Elements and Principles of Design

Unit One: The Elements and Principles of Composition

For the next several weeks, we will explore how artists communicate using a language of non-verbal communication: Line, Shape, Color, Texture and Space. There are nine assignments in this unit. The questions or statements below prompt you to explore concepts, which you will submit for my feedback. Keep in mind as you work on your assignments that in all societies, first impressions and how something is presented or appears has an impact on those viewing or receiving the messages. Your projects should be artistic, organized and an appropriate reflection of the importance of this class and your understanding of the first unit. If you have difficulties in answering a question or understanding a concept, email me or stop by for an appointment. I suggest you keep up by doing assignments after each classroom discussion.

Organize your print media examples in a notebook or appropriate portfolio. Download the photos I take of your sculpture projects and print a copy for your notebook or portfolio. At the end of the unit, you are to submit this portfolio for an overall evaluation. DUE: 2/26

#2. Reading the Non-Verbal, Thinking in Other Ways
Line as an Element in Nature

DUE: 1/20

"What are the meanings inherent in the term imagination? Imagination is the inner force that allows one to experience what was, what can be and what might never be; it can transcend the limitations of space, time, and reality. Sometimes imagination may be a leap into fantasy, often expressed through dreams that reflect inner thoughts and desires. But imagination is more than involuntary illusion; it allows voluntary turning of ideas in the mind, trying new combinations, uncovering unexpected insights through a conscious guiding of visual invention. Imagination not only allows the picturing in the mind's eye of the earth as a sphere floating in space, it can also provide such inventions as Lewis Carroll's JABBERWOCK."

Design Dialogue, Jack Stoops and Jerry Samuelson "BEWARE THE JABBERWOCK, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!" Louis Carroll

In order that we might exercise our imagination, in this class, we will need to be able to read the language of the artist. The first letter in an artist's alphabet is LINE. Concentrating on the use of line as the dominant element employed in a composition. For the purpose of discussion, select magazine, print advertisement, or internet example , which illustrate the examples below. Bring your thoughts to share in class.

1. Select two compositions where the dominant feature in the ad is the emotional use of predominantly one style of line (jagged, curvilinear, meandering, etc.) to sell a product. What is this line? How or why does it make you feel the way you do about the product? Before you give your written explanation, verify that you have selected an example which mostly uses one line style or a particular, purposeful combination of lines, take a piece of tracing paper and copy the lines. Be careful not to neglect significant lines merely to prove your conclusions. Remove the tracing paper. Do the abstract lines on the tracing paper support your reaction to the ad? If not, chances are there are other compositional elements, or perhaps the subject matter, influencing your opinion.

2. Select one composition that employs the use of or combination of lines in a symbolic way. A good example is the AT & T logo. It is a world created by lines, which also represent communication lines. In this case, the logo identifies AT&T as a worldwide communications network. The abstract use of lines creates in the mind a picture of the company or product. The example you select should demonstrate a purposeful manipulation of lines to communicate a concept or idea about the product. Explain your selection. Remember, you are looking for the use of line, not shape.

3. Select a composition where the element of line is used to direct the eye from one location to another with the ad. Discuss the journey through the composition. Where is the first focal point your eye goes to? Where does the eye end up? Does it ultimately lead your eye to the product or product name? Discuss.

#3. Abstracting with Lines

Due R 1/22

"ART . . . TEACHES TO CONVEY A LARGER SENSE BY SIMPLER SYMBOLS." Emerson.

We have investigated the element of line in the two dimensional world. Now, you will investigate the use of line in a three dimensional study.

Your assignment is to execute an abstract three dimensional line study of an emotion. Select on emotion: anger, love, peace, boredom, etc. Observe this emotion in a number of situations. Distill what you observe and take notes. What is the emotion's spirit, its soul, and its essence? This may seem like a silly exercise but take a risk and see if you can stretch your creativity beyond what you already know. Step back and consider how you might recreate your selected emotion in a line sculpture. Consult the Web site for examples.

