Thumbnail |
Week 10: Visual Analysis
Visual analysis is a method of understanding design that focuses on the visual elements and principles. In its strictest definition, it is a description and explanation of visual structure for its own sake. The purpose of visual analysis can also to recognize the choices that a designer made in creating the design, as well as to understand better how the formal properties of a design communicate ideas, content, or meaning.
Visual analysis is a critical part of visual literacy, a skill that helps people read and critically interpret images, whether in a museum, on social media, in entertainment, advertising, or the news.
How does the Visual Analysis work?
There are three phases in the Visual Analysis process, such as Observation (Phase 1); Analysis (Phase 2); and Interpretation (Phase 3).
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| Fig 1.1: Lille International Tattoo Convention 2020 Calendar Poster; Designers: KBN Sensibilitey and Roman Kaan; Lille Grand Palais, France. |
- Phase 1: Observation
The observation phase is about looking, thinking, and finding good language to communicate what you notice.
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| Fig 1.2: Sample Writing of Observation Phase |
- Phase 2: Analysis
Analysis requires you to think about your observations and try to make statements about the work based on the evidence of your observations. Think about how the specific visual elements that you’ve identified combine together to create a whole, and what effect that whole has on the viewer.
It is how your eye is led through the work and why?
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| Fig 1.3: Sample Writing of Analysis Phase |
- Phase 3: Interpretation
In this final phase, your observations, description, and analysis of the work are fused with facts about the design work (and in some cases the designer) and historical context that you find in trustworthy published sources.
What is the meaning of the design? What was the purpose for it to be created?
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| Fig 1.4: Sample Writing of Interpretation Phase |
INSTRUCTIONS
Part 1: Visual Analysis
After receiving this last project, I began to explore for a nice design in Pinterest and Behance. It took a very long time to find the most eye-catching one, which is also meaningful. Actually, many designs are impressing me, but I don't know why my eyes are very attracted to this one. So, I picked this artwork named "Beneath the Lilies" by Vanessa Palmer (Veapalm).
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| Fig 2.1.1: Beneath the Lilies by Veapalm |
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| Fig 2.1.2: Beneath the Lilies by Veapalm (Traditional ver.) |
An illustration artwork named "Beneath the Lilies" by Vanessa Palmer is an artwork with portrait format. This artwork has a thick white border because it is actually a watercolor painting artwork which is later painted into digital artwork. The sense of watercolor is still there even though it was transferred from the original artwork. The artwork is dominated by cool tone color as the artist was using green color palette, followed by brown (beige), and a tiny bit of red. It uses soft strokes to show viewers its natural vibes.
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| Fig 2.1.3: Artwork Color Palette |
For the foreground, there is a main object in the center, and also got some small objects spreading in the middle left and right side of it. There's also a big object on the top left side which is kinda dominating the artwork.
Phase 2: Analysis
This design work is symmetrical balanced. It shows a low contrast since the color of the main object is pretty similar to the background color. The main emphasis is on the boat with two person inside it, located in the center of the artwork, but it also emphasizes the huge stone with a human face shape in the midground, which is producing a flow. The main object will be seen first, but at the next second, the figure of face there will be stealing the attention. And later, it will lead the eyes to the rest parts of the artwork. Repetition of the lily pads and koi fish can be seen there. The repetitive koi fish also enhances the sense of movement which is already represented by the water flow, creating a perfect sense of flow.
The artist made a great execution when transferring the artwork since it looks a bit messy at first (the traditional one). The use of color and strokes creates volume and depth between the foreground and background. It brings a nice harmony since the use of color is very suitable and the variety of the elements are all fit in together there. And with that, it is automatically showing a unity too, because the artwork compositions are well arranged, creating a sense of oneness and good proportion as well.
Phase 3: Interpretation
Beneath the Lilies is an illustration artwork created by Vanessa Palmer, or also known as Veapalm in 2019. She is a concept artist at WB Games Avalanche, based in Canada. Veapalm uses a really unique technique in painting her artworks, and it is applied to most of them. This artwork is no exception.
This "Beneath the Lilies" really shows the water lilies and the other various things beneath it. It shows the unknown life under the water, and points out especially the strange object there (a stone that has a human face shape).
