DSGN 101 FUNDAMENTAL DESIGN
Minh Le Spring 2010 CCSF
Timothy Pflueger and the Art Deco Movement Pflueger was “perhaps the finest architect San Francisco has ever produced.� -- San Francisco Chronicle critic John King
Symmetry-Geometry Form, Especially Vertical Elements
Decorative Elements
Emotion Gesture Modeling Subject: To create a 3-dimensional model representing one specific emotion
Excitement – Initial Responses 1. What is your point of view? What is your definition of your emotion? Excitement, to me, is one up-side emotion. It urges me to do something in such a way that different from passion and desire. It makes me feel like only good thing would happen. Excitement is the feeling that I can’t get out of my mind once it occurs, and I keep pushing to that very moment. 2. What is your relationship to the emotion? Being excited about something makes me see things positively. Since I believe it’s a good thing, I believe everything else is good. 3. What interests you about your emotion? This particular emotion can reflect and/or affect other moods/ emotions. It’s always shown, not hidden. People can recognize it easily. 4. What mood would you like to create? A happy mood and full of energy 5. What specific aspect(s) of your emotion do you wish to address? I want to show its energy within, waiting to explode. And it also has to have the happy, playful theme throughout the piece. 6. What messages do you want your audience to receive when looking at your piece? I want the audience to see the energy it has. Also, it is one fun looking object, not a simple, boring, ordinary thing. 7. How these messages are best communicated? I would use curvilinear lines and shapes to create motion. Bright, stand out colors can be used to represent its energy or the playfulness and fun looking. 8. Do you want to work with any contrasting ideas? I think I’ll stick to what I plan. I don’t want to confuse the audience or over-complicate my concept. 9. What story do you want to tell with your piece? Everyone might have different reasons to be excited about. The ideas and the sources of excitement maybe different, but the way we react to it is all very similar. I want my piece to capture that very moment when we all become excited about something.
Individual Gesture Model My group, after collaborating, has picked “Excitement” as our emotion. My gesture model has the shape of “flowing” column. I put it stand up because excitement is an upside emotion. It contains happiness and somewhat a little bit of strength, so I think a standing object better describes that kind of emotion than a lying-down object. I crafted it in a “flowing” form because I wanted to break down the boringness of a simple column and create the sense of movement. Excitement is full of energy. It is usually the first stage of an action right after it. People feel excitement about something or to do something. The flowing form supports the idea of action. In brief, the model form represents the excitement’s strength, energy and fun. Gold is chosen to be the color for my gesture model. Like I said earlier, excitement contains strength. Gold makes me think of the sun with its unlimited energy. This warm color covers the model with the hidden energy waiting to be exploded, just like when we are so excited that we cannot wait to do the thing we have in mind. Also, gold is color of wealth and of royal. That is a good and valuable thing. So is excitement. Excitement helps us see things optimistically. In other word, gold can be one good color to represent the excitement. In this model, I have used mirror-paper to be the main material. One of the reasons I chose this kind of paper is its reflection ability. I want the viewers to be able to see themselves on the surface and then reflect their mood on it. I believe excitement can be interfered by other emotions. It can become more cheerful with happiness, and it also can become less joyful with sadness. So the reflection on the surface can be said as the reflection of other moods on the excitement. Besides that, mirror-paper has smooth and shiny surface which makes the piece less boring. To me, smooth and shiny-surface objects seem to be more fun than rough-surface ones. The shiny reflection of the material makes the model more interesting. I had done the model in a large size so that it can get more affect from the surroundings. Since its surface can reflect, I wanted to make it get more reflection. Basically, the more reflections it has the more affect it gets. So the large size is better. For the emotion idea, I think excitement is one of emotions that we do not hide at all. We sometimes hide sadness or happiness, but we never hide our excitement. Therefore, I made the piece large so everyone can see it clearly. It is shown, not hidden. After finishing, I think the most successful aspect of my model is the reflection-surface of material. It does its job well. Since it reflects the surroundings, I can see some rectilinear and curvilinear and colors mixed together on its surface. And it is fun to look at it from far away. It seems like the model contains a piece of art work on each of its sides. Besides the most successful aspect, I think the least successful aspect is the gesture of the model. It is hard to tell the movement that I want to show. The shape is quite simple, and this is probably the reason that makes the movement hard to tell. This is my first time doing such assignment, and I felt really difficult to figure out what I should do. But above all, it is fun to do this assignment.