Your assignment needs to engage us. It is possible for a study to be abstract but fail to engage us because it is too obvious. For example, I have selected anger as a concept to study. I craft a lightning bolt out of a coat hanger and stand it up in a clump of clay. It is abstract but it only engages us for a split second as we figure it out right away. There is no time investment involved by the viewer. Chances are I will forget it right away. On the other hand, your abstraction can be so personal that we cannot figure out what your emotion might be. In this case you will have failed to engage us. Your job is to find just the right abstraction to engage us in an imaginative way, which is not too simple and not too difficult to understand. Calculating the abstractness of your composition requires that you understand your audience. The multi-billion dollar industry of advertisement employs wonderfully creative minds that spend their lifetimes inventing ways to engage the consumer long enough to remember the product's name and / or to induce us to purchase the product. In doing so, these professionals know their audience. In general, you will find a different level of advertisement in a grocery store line than that found in Architectural Digest or The New Yorker. Knowing the audience is essential in the success of an advertisement campaign. For the purpose of our assignments in Principles, assume your audience will be the Trinity Community.

You may use toothpicks, sticks and any item, which would imply a line. For curved lines, I suggest using wire, florist wire or pipe cleaners. The texture of the surfaces of the materials you use also will communicate non-verbally (fuzzy pipe cleaners). For the purposes of this assignment, you are to concentrate on the element of line, not color or texture. To truly isolate the element of line, you may want to paint the entire sculpture white, black, gray ... something neutral.

Put your name on the assignment. Put the emotion you are representing on the bottom.

Example http://www.trinity.edu/sgilliam/principles/artlang.html

Most individuals feel strongly about issues or causes, which affect the world we share. Some of us react as active, sometimes vocal, advocates of issues; some of us express less visible means of supporting causes. Issues and causes have divergent viewpoints. Differing opinions give rise to the art of persuasion. Organizations will resort to a multitude of means to deliver their point-of-view, usually in the hopes of convincing others to join their ranks and support their opinions. Ordinarily, we think of verbal means of persuasion to communicate our feelings (discussion, debate, written articles, slogans and the like). However, in many cases, the strongest means to communicate ideas with lasting impact are non-verbal in presentation (a poster, a drawing, music, a sculpture, an image, etc.). We live in a global society. The art of communication takes many forms.

The purpose of this assignment is to explore the power of non-verbal communication. You are to select an issue, concern or feeling for which you have a strong opinion. You are to communicate some aspect of your opinion through the creation of a non-verbal presentation. There are no prescribed forms. It may be a three-dimensional representation, an installation, an abstraction, a metaphor, a sculpture, a ... . The only restrictions are that your creation must be safe; it cannot include living or spoilable items; it must be portable; and, the presentation should not require your presence to reconfigure the composition for me to interpret your intentions. I may need to take these explorations to my studio to evaluate them.

Your creation is due as noted on the syllabus. There are no rights or wrongs to this assignment. How effectively you communicate your message will depend on the reaction to your message from your audience. You may want to "test" your presentation on your roommate before submitting it to see if you are communication your desired message.

#4. Seeing Shape as a Nonverbal Symbol in Communication
MARTHA PENARANDA, Instructor

Stay loose. Learn to watch snails. Plant impossible gardens. Invite someone dangerous for tea. Make little signs that say Yes! And post them all over your house. Make friends with freedom & uncertainty. Look forward to dreams. Cry during movies. Swing as high as you can on a swing set, by moonlight. Cultivate moods. Refuse to "be responsible". Do it for love. Take lots of naps. Give money away. Do it now. The money will follow. Believe in magic. Laugh a lot. Celebrate every gorgeous moment. Take moonbaths. Have wild imaginings, transformative dreams, and perfect calm. Draw on the walls. Read everyday. Imagine yourself magic. Giggle with children. Listen to old people. Open up. Dive in. Be free. Bless yourself. Drive away fear. Play with everything. Entertain your inner child. You are innocent. Build a fort with blankets. Get wet. Hug trees. Write love letters.

Once again, in order to improve our language as artists, you are to observe the use of another letter in the artist's alphabet: SHAPE. Concentrating on the use of shape as the dominant element employed in a composition, select magazine or print advertisements that illustrate the following examples. Cut the ads out and mount the examples on separate pieces of paper for presentation. Attach a separate page for your written explanations as directed.

