Visual Techniques

My interest is in product design and graphic design in various fields, especially something like animation,

television, etc. 

Black Rock Shooter: Complexity, intricacy,  spontaneity, activeness, exaggeration, instability, irregualrity, diffusion, episodic.

 Magical Girl Madoka: Sequentiality, accent, consistency, balance, regularity, depth, repetition. 

The two images are both clearly from animated works featuring action, however they have very different design styles and visual techniques. The first image (Black Rock shooter poster) has many details but is very disorganized, probably planned that way, and the message is somewhat unclear. There is too many details making the message unclear and complex, it feels scatted, messy, but a feeling of activeness is going on like action is everywhere. It does manage to clearly highlight the two girls giving a center to the image yet also being unstable with details. The second image is much clearer as it is more organized and consistent. This is a an action scene of a girl using her guns to fight a witch, clearly all the guns are detailed, have depth, are organized and lined up to fire. The girl stands out in the row of guns seeing as she is the only thing that is not a gun, but it can be indicated that she is the one using the guns as she is going in the same direction as them. Both images are quite nice and are quite different visually, especially in terms of their purposes, they provide excellent examples of the sort of work I wish to do in the future. It would be nice to make designs come alive. 

Contrast

Good Contrast (Black Rock Shooter Figure) animation product design interest:

This is a picture I took of a figure, I thought it seemed to have a good contrast of pale skin and dark clothing while using negative space in a way that helps highlight it. I saw the pale skinned and the black clothes are a really good contrast to each other, making them visibly stand out rather than smother one another. The figure is clearly visible and despite there being negative space, it still manages to stand out as the subject of the photo. Because the character has such a strong tone of black, it contrasts with the white negative space making it more visible. This is a successful use of contrast in design because the subject product has a contrast that does not conflict but even has a sense of balance. Attention is focused clearly on the product and its color design makes it clearly visible, like viewers can see the general details of it without confusion. A product with high contrast that works very well.

source <http://swisedesign2010.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/bad-contrast/>

This seemed like a blatantly bad design that suffers from its rainbow colors because they are are too bright and the black letters are not bold enough to make a good contrast for visibility. The rainbow design overpowers the lettering of the cover and it is difficult to make them out, if a product fails to achieve its goal because of its design it fails. Also, looking at this bright design actually physically hurts to look at, seems the hue was much too high. Harming viewers is another reason why this design is terrible, no one wants something that will hurt them. The rainbow design stands out far more that the writing so it is may be unclear to viewers what the message is, I know it has to do with Christ but I do not wish to look at this any longer than necessary because of it is a eye harming visual. This may be one of the worst designs I have ever seen and it is all because of a terrible lack of contrast. It might have worked if the cover was black and the letter in rainbow color. 

Movement/Motion- option 1- product design-advertisement

(Source: <http://10steps.sg/wp-content/uploads/article99/17-my-assault.jpg>)

This Nike ad seems like a good example of implied motion in product design because the viewer makes the assumption that this person where Nike sneakers is skating in mid air despite this being a still image. It sends the idea to viewers that Nike is an athletic brand which may also allow people to do stunts like skateboarding in midair by using their products. This could also be an example of stroboscopic movement as it appears as though this skateboarder is moving but is not. Looking carefully there is clear ground so it can be implied that this skateboarder may be very high in the air. This ad image works  because of the position of the skateboard takes up the top half of the picture and appears to be at an angle making it seem like he is skating in midair and the position of his hand may imply he is attempting something from the position. The "Just Do It" motto helps make the ad makes viewers feel more active like Nike will help make better athletes.

(source: <http://www.adverbox.com/media/campaigns/2006/12/nike0.jpg>)

This next Nike ad is another example of implied motion in design and probably stroboscopic motion since it is probably not moving, just appears that way. Viewers looking at this ad may think that the shoe has moved at a high speed or can which may indicate messages like Nike shoes are fast. The white streak gives viewers the idea that this shoe moves very fast, maybe even on its own despite being a shoe. Doing something like adding streaks or afterimages is a good use of design to create implied motion. The shoe is in the middle of the image with no appearance of ground which may imply the shoe is actually flying. Maybe the idea of the implied motion image is something like "Nike sneakers, so fast you'll fly."

Dimension/Depth/Space/Scale-animation design

I am a product development and design major with a professional interest in animation, so I thought this image from the film The Incredibles might be a good example of 3D animation technology and depth perception.
(soure: <http://freewallpaperspot.com/wallpapers/the-incredibles-wallpaper-4.jpg>)

Even though this is clearly a CG animated picture is still appears to have a 3D perspective. This image uses lighting and shading especially on the 4 characters as parts of them like their gloves, torsos, and hair have reflective surfaces and shadows. The ground shows that they are all casting shadows too. The background shows many trees and plants that also have shading but also have consistently similar sizes, relative sizes and a lot of overlapping. Many trees appears to be in front of each other so they appear to be overlapping. There is also the presence of gradient texture, some trees the appear closer have much more detailed textured surfaces  but the more distant the tree appear the those elements appear smaller. Even though the characters in front of the trees are probably smaller than the background trees, they appear to have a larger height-relative height. The Incredibles appear larger than the trees because those trees are farther back and lower in the field of vision than the Incredibles. This movie is a great example of my interest in animation and the 3D perspective image created by computers today. 

Tone and color

Tone: The Simpsons 20th anniversary logo uses tone of the bold black letters draws the viewer's attention onto the logo itself despite the strong yellow background. The tone does not include any white removing negative space and helps highlight the shapes outlines of the words and numbers. The tone brings out the shapes of the black wording visuals instantly clear and also helps to really outline the picture inside the 20, Homer Simpson strangling Bart Simpson, making an inconic logo to help advertise the celebration of 20 years. 