Group members: Carolina Dangold, Amy Lu, Fatima Fugamas
Collaborative Project Iteration #1 Our chosen emotion is Excitement. Our gesture model is the combination of many objects. The base is an uneven, flowing ground. Excitement is not a quiet emotion. There is always something going on. So we made the flowing base to represent the movement and the energy within. The netbasket contains different smaller objects inside and outside. These small objects, in different shapes, are the different kinds of excitement people have. Different people have different way to express the excitement. And this netbasket embraces the excitement. It is let open, because excitement is meant to be shown, not hidden. The curvilinear-shape object has the flow from the basket moving upward. It is the energy from the base through the basket and going up. The curvilinear ribbon is connected with ice-cream sticks to show the connection, because excitement somehow relates and affect to other things too. The little chains hung around can be moved in the space creating the relaxing and playful feeling. Generally, the shapes of our model represent the energy and connection of the excitement. We have picked red as the dominant color for the gesture model. Red is a strong color, and it is not wrong to say to it’s the strongest one. Therefore, it really stands out of the surroundings. Excitement is easy to notice, so the stand-out color can help catch the eyes of viewer, and that is our purpose. Besides that, the warm color like red associates with fire and sunlight. These two are full of energy, an unlimited energy more exactly. The red color is put throughout the piece which symbolizes the energy that is kept within and flows through the piece from base to top. In brief, the red color can be noticed easily with its unlimited energy. Different materials are used for this model. After the critique of individual models, we think the shiny-characteristic is the good expression. So the shiny materials are mostly chosen to be the main materials. The base is covered with the mirror paper, so it can reflect the object above it. The base also reflects the red color on the net; with the small object inside, the net somehow has the red color on it. Ice-cream sticks have rectilinear shapes, so we put it with the curvilinear ribbon. The soft and the strong are put together and support each other. We see the
flow, and it is strong enough to go up and to be the top. The use of different materials simply shows the effect of excitement to others. We had done the model in a large size so that it can be seen from far away. Big size model can be read more easily since every detail and pieces are big enough to see. We want to keep the idea that excitement is shown out, not hidden inside. So the large size would do the trick. Besides that, the different scales of objects show the different levels of excitement. No excitement is the same. They are different time to time. This is why we choose the large size for the whole gesture model and different smaller sizes for its objects. The clearest design element in our gesture model is the motion. The piece has the anticipated motion throughout with the flow from the bottom to the top. It is the movement, the flow of energy that the piece keeps inside. Another principle the model has is its abstract curvilinear shapes. From top to bottom, these biomorphic shapes lead the eyes around and give the piece its fun looking. The objects are all asymmetry and unstable; they create the sense of movement and excitement. The last element can be its unity as a whole. This model is combined from many different objects, but they work well together. It has the proximity in which each object has the relation and effect on the others. The continuation of the flow is created from the base to the top. These gestalt grouping principles make the piece become one harmony gesture model. After finishing, we think the most successful aspect of our model is the purpose of catching attention from viewer even from far away. The large size and the stand-out, shiny dominant red color does the job well. The piece as the whole stands out of the surroundings. In the other hand, the least successful aspect is the texture of the model. It is not completely smooth on the entire piece. The visual textile on the net might not be as smooth as it really is. But the curve might help eliminate the rough feeling a little bit.
Collaborative Project Iteration #2
Iteration #2 Analysis 1. What we learned from the first iteration and took forward to this second one was that most of the elements in the 1st one didn’t mix well together. They all seemed like we didn’t work together and each of us put in a different model until we came
up with the 1st
iteration
end
result.
Nothing held a feel or look of cohesiveness. With this second iteration we decided to simplify since in the 1 st try we ended up cluttering it with a lot of different elements. 2. Unity within the design was achieved by using materials that held a sort of similarity. The mesh and the wire are semi shiny and relate to the reflective paper found on the bottom inside of the model. The curvilinear aspect also adds to the unity of the model. It holds no sharp lines or edges and looks to be in movement. 3. The presentation choices we made for this gestural model are the shape, the colors chosen and the materials used. We decided on a shape reminiscent to one of our individual gestural models. We liked that shape because it conveyed a kinetic feeling of movement. The colors chosen were red and a slight burnt gold, the dominant of the two would be the red. This color was chosen so the model could stand out. As for the materials, we thought the mesh wire would work well seeing as the paper was reflective it would be a nice touch. The mesh makes it seem fragile and not sturdy but that adds to the suspense of “will it tip over”, thus you begin to feel excitement.
