Week 14: Visual Message

Above two examples are drink packaging design, wich are representational. The two drink boxes represent two fruits, banana and strawberry, because they use the same color and special elements of these two fruits. When people see them, they can easily recognize banana and strawberry based on their knowledge. Also, viewer can know the taste of the drink from what fruit the packaging represent.

This is the FCL recycling logo. It symbolize the FCL light bulbs should be recycled in appointed places. The light bulb shape logo in the middle denotes CFLs. And three green arrows denote recycling, which is a very common logo in people's life.

This is a irregular abstract vase that is abstract in shape. It communicates more interesting and modern feeling to viewer than normal vases. This vase would be stunning either empty or filled. And due to it's non-conventional shape, you could easily fill it with non-conventional items to heighten the visual interest.

Week 13: Visual Techniques

Irregularity; Variation; Flatness; Activeness

Sharpness; Depth; Singularity

These two images are advertisement design, which I like and want to work in the further. The two ads are very different. First one is more flat, and the women's hair and butterflies give the feeling of irregularity and variation. Also, all of the butterflies seem like flying to the cell phone, which can bring people' attention to here. On the other hand, second advertisement is 3D design, and the thing that holds the candy box gives the feeling of sharpness, which can let people think about ice. Plus, the whole picture just has one mainly element, so it makes people easily focus on the candy box.

Week 12: Contrast

Bad example: This graphic design shows contrast in color and texture. However, woman and skull is a very common and dull topic of contrast. And the woman in the picture is old and not very beautiful, which brings down the effect of contrast.

Good example: This graphic design shows the contrast in texture and tone, very excellent!

week 11: Motion Part 2

This is the navigation of universal studio park. I think the challenge of this is making the map as clear as possible. Because there are so many place in the park, it is hard to find where is where when tourists moving in it. The designer for this map uses the exactly same shape of each building of different place. The map is 2D but seems as a 3D space with these buildings in. So, when tourists move in the park, they can go whatever the place they want to according to the building shape and the different space they located.

Week 11: Motion Part 1

This is a 2D graphic design. There are just some words on it, but the designer uses different size and direction on these words. So, diagonals and variations in scale make change and movement on this graphic. If we stare at it for a while, we can see the words start to move a little!

Week 10: Dimension

This is a 3D graphic design. We can see 2 mainly depth/size cues in here, overlap and relative size. It shows overlap because the buildings cover 2 mummies, so the buildings are seen as being in front of mummies. Also, the left mummy that is smaller than the right one can be perceived as farther according the depth cue, relative. Moreover, the building parts in the sky combine both overlap and relative size perfectly, so we can them in space - some are near, some are far. Additionally, there are a little bit of linear perspective and texture gradient showing in this design.

Week 9: Color

This is a 3D graphic design. The designer uses green as a main color on the word to express the feeling of "summer". But, some of the letters are more yellow, why? I think the reason is the topic of the graphic is not about summer but about "summer is going out", so the yellow letters express the coming season - fall. More over, the white and blue background makes "SUMMER" pop out.
Color and Tone: on the first letter - S, the designer uses two different tone. The down half part is darker green and seems like going out of light and the picture. This also gives the feeling of "summer is going out".
Color and Shape: the shape of the 3D letter actually not very interesting, just simple circles and corners. But because of the color, it becomes more meaningful.

Week 8: Product Design of Perfume (Texture)

Texture is the visual element that serves as touching, sight, or a combination of both. It relieves flatness and creates interest. In the above perfume design, the first thing poping out in our eyes is the purple lace, why? Because the designer uses a different texture - lace - on the cardboard box and the glass bottle, so the box and the bottle both become more interesting. And the consumer can be easyly attracted by the difference of the texture.

Week 8: Product Design of Perfume (Tone)

Tone builds on Line –the edges/borders of dark/light pattern areas and relates to the presence/absence of light. It is the most basic means by which we distinguish our visual environment. Even with the aid of perspective, line alone will not create the illusion of reality effectively without the aid of tone. In the above AD, we can see the 3D packaging boxes on the 2D image because of tone. Also, the light white logo on the dark balck box emphasizes the logo itself. Plus, the AD uses a lot of light on the perfume bottle to make it pop out from the background.

Week 8: Product Design of Perfume (Shape)

The Shape builds on the Dot and the Line. Line describes a shape's boundaries. There are three basic shapes: Circle, Square, Equilateral Triangle. From the above perfume bottle, we can see, its shape is derived from square. But why the square is twisted? Because square itself gives the feeling of static, stable, dull, the consumer may not be attracted. So, the desinger of this perfume twisted it to make the shape become more active and interesting.

Good and Bad Graphic Design

This is a very good example of graphic design. the designer uses grouping as the basic guideline to group different colored round shape looking like a woman. Also, he puts the woman's face at the rignt side of the picture and uses dark color around the middle of the face to stress and balance the whole picture. Very excellent!

This is a bad example of graphic design. Putting the flower things on the left side cannot stress it enough, so right side should be better. Plus, the letters are everywhere in the picture making it so mussy. And, the white letters and balck background shows positive and negtive but the letters around the flower almost cannot see. I think the letters should put on the down-left position to balance the flower.

My Shoes -- Fine and Applied Art

1. Functionality: comfortable; very soft leather and sole; I can wear it walking for a whole day.

2. Aesthetic beauty: beautiful green color; golden tach fits the bowknot very well; light green packaging fits the shoes well.

3. Communication: this is the first pair of shoes I bought in America and it's not cheap; I was first attracted by their color (I really like green) and I tried them. It's very comfortable and beautiful on my feet. I think it worth the money.

4. Decorative value: joy chen (glory chen) is not a common brand but it works very hard on every pairs of shoes, including their design and functionality, even on their packaging. Each pair of them are good integrate with both fine and applied art.

Puzzle

First Puzzle:

At first, we just wanted to draw some lines on the space to see if it's possible to draw a bigger star. Then, we found out there are more space around stra "a". So, we tried to conect each point of star "a" and made a bigger perfect five-point star. It works!

In the second picture, there's a star around star "b" because we also found more space there. But when we drew it, one point of the star out of the foul line. So, this puzzle just has one solution.

Second Puzzle:

We did this puzzle separately. From the results, we can see it has more then one solutions. However, both of us go left side first because we want to leave right side space to the bule door. The difference is she go left and right, but I go up and down. We do the right side in the same way.

Feature Channels and Visual Search

http://www.orange32.com/design/simmons-green-magazine-ads/

This is an Ad of a bracelet named "Simmons Green Magazine". Just like it's name, the Ad use very bright green to let the bracelet pops out from the whole picture so naturally. It use allmost dark backgroud and fog the hands to throw out the very betiful color, so pepole will focus on the bracelet itself. Also, the Ad light on the bracelet to emphasize it and attract attention.