Movement/Motion

 Option 1

http://felixip.blogspot.com/2011/04/kamenrider-support-japan.html

       This image is a poster designs by an Illustrator/ Freelance Comic Artist, Denis Medri. It is to help support Japan relief after the tsunami earthquake disaster. Japanese fictional superheroes help save the citizens of Japan. It is an image of Astro Boy appearing through the land of debris and water. On the top right corner is written in two Chinese characters, "Zai Sheng" meaning “reborn”. Looking at poster image, it is referring to how Japan citizens right now are rebuilding their lives and helping each other after the disaster. Astro Boy symbolizes Japan as the human Astro Boy was reborn as a robot and help save the citizens of Japan. The bottom image show implied motion as it show a wave-like motion of debris and water moving along towards Astro Boy’s direction. Just looking at the image itself, viewers can see as if Astro Boy came alive and appear right out of the water. The background of image is all in white color and in the middle is a big red cracked circle. The background behind Astro Boy symbolizes Japan’s flag. The wave-like derbies and water implies to the tsunami earthquake as it moves left and right.

http://www.designeroof.com/interesting-coca-cola-advertisements/

        This is an advertisement of Coco Cola. This image shows implied motions as there are wave and cloud-like objects moving upward coming out of the Coca Cola. Viewers can imagine if they open a bottle of Coca Cola, they would be experiencing the same effect. The advertisement is basically sending a message to the audience that if they open a bottle of Coca Cola, they enjoy the taste of this drink. The movement of each object shows as if it is moving upward and going up to the sky. It is creating a blasting effect, once the cap on the bottle has been lifted. Many vibrant colors are displayed on this advertisement, which also add to the effect of movement. Objects such as butterflies, happy faces, hot air balloons, and flowers are illustrated with the cloud-like waves. This helps promote that drinking Coca Cola would be refreshing and enjoyable.

Tone and Color

http://www.littleblackstar.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/399px-gojira_1954_poster_3.jpg

      One of my interests is poster design. This is the 1954 original movie poster for Godzilla: the movie, a Japanese science-fiction film. Godzilla is a Japanese movie monster, which was created by nuclear detonators. Throughout the series of movies, Godzilla has been portraying as the hero or destroyer of the city. Looking at the poster illustrates the climax of the movie. The couple on the bottom left of the poster shows authority as they are looking directly at Godzilla and the size of Godzilla is empathized. The range of tones on Godzilla adds texture on Godzilla body from head to toe. This helps the audience understands how Godzilla looks like. It also illustrates the vintage feel of the poster. The audience can easily tell that the poster was not recently created for this year. The tones on the landscape show detail and actions as there are explosion and debris all over the city. As for the element of basic design, the scale of Godzilla is highly emphasize. Godzilla’s size is larger than the couple and the Japanese characters on the poster. When the audiences see this poster, they would recognize the roles for the characters, whether they are good or evil character. The tone helps show the scale of the character with more emphases.
        On A Primer of Visual Literacy, Dondis states that “Color has stronger affinity to the emotions" (p.50). The color helps illustrate the emotion of the overall image. The features and the black and grey color on Godzilla signify the destructive powerful monster. The light colors on the couple are emphasizes to display the couple is the protagonist of the story and this attracts attention to the audiences. The couple shows direction of the basic element of design. The couple is looking directly at Godzilla and their body language shows they are terrified of Godzilla. With color and tone, the poster image helps attract the audience and tells a story of the movie.

Basic Elements - Book Cover Design-

Book Cover Design

http://theprodesigner.com/amazing-book-covers-and-paperbacks-design/

Lines

This book design is an image made by lines which displays two arrows going left and right. The lines help leaves an opening for imagination. I never read this book before but studying the design and book title, it might be related to time traveling. The line show motion of the arrows and it signifies going back and forth. The simple lines is clearly active as it show form and shape created by lines. This design helps the reader understand of mood of the book. The lack of color show this book is not for children. The lines are simple, but it is a boundary of time and space.

http://summers-knollart.blogspot.com/2010/11/author-studies-molly-bang.html

Shape

The book cover is created by Molly Bang and she uses shapes to create this image. The shape is clearly active as it display a picture of hungry animal and red triangle on the side of the image. Molly Bang stated that it is a picture of “Little Red Riding Hood” and the big bad wolf. Using only simple shapes such as triangles, diamonds, and rectangles, it could create a picture which tells a story. Although the book is not about Little Red Riding Hood, this image helps reader understand how pictures tell a story. The triangle signifies Little Red Riding Hood and the one made from multiple shapes is the big bad wolf. Including the long rectangle symbolizes the dark forest. The shape itself captures the structure of the wolf and Little Red Riding Hood. The triangles on the wolf and Little Red Riding Hood show tension and conflict because in the story the wolf tries to eat Little Red Riding Hood. 