The green color palette used there brings harmony and peace. Green is a relaxing color which represents the nature, and is often referred to as a color of life. The same goes for brown color, a color with natural and earthy vibes that brings warmth. Beside that, the water lilies and koi fish also have a wonderful meaning. Water lily symbolizes innocence, purity, fertility, delight, celebration, hope, wellness, peace, and new life. While koi fish is a symbol of luck, good fortune, success, prosperity, longevity, courage, ambition, perseverance. Those really represent the whole artwork since the viewers can sense the warmth, purity, and relaxed feeling at the same time.
Part 2: Design
The next thing to do after analyzing the visual of a design is to create our own artwork. For the final project of this semester, students are to produce a work of design, in A4 or A3 size, inspired/influenced by the design they have analyzed, or as a reaction to it. Later students also need to write a 150-200 words rationale for the design.
I did further exploration to discover more amazing artworks, so I can get inspired by them. I went to Pinterest to find more references since I still hadn't gotten any pictures of what I will do for this final project. I found many artworks that are similar to "Beneath the Lilies", so, at first, I can only think of making something similar.
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| Fig 2.2.1: Artwork Reference #1 |
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| Fig 2.2.2: Artwork Reference #2 |
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| Fig 2.2.3: Sketch #1, 07.11.2021 |
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| Fig 2.3.1: Artwork Reference #3 |
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| Fig 2.3.2: Artwork Reference #4 |
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| Fig 2.3.3: Artwork Reference #5 |
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| Fig 2.3.4: Artwork Reference #6 |
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| Fig 2.3.5: Artwork Reference #7 |
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Fig 2.4.1: Sketch #2, 15.11.2021 |
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| Fig 2.4.2: Making process #1, 17.11.2021 |
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| Fig 2.4.3: Making process #2, 17.11.2021 |
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Fig 2.4.4: Artwork Progression #1, 22.11.2021
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| Fig 2.4.6: Artwork Progression #2, 24.11.2021 |
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| Fig 2.4.7: Adding details #1, 25.11.2021 |
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| Fig 2.4.8: Artwork Progression #3, 24.11.2021 |
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| Fig 2.4.9: Adding details #2, 26.11.2021 |
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| Fig 2.4.10: Artwork Progression #4, 26.11.2021 |
Below here I'll attach a video of the full making process from the very beginning (sketching) till the end.
Final Outcome
Finally, this is the final outcome of my artwork.
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| Fig 2.5.1: Final Outcome in .jpg, 27.11.2021 |
Fig 2.5.2: Final Outcome in. pdf, 27.11.2021
Title: Window of the World
I named my artwork “Window of the World”. The phrase “Window of the World” is referring to the ‘eye’ because most of the input from our surroundings is caught by the eyes. The reason why I came up with this title is that as I mentioned before, I wanted to show myself looking at a big world. I express it through the portrait of me standing in the middle of the road staring at the buildings and the surroundings. I put both buildings and trees because I love both city view and scenery. The other reason why I chose to draw this artwork is that nowadays, the final projects are stressing me out (I need to deal with all the deadlines), so I kinda need a refreshing. And for me, just by going out strolling the city and viewing beautiful nature is already a kind of refreshing.
I decided to make a one-point perspective drawing with Worm's eye view. The color palette I used is a cool tone. I picked the colors from "Beneath the Lilies" and adjusted a bit. This artwork looks like a symmetrical balance artwork, but actually, it is not totally symmetrical, and more like approximate symmetry. Actually, I planned to emphasize the girl at the beginning. But when I'm done coloring the artwork, I realized that it is also emphasizing the buildings now. So I'll just let the audiences decide on their own perspective.
FEEDBACK
General Feedback
Students were told to not take the artist's apple to apple, and also don't use another artwork as a template (copy the artist's template and color it). If this problem has occurred in our final outcome unintentionally, then we might have to revise our work because it is considered as plagiarism.
Specific Feedback
Dr Charles said my artwork is interesting because it is about my perspective. He also mentioned that the technique I used can be varied, but the composition is still based on my concept. And overall it is good to be submitted.
REFLECTIONS
All I can say about this final project is challenging. This is a very challenging task since the very beginning, because this time, the aim of the assignment is not only to create an artwork based on the project title like we did in the past. Students need to understand the design principles applied in the chosen artwork as well as analyze it, then later we are to produce our own artwork influenced by it. For me, it was challenging yet interesting because this was the first time I'm having a very long planning and consideration just for one particular task. However, I'm glad that I was assigned to do this task as I can improve my understanding and analyzing skills through this.