1. Select two compositions where the dominant feature in the ad is the emotional use of predominantly one style of shape to sell a product. What is this shape? How or why does it make you feel the way you do about the product? Before you give your written explanation, to verify that you have selected an example which mostly uses one shape, take a piece of tracing paper and outline the major shapes. Be careful not to neglect significant items merely to prove your conclusions. Remove the tracing paper. Do the outlined shapes support your reaction to the ad? If not, chances are there are other compositional elements, or perhaps the subject matter (picture), influencing your opinions. If so, select another composition.

2. Select one example of a composition, which uses shapes to form or create a texture. This overall texture should, in turn, communicate a concept or idea about the product. Explain your selection. Remember, you are looking for the use of shape, not line.

3. Select a composition where shapes are used to direct the eye from one location to another within the ad. Discuss the journey beginning at the first focal point. How does the shape/s move you from one focal area to another? Where does the eye end up? Does it ultimately lead your eye to the product or product name? Discuss.

As you are aware, shapes, in their basic or simplest forms, have individual personalities. These personalities can be altered by adding texture, value and color as one might do by adding adjectives to a noun. The more adjectives you use, usually the more precise the communication. The relationship of one shape to another can communicate ideas that the individual shape or form may not. This is similar to understanding a word in a sentence based on the contextual use of the other words. Sometimes the repetition of a similar shape evokes an overall feeling which, when combined, is stronger than the sole shape. A tree with rounded leaves (aspen, ornamental pear) usually evokes a soft feeling compared with a tree with jagged or pointed leaves (pine, cedar) producing rugged or a turbulent quality. It is not one leaf but the sum of all. You may notice that scale and proportion are important aspects in communication. Sometimes, the proportions of the overall shapes guide the emotion.

Create an abstract shape sculpture, which embodies an emotion. Carefully consider and anticipate your audience interpretations. Provide a base or means for your work to stand up. As with all compositions, remember balance, direction and duration of interest. On the bottom of your project, place your name and the emotion you are representing. You may want to reference ideas as posted on the web site.

#6. Seeing Texture as a Non-Verbal Symbol in Communication
MARTHA PENARANDA, Instructor

"Creativity has a different relationship to time than most of us. A minute can last a day and a day can last an hour. Sometimes Creativity disappears completely or wanders around...for weeks at a time. Creativity understands the secret meanings of the months when nothing seems to get done."

"Commitment has kind eyes. He wears sturdy shoes. Because commitment is so serious, he loves clowns and balloons...His heart is open. He is not afraid of life. He is married to Joy."

Concentrating on the use of texture as a dominant element employed in a composition, select magazine or print advertisements, which illustrate the following examples. Cut the ads out and mount the examples on separate pieces of paper for presentation. Attach another page for your written explanations as directed.

1. Select two examples where texture is used to communicate an emotion, an idea or concept. What are the emotions and how does they sell the products?

2. Select two examples of compositions, which use texture to capture the eye and then guide it throughout the advertisement. Describe the pathway and how the texture draws you along the trail. Does your eye rest an equal amount of time at each focal point? Does the duration or variation of your involvement at a particular point in the ad create a rhythm? Where does your attention end up? Was the journey part of the selling of the product???

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost." Martha Graham, Dancer.

You are to create an abstract study of a person who has influenced you through the use of texture. Select an individual you have known for sometime, respect, perhaps love. You may want to consider a member of your family or your best friend. First prepare a short written statement describing your character. Whereas external qualities are important to identify this person physically, an individual's spirit goes much further than surface appearances. After you have written your statement, prepare a sculpture that captures the spirit of this individual. Focus on texture as a major element. This is not a painting, nor a picture. You are to submit both the written statement and the texture study as part of this assignment.

"I understand how scarlet can differ from crimson because I know that the smell of an orange is not the smell of a grape-fruit. I can also conceive that colors have shades and guess what shades are. In smell and taste there are varieties not broad enough to be fundamental; so I call them shades. There are half a dozen roses near me. The all have the unmistakable rose scent; yet my nose tells me that they are not the same. The American Beauty is distinct from the Jacqueminot and La France. Odors in certain grasses fade as real to my senses as certain colors do to yours in the sun. ... I make use of analogies like these to enlarge my conception of colors. ...The force of association drives me to say that white is exalted and pure, green is exuberant, red suggests love or shame or strength. Without color or its equivalent, life to me would be dark, barren, a vast blackness.