http://theprodesigner.com/amazing-book-covers-and-paperbacks-design/

Color

This is a manga cover of  "Dororo" by Tezuka Osamu.  He is one of the famous manga artists in Japan. His most famous work is Astro Boy (which I mention on my previous blog entry). The colors are clearly active as the colorful images are dependent on the context of the background and it emphasize on each character. On A Primer of Visual Literacy, Dondis states that "Color is, in fact loaded with information." The colors on each character displays their personality. For instance, "Red is most emotional and active" referring to the main character Hyakkimaru, who is a skillful samurai on a hunt for demons. "Yellow is the closet color to light and warmth" as this refer when Hyakkimaru was born without limbs and facial features, his parents abandoned him, but the doctor adopted him and provide him with love and warmth. The colors on the design help prepare the reader for what they’re going read about because the purple and green colors send an eerie message to the story. In the story, the purple character on the top right is a demon and the green character on the bottom left is the god of death in a form of a gorilla. The primary and secondary colors signifies the main good and evil characters of the story.

Design Success and Failure in Relation to Syntactical Guidelines

http://www.adpunch.org/entry/wwf-ad-focusing-on-endangered-species/

I have chosen these two advertisements because it is related to my interest. I love how in advertisements can sends out a strong message to their targeted viewers. But sometimes some advertisements can lead to confusion.   

This advertisement of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is an example of good syntactical design. The ad itself represents an eye exam chart replace by many shadow images of gorillas. On the bottom it said, “Save endangered animals before they disappear in front of your eyes.” I really like how the gorilla images can lead the viewers to read the tag line. This ad sends a direct message to the viewer to save/protect endangered animals before they get extinct. The horizontal image of the gorillas shows balance and proximity as each image is evenly space. Viewers can easily look at the ad at ease. The top gorilla image is the largest while all the images below are getting smaller and smaller, and then leading the viewer to read their tag line. The colors on the ad have a good balance of distributing colors and strong use of positive and negatives on the colors. The black shadow images dominate the eye as the viewer would look only at the images, rather than the gray background.       

http://www.geekpolice.net/t8580-monopoly-ads

This advertisement for Monopoly is an example of bad syntactical design. The red background and the woman standing in the center is the main focus of the ad as it first attracted my attention. But the message for this ad is too confusing. It fails to send a message to the audience. When I first saw this ad I assume it was about traveling or clothing. With the Monopoly logo placed on the bottom right corner, I would not have noticed this advertisement was for Monopoly. This ad shows no leveling because it looks as if it is coming from a side perspective.  The furniture show vertical and horizontal, but for the ad itself there is no distinct verticals or horizontals. The red background and the traveler wearing different color clothing are too distracting for the viewer. Since red is an intense color, looking at this ad makes me feel strained. I dislike it how this ad is misleading the viewers.

Visual Thinking Research

For this assignment, I asked my mom to help me solve two puzzles. On the first puzzle, we need to figure out “what month is indicated by the strange symbols in the illustration above?” Together, we use pattern-seeking process to solve this puzzle correctly, but both of us use slightly different strategies to find the solution. Since the puzzle is asking for which month is indicated by the strange symbols, my mom listed out all the months of the calendar. By visualizing the first strange symbol, she found out it was the letter “J”. Eliminating all the other months starting without the letter “J”, she put check marks right next to January, June, and July. As McKim stated “Pattern finding is often to perceive a pattern is to solve a problem,” my mom uses pattern finding to see which other three strange symbols have similar features on her list. With this, she realized she can cover-up half of the image and it revealed the month, “JULY.” As she put a star right next to “July” and drew a line on the image, she was absolutely sure she has found the solution to the puzzle. As for me, without listing all the months of the calendar, but using pattern finding approach, I visualize which month would have the four letters that is similar with the four strange symbols. As I have the month “July” on my mind, I drew a line on the image and saw the mirror image of the month, “July.” Using our own visual thinking methods, my mom and I eventually found the solution to the puzzle.   

 

On the second puzzle, we need to find a perfect star hidden in the illustration above. This puzzle was harder than I expected. It took me around 15 minutes to find the star and my mom took around an hour to find it. Using pattern-seeking process, I visualize a perfect star in my mind and trace each angles to see if it a perfect star. Without knowing the size of the star, I often get distracted looking at triangles. As I was trying to find the star, I drew on the image to make sure if I found right one. I continue to visualize a perfect star with perfect angles, until I finally found it on the bottom-right corner. As for my mom, she used a different strategy to find the star. At first she got easily distracted as she uses her imagination and found objects that look like a kite or boomerang. She turned the paper left and right, front and back to see if this method helps her find the star easily. Without making any process, she visualizes the star in her mind and uses her fingers to trace each lines and shapes. As my mom was still very determined to find the star, eventually she found it. She was very happy with her effort.