4. The way one can see the hierarchy in our piece is by looking at it first from afar. The first thing you see is the body, and then you notice this large body is being held by thin, wiry legs. When one gets closer to the model we can see that these legs go through the body in order to keep it steady. Finally the last part we can see that on both sides of the model there is see through mesh and inside there are ribbons coming through the top which has shapes carved into it.
5. Rhythm: Our model shows its rhythm in its use of curvilinear shapes and lines. These are repeated throughout the model in the shape of the body, the legs are curved and all the things inside of the body.
Depth: We believe our model conveys a sort of depth or illusion of space, where one can imagine it in a larger scale and feel what it would be like to play in it. Balance: The model displays balance with its shapes.
Just like it repeats the pattern of
curvilinear lines, with its nicely curved shape and curved legs it makes it stand rather well. 6. What are the least effective aspects of our model would be maybe the way we glued the top to it. It’s starting to be unstuck so we need to find a better top or a better way to glue the mesh wire to the cardboard. The most successful aspect is the unity of the whole piece. We take the suggestion and feedback from last iteration and organize the piece carefully to make it stand as one whole, not separate parts.
Collaborative Project Rationale We have picked Excitement for our emotion. It has many different kinds, so we have chosen to focus particularly on playful excitement. When we think of this emotion, we relate it to happiness, surprise, energy, sunny, speed, dancing, cheerfulness, motivation, shiny, etc. These words are all positive, fun and playful. We always keep in mind that Excitement is meant to be shown, so we need to pick one strong color for the dominant color for our model. And red is chosen because it is a strong color, probably the strongest one. It stands out of the surroundings and catches the eyes of viewer. Besides that, the warm color like red associates with fire and sunlight which are full of the unlimited energy. The red color symbolizes the energy running throughout the piece and gives it the motion. After brainstorming related words and getting positive feedbacks from the individual gesture model critique, we tried to combine our models together as one for the 1 st iteration model. But it didn’t work out the way we expected. Most of the feedbacks are about the confusion and separation our model had. Having some suggestions and comments made us decide to go back to the first step and collect all the things we have done well and put them together. We decides to make a new one which had more unity and simpler. And we think we got positive feedbacks for the 2nd iteration. However, there were some changes we needed to make to help the whole piece work well together and less representational. And here we have our final gesture model that we are really satisfied with. After collaborating and developing, our gesture model has the form of a flowing massive volume in space, supported by two very thin legs. The flowing object creates the sense of motion. It is put in space because we think sometimes excitement can form itself without getting energy from any sources. Sometimes we don’t even need a particular reason to be excited about something. The ribbon going up gives people the feeling of the growing energy.
The cardboard, paper and mesh wire are our main materials. The mirror papers are used to reflect the ribbon put inside the massive volume. The texture of the mirror paper and cardboard with spray-painted bright red is smooth. It is fun. It is relaxing. The mesh wire is put on the sides to give the piece the “peek-aboo” affect. It is not as clear as plastic film because sometimes excitement is hard to explain, but we still can feel it and see it. The see-through material makes people curious to look inside and feel excited to figure out what it is. All the symbolized design and decisions made are considered very carefully. The thin legs are to support the massive volume above. “Motivation” was one word we thought of when talking about excitement. Motivation can be the support, and that is what the legs are. We also put the legs go through the main piece to the top and come down. The legs not only support the piece from below, it also hold on to it from the above. Because we believe excitement sometimes needs something to support and hold on to it so it can keep going. At the 2nd iteration critique, some people said that the piece had a feeling of danger. It is not the dangerous “danger” we are making. It is a little risk, a little challenge that we are willing to try for the new things. That is also excitement. The multi-color ribbon looks like the rainbow. Not everyone likes rain, but almost everyone loves rainbow. Rainbow only appears when there is sunshine, and once again, sunshine symbolizes energy. And it is fun too. The main shape we use is curvilinear shape. It is well put throughout the piece, create the balance of shape. The dominant color red is supported by color gold to make it more stand out. There is a pattern of shape on the top part create implied line to form a curvilinear shape. The similar shapes and colors give it its unity. We believe our model also conveys depth or illusion of space where one can imagine it in a larger scale and what it would be like to play in or under it. The large size is considered to be seen easily and to catch attention from faraway. The bright color makes it stand out of the surroundings. The curvilinear shapes and lines give the piece a smooth feeling, calm the color red down and make it fun instead of being as anger and violence. The “peek-a-boo” affect make viewers curious and feel excited to find out what inside. Each part supports the others and gives the piece the wholeness. The motion is the main idea which helps create the sense of the energy that the emotion has and waits to explode.