"Thus through an inner law of completeness my thoughts are not permitted to remain colorless. It strains my mind to separate color and sound from objects. Since my education began I have always had things described to me with their colors and sounds by one with keen senses and a fine feeling for the significant. Therefore, I habitually think of things as colored and resonant. Habit accounts for part. The soul sense accounts for another part. The brain with its five-sensed construction asserts its right and accounts for the rest. Inclusive of all, the unity of the world demands that color be kept in it whether I have cognizance of it or not. Rather than shut out, I take part in it by discussing it, happy in the happiness of those near me who gaze at the lovely hues of the sunset or the rainbow."

Concentrating on the use of color as the dominant element in compositions, select magazine examples to illustrate the following:

1. Select a composition where color is used to create a quality of a space. Describe the quality. How is it used to enhance the message about the product?

2. Mood is a composite result of the combination of all elements within a given frame. Realizing this, identify a composition in which color overwhelmingly controls the emotion of the message. What is the mood and why does the color make you feel this way?

3. Color intensity, color variation, color contrast are all means to attract the eye. Select a composition where the element of color is used to capture the viewer's focus and then force the attention to follow a specific journey through the advertisement. Explain why you feel most people will see this ad in the same sequence. What is the sequence? Is the concluding point significant to the product's message? Remember, find a good example that uses COLOR rather than line or shape or texture or subject matter. If you are not certain, turn the composition upside down. Your eye should follow the same path.

4. Identify one composition, which uses a color harmony to unify the picture. What is it? How does the selected harmony represent or enhance the product? Is it a period color harmony? Art Deco, Fifties???

Create an abstract color sculpture, which embodies an emotion. For this assignment, you will need to use all the elements we have studied as color is surface layer onto line, space, or texture. Nevertheless, you are to concentrate on the use of color as a communicator. Carefully consider and anticipate your audience interpretations. Provide a base or means for your work to stand up. Remember that all aspects of your presentation are observed as part of the communication process. Ask yourself what will hook my audience? Where does the journey begin? Where will the eye go to next? Does the pathway of the observer follows have direction and duration of interest? Does the duration of interest create a rhythm, which reinforces the emotional content of the presentation?

On the bottom of your project, place your name and the emotion you are representing. Consult the Web site for visual examples.

"All spatial implications are mentally conditioned by the environment and experience of the viewer. Vision is experienced through the eyes but interpreted with the mind. Perception involves the whole pattern of nerve and brain response as well as the visual stimulus. Man uses two eyes for the perception of objects in nature and continually shifts his focus of attention. In so doing, two different types of vision are used, stereoscopic and kinesthetic. Having two eyes set slightly apart from each other, man sees two different views of the object world at the same time. The term stereoscopic is applied to his ability to overlap the views which are slightly different into one image. This visual process creates an illusion of three-dimensional depth, making it possible to judge distances.

?In kinesthetic vision, man experiences space in the movements of the eye from one part of a work of art to another. Space is experienced while viewing a two-dimensional surface because we unconsciously attempt to organize its separate parts so that they can be seen as a whole. In addition, man explored object surfaces with eye movements in order to make mental recognition of them. Objects close to the eye require more ocular movement than those more distant, and this factor adds spatial illusion to man’s kinesthetic vision."

Concentrating on the use of space as the dominant element in compositions, select magazine examples to illustrate the following:

1. The arrangement of objects within a given composition can say a lot about the message of the product. Select an example of an ad, which utilizes space to support an emotional quality that in turn endorses the product. Explain your selection.

2. Not all space within the artist's frame needs to be occupied. Use of NEGATIVE space can be as important to the sponsor's message as the positive space. Select an ad that uses negative space to communicate.

3. Select an example where there is an implied space beyond the frame of the composition. Where is it? What is important about this implied space in terms of the product? How are you being manipulated to focus on this?

4. Artists can be master illusionists creating three dimensional pictures in magazines. Select a superior example of an ad, which manipulates the space to create an illusion of 3-D. Explain how it is achieved.

Organize your print media examples in a notebook or appropriate portfolio. Download the photos I have taken of your sculpture projects and print a copy for your notebook or portfolio. As assigned at the outset of this unit, you are to submit this portfolio for an overall evaluation.