Interpreting Design: Learning How to See

Many of you have asked how to interpret the assignment on page 150 in the Elements of Design book. One of the purposes of the assignment, as I would like to focus on, is to teach you - "How to See". Once you begin to see design in all things, you take what you see, and interpret it through one of the listed principles of design. In the busy culture we live in (hopefully less so in Alaska, but busy, none the less) we do not slow down often enough to notice the minute details in the world around us. As Artists and Designers, I like to think that it is our job, to "wake up" the general public to the visual splendor of life all around, it's order, its caos, its beauty in all things obvious and not so obvious. As designers, we organize the visual landscape into a language, telling a story and directing the attention of a sleeping public to the wonders that are in front of their noses. We can use several design principles to accomplish this.


What I would like to come from this project is a series of photographs that illustrate your vision of symmetrical balance, asymmetrical balance, color balance (added by me), dominance, repetition, scale change, orientation, rhythm or movement, and pattern. Use color, subject matter, angle, perspective, light - what ever you can, to pull out the pattern or scale change or dominance or repetition in the scene. I posted a few of my own photos below to give you some guidance.

Color Balance

Asymmetrical balance















Repetition



Something else I would like people to try is to maybe look "inside" a photograph for several other compositions. Through cropping, perspective, color, or lack there of, you may be able to pull out a treasure chest of hidden gems. I "mined" the photograph below to design a collage, or photographic quilt from images I saw within the same piece. People may also want to try this process in developing their collage in assignment 4b on page 151.

Original Image

Mined and Designed

Can you pick out the different elements from the original?