Portrait Project Subject: To create a portrait of a classmate to reflect who he/she is Interview Questions My collaborator: Tom Hurlbut 1. Where are you from? He is from San Mateo, and he currently lives in West Oakland 2. Tell me a little bit about your ethnic? ( after I told him I was mixed) His mother is German. His father is American. 3. What do you do when you have free time? He is on computer most of the time: Facebooking, cooking, gardening, and playing games 4. What kind of games do you like? He likes building or development games, like SIM or housed 5. What is/are your favorite kind(s) of music? Pop rock, Rock Alternative rock, Electronic, Soundtrack , Classical, etc‌ 6. What is your major? He majors in Architecture and Interior Design 7. How long have you studied for this major? He has studied for about ten years 8. Which school or schools have you attended? He has studied architecture at College of San Mateo, interior design at Canada College and now he wants to get the AA degree at CCSF 9. What are some interests other than architecture and design? He also likes cooking, movies and cars- which are related to all the passwords for his email accounts. 10. Since I talk a little bit about what I think about politics, I asked him “what do you think of Politics?â€? He is not particularly interested in Politics. His father really likes to talk about this topic but Tom does not. He would talk about it with his father or others, but he does not follow any particular political views or classes. 11. What is the most important thing to you? To him, equal rights and respect for everyone is the most important thing in the world
12. What do you believe in the most? He believes in love. Love brings people together. 13. Describe yourself?! He’s gay. He likes art. He “has an old-soul.” He thinks he lives in a wrong time. He had not so many friends when he was a child, and he spent most of the time at home. 14. Did you have a hard time when you decided to “come out?” He didn’t really have a very hard time when he decided to tell his family he was gay. His parents understood him and accepted him. And he appreciated it. 15. (After talking about my family) Who is a family member that you feel closest with? His mother is. He kind of used to live an in-the-closet life. Most of the time he was at home, he was with his mom. He cooked and went to market with his mom. So her passaway really upset him. 16. What are 3 things that give you inspiration? They are Creativity, Texture, and Craftsmanship. 17. What is the most favorite aspect among those three? Craftsmanship is. Because he like the idea of “hand-on” product when the maker has put all the hard work and love into it, so people can appreciate it more. 18. If you could go back to any place, or period of time, what would it be? He would like to go to Europe during the Renaissance period. 19. And why would it be? He liked everything about that period when life was simple. Things were real, easy and beautiful. He wants to live a life like that, not the life we have right now: too complicated with all the technologies, wars in the world and people are mean. 20. What was the big event that practically changed your life? It was when his mother passed away. Since she was able to be around with him anymore, he had to start his “social life.” He was about 23, and he started exploring life and expressing himself to everyone he met. 21. Is there any media, book, web-site you like and you would recommend to other people? He recommended me the website okcupid.com 22. Why did you choose it? He likes it because it is a “really cool site.” Everyone can go there and chat, make friends, ask, talk and discuss about all the “crazy stuffs.” It is a really fun site to him.
Critique #1 Reflection My collaborator is Tom Hurlbut and I decide to make an image for his portrait. The main key message I would like to convey is a man who has a “fire of love” burning deep inside which expresses his love of humanity. After talking and getting to know him, I think he always wants to love and be loved from others. The idea of getting accepted and treated equally in society makes the desire grow stronger. I would make a two- dimensional art piece to represent his portrait. I want to use different color papers, cut them up as the shape and glue them to the board, so they would appear as the image on the left. Tom loves the Renaissance Period because he thinks life then was simple and beautiful. Therefore, I would like to make something as simple as possible, and paper is very easy to use. The main subjects of the image are the figure of the man and the background. The first thing the viewers notice is the heart with burning fire. The heart is the symbol of love, which is also the main message of the image. The fire represents something strong and never stops spreading, expanding to the surrounding. It is his “fire of love” inside growing and waiting to come out. There is no facial in his face, but the head is put like it is looking down. It shows his hesitation, his afraid whether he should or should not express his love. A rainbow flag is on his hand. It is not shown completely, and neither hidden. Tom once said to me that he both loved and hated being gay. The flag form represents his feeling of being different: accepting and being proud of it but not always showing it off. The background would be basically red. I would like to put a Renaissance pattern art-piece similar to the picture below as the background for the image. His love of Renaissance period carries to his ideal of life and interests: he admires artists at that period, and he thinks if life were simple as at the Renaissance, it would be much more beautiful. In brief, the whole image is about his love and his views for the society and life. The color red is the dominant color of the image. Red, in this image, represents love. The whole background in red would cover the overall theme- lovefor the image. The red color is the color of the heart and “burning love,” and it also appears on the flag. The shapes are all simple. It expresses Tom’s ideal of life society. The free space around the man figure makes the image less busy.