Top-Down Visual Processing

Haunted by Culpeo Illusion
Source: http://games.yahoo.com/braingames/brain-teasers-games/haunted-781

This image is an example of top-down visual processing. It is an optical illusion of a mysterious figure that is haunting the fox. For this image, we are using top-down visual processing to look for the mysterious figure lurking in the forest. Top-Down visual processing is "driven by the need to accomplish some goal" (Ware, p.12), which consist of goal-directed eye movement. This is when the viewer have short fixation to get an overview of the image, such as the optional illusion of the fox. At a glance, the viewer only see a forest, this refer to how the viewers creates a biased goal in whatever they prefer to see. But if the viewer take a longer look at the image, the mysterious figure haunting the fox is a big fox.    

Interactions Between the 3 Levels

 

This is an advertisement poster for an exhibition featuring pieces by 35 inspired artists of Tezuka Osamu and to commemorate the 80^th anniversary of his birth. One of his famous works is Astro Boy, which is presented on the poster.

Representational
The representational view of this poster is one of the well-known Japanese animation characters, Astro Boy. The story is about a young human boy who lost his life in a car accident, but came back to life as a robot with the help of his father. The young robot devoted his life saving the citizens of Japan and became the robot boy called, “Astro Boy.” In this image, we see a half –faced Astro Boy and on the other half are colorful geometrical shapes spreading out of the image. This poster is here to promote an exhibition called, “Tezuka Gene: Light of the Darkness” by 35 artists inspired on Tezuka Osamu’s work and his view of the world. Corresponding to the word “Light”, Astro Boy’s pupil is emitting light and smiling brightly. Astro Boy will bring light into the exhibition as the viewers come to see the exhibition. Looking at Astro Boy will bring smiles to the viewers’ faces. Overall, this image illustrate that visitors will see many inspired Tezuka Osamu’s famous works, including Astro Boy.

Abstract
The abstract view of this poster is the geometrical shapes coming out of Astro Boy’s right-sided face. On “A Primer of Visual Literacy” Dondis states, “…the more abstract, the more general and all encompassing it is” (p.74). The geometric shapes illustrate to viewers that the exhibition will display many pieces inspired by Tezuka Osamu. Hence, on the far right corner of the cube is a little character which is created by Tezuka Osamu. The abstraction promotes the colorfulness of the exhibition to the viewers. The split face of Astro Boy creates a representational and symbolical view. Viewers can see the exhibition of Astro Boy and many more.

Symbolic
The symbolic view of this poster is where Astro Boy emits light from his eye. Same as the title of the exhibition, Astro Boy will bring ‘light into the darkness.’ Referring to the animation, the darkness signifies the countless enemies Astro Boy would encounter. On the other hand, the light in his eye symbolizes his good/ pure heart for saving citizens from danger. Relating to abstraction, the geometrical shapes signify the viewers will see the colorful pieces by the 35 artists. As for representational, this will encourage the audience and artists to open to imagination and continue to grow just like the geometrical shapes are continuously expanding. The exhibition itself is to motivate new artists to design their own style of art and entertain the viewers.

Meaning 1 Application Exercise

Representational

 

This photograph portrays a family of ducks walking along the grass. The family of ducks represents unity and love as a family. Looking at this photo, the audience can see the movements of the ducklings following the mother duck wherever she goes. The audience can also feel the warmth coming from the family of ducks. Even a pigeon (on the bottom right corner) looks as if it is following the mother duck and her ducklings. The photo illustrates the details of each duckling as all of them have the same feather pattern. It has a peaceful and happy environment to see the mother and her ducklings walking along the clean and grassy environment.

Source: I took this picture on my own when I was walking at a park with my friends. 

Abstract

This is an abstract painting of a white male peacock displaying its feathers. Only male peacocks display their beautiful feathers to attract their mate. However on the painting, the mate of the male peacock is not present, but the peacock is displaying its feather at the audience.  At a quick glance, the blue circles in the painting grab the audience’s attention. But when carefully observing the painting, the audience will see the peacock at the center surrounded by its feathers. This painting show the beauty of the white male peacock, with less details on the feather but emphases on the blue circle on its feathers.

Source: http://www.modernhouseart.com/ 

  

Symbolic

 

This symbol signifies the American symbol of recycling. The color green symbolizes nature, growth, renewal, health, and the environment. The three continuous arrows denote the cycle of reduce, reuse, and recycle. This process helps reduce waste, reuse materials, and recycle materials that can help create new and useful materials. Recycling symbol can be seen everywhere from big items such as recycle containers to the smallest items of a water bottle. The process of recycling is taught and practiced from the beginning of elementary school.  Many people acknowledge the practice at home as residents have three different containers to help organize the waste.    

Source: http://www.dos-crawley.co.uk/green_supplier.htm