Critique #2 Reflection
My brief concept statement is a man’s heart that expresses his love to humanity. After the first critique, I got some useful feedback and suggestions. I learned what was working, such as the background, and what was not working, such as the “fire-heart” or the figure of the man. I have made some changes for those details in order to make the portrait clear and related to the concept statement. Changes are mostly about the heart and the man figure. I redrew the figure eliminating the pointy top-head and the coat-look, since there were some feedbacks that they did not say anything about Tom. So now, there is just one simple black figure of a standing man. I also changed the “fire-heart” because people saw the fire as passion, which is not what I was trying to tell. Someone suggested me to make the heart glow. I thought it was a great idea, so the heart now is glowing, instead of burning. The glowing heart actually expresses the expanding and coming out to the society more than the burning heart does. I made the heart’s size bigger and put it in the center because I wanted the heart to be the focal point of the whole image. I changed the rainbow flag a little bit to make it look more like fabric- the flag- than a rainbow. The primary aspect of the image is the Heart. It suggests love, which is the main theme for the entire image. The heart is the key for the whole image, without it, the portrait will have a very different meaning. The secondary aspect is the background. It is a red Renaissance designtwo of many things Tom loves- the color and the period. The design of the background also shows creativity, which is one of his inspirations. The tertiary aspect is the figure with the flag. They say a little bit about Tom’s background and characteristic. He is a shy person who does not always come out and be open to total strangers. He is gay, and sometimes he hated being different. The overall theme of the image is Love. Therefore, all the detail is about his love to life and to humanity. The glowing heart, in the center is the focal point, catches attention of the eyes and leads them go around. There are three different figures: the man, the heart and the flag; but they all relate and attack to the others. They are all about Tom. Everything in the image stands still or at least in very slow motion. It keeps the image at peace and pushes all attentions to the heart at the center. Two other principles in my work are color and space. Red is the dominant color. It is a strong color, and it symbolizes love. The warm colors make our eyes moving, while the cold colors tend to slow things down. The negative space surrounded the man figure somehow shows
the loneliness. Nothing is around. The loneliness makes the desire of getting connection with others grows stronger. I think the most successful aspect in my design is the background. It not only what Tom loves, the Renaissance background also support the other figures it contains. Besides, the least successful aspect in my design might be the man figure. The back figure might not convey the message I am trying to tell.
Final Rationale My subject is Tom Hurlbut. The main message I would like to convey is a man with his love to humanity. The portrait is an image made from color papers. I cut them into shapes and glue them together. Tom loves craftsmanship. He likes the idea that the maker really puts hard work, care, effort and love into the work, so that other people would even appreciate it more. Therefore, I would like to make something that delicate and required some craftwork, and working with paper is the answer. The content includes the glowing heart, the figure of the man, the rainbow flag and the background. The heart is put in the center to catch attention because it represents the main theme of the image: love. Its glowing is the growing of love that never stops expanding. The man figure is in black. The face and body are hidden. Tom is a shy person; he does not always come out to the crowd so I put the figure black. The rainbow on his hand is about his background. The way he holds it shows his response to being different: somewhat love it and somewhat hate it. The Renaissance background is another interest of his. It is his favorite period in the history. He wishes to be born in that time. Red is the dominant color in the portrait. It is strong, and it represents love. It is warm colors so it keeps viewers go around the image instead of staying at only one particular spot. There is negative space around the man figure shows the isolation. The space also gives the glowing heart the space it needs to expand. Shapes are all simple and recognizable. These simple shapes fit Tom’s idea of love and life. He thinks the simpler we keep, the better life we get. The heart becomes the focal point since it is put in the center. Its glowing leads our eyes to the whole image. The proportion of the heart and the man is one important aspect of the image. The portrait is the picture of a man and his big heart showing his love to the society. The image is put within a black frame. Black color can bring clear contrast to other shapes. The frame encloses the content. It is as his small world, but the heart glowing goes over the frame. It shows that in his small world, Tom’s love to society is not contained within, but expands outside. I used foam board to make the frame, because I want to use some material related to paper. The whole picture, about 19 x 24 inches, will be hung on the wall for viewing.