Color:  The color yellow is signature to The Simpsons design style since most characters are depicted in yellow. Black is the color of the words probably because that would be most visible while using a yellow background. Yellow fills the shapes of Homer and Bart while serving to deliver a sort of signature to the art since yellow is the show's primary color for character designs. The color works well with the tone and shapes,  making the black letters stand out more exposing its boldness and highlighting the shape outlines. 

The Basic Elements- Animation

 Tone (Fullmetal Alchemist): There is sense of danger and evil in this screenshot as dark toned shadow creature surrounds most of the space while only a small amount of light is present around the grey armored victim. The tone works to convey evil and darkness making it clear the shadow like being with numerous eyes is a monster or an antagonist. This is done with an absence of light, dark borders, and the position of the characters. The image has very little light and is dominated by dark black borders enveloping most space while the grey character space composed of gray and some light to help highlight him. Tone helps the viewer's get a clear idea of what is going on in the image as dark tones dominate the space of the image and appears to be consuming everything including the small portion of light. Using tone the audience has a clear visual of a seemingly evil being about to consume light/good. Evil triumphs over good in this case.

 Movement (K-On): Coneys multiple moments(the character's limb appearing in different spaces like movement) in the time of a single frame making a character appear as though they are crawling quickly on the floor. Movement in the image serves to make a static character appear like they are in motion like they are alive or animated. The character is actually still but by having he limbs drawn in different poses, shapes, lengths, etc. in one drawing gives the audience the idea she is a live person moving or to be specific crawling on the floor headed forward.

Line (Casshern Sins): The bold lines active in this image serve to help bring out other elements in the character like texture, shape, color, etc.. Naturally the line make up the structure of the drawing, but there are many different directions and boldness of lines to draw the audience's attention/eyes. Ringo (the girl) has many bold and curvy lines that work to focus her face giving a clear outlining of its structure. Also using curved  face and wavy lined hair helps to convey Ringo's feminine features. Ringo's lines serve to outline her structure while distinguishing her other visual features. 

Visual Thinking Exercise

 The left one is my visual puzzle and the one on the right was my friend's. I used lines to mark snakes on my puzzle and tried filling in lines to complete the connection of the snakes. My friend numbered each snake and connected each whole snake to connect them from beginning to end. I picked the green as the shortest because it looked like there were less lines connected to me. My friend picked the red one as the shortest, he figured this out by connecting curves of each snake and found out the red one was correct. So the goal was to find which snake pattern was shortest using pattern seeking techniques like filling in, finding, matching, categorizing, completion, etc. I think I only really used filling in and categorization while my friend used most of the pattern seeking techniques which led him to the correct conclusion.

The puzzle on the left is my friends and the one on the right is mine. Neither of us got the right number of triangles (20), but I managed to get 19. I think my friend has better visual memory than me because I felt I had trouble with the snakes puzzle but this one was much simpler for me. I think also I did not have to use matching and categorizing as much for this one either since all the shapes in the puzzle are triangular. This puzzle was just a matter of finding all triangles which was easier for me since this one relied more counting. My friend did not seem to use filling-in patterns which is probably why he missed seeing many of the larger triangles. I however did use the filling-in visual and managed to get most of them, except one which I may have simply overlooked. It was interesting to see how my friend and I did the same puzzles yet yielded different results because of out differences in visual thinking and observation abilities. 

Visual Perception 2-Feature Hierarchy

Adventure Time With and Jake Title Card

created by Pendleton Ward

Source: <http://www.saywhatonline.org/2011/08/03/no-laughs-for-adventure-time/>

I have a product development concentration and am interested in designing for animation or a related field. I felt this related to the topic of feature hierarchy as this title is like a cover for the show with lots of colors to draw the eyes. The show's title is in bold red letters and has a sword sticking through it giving instant audience attention focused on the name. First the name is written out in red big font letters with a sword with a gleaming appearance adding a sense of 3D to make the title pop out more. Also, Fin (the human boy in blue clothes) and Jake (the dog) are right underneath the creator's credit and despite their size they manage to visually stand out because of their bright colors in a dark background. What stands out the most in this title cards have bright colors which stands above size or shape in terms of visual hierarchy. Although the show's title also pops out more as opposed to the two characters below may also be because it is in such large font and it has its own space that allow clear focus on it. Overall I felt this was a good example of my interests and the class topic. 

Top Down Visualizing Processing

This image is a fan art rendering of the animated show "South Park" that seemed like a good example of top down visual processing. The image is rendered in a very different art style than the show itself and its goal is to  display various South Park characters in this form. Another goal is that this image acts as fan tribute for all sorts of characters, even obscure ones. Finding certain characters in this art style may be difficult due to the vast difference of the show's actual cheap appearance to this much more visually appealing drawing of the show. Aside from having various character, the image has everyone in different clothing and are in different poses. A viewer's eye might be instantly drawn to the top where there are 4 enlarged characters and a bright light. There is so much going on with all the characters, yet there is a certain order. The goal is really a visual tribute to the shows, the artist showing off their fandom for the series in an manga style while clearly putting the show's logo to avoid confusion. First time looker's eyes might move all over the picture and try to recognize their favorite characters in mange style. 

Design Success and Failure in Relation to Syntactical Guidelines

 Succeeding image: This Jack in the Box ad is a good example of using syntactical guidelines to display the product in a clear and informative way. Viewers can instantly perceive that image's message, this is clearly a Jack In the Box ad promoting a food combination. The burger is in the center and this helps to make the viewer focus on it. The combo is somewhat balanced as you can see the burger in center, the soda to the left and the french fries to the right giving some sense of symmetry. There is also grouping as the meal deal is shown in front while Jack the mascot and a bald eagle are seen in the background wearing the same hat. This group of images displays the large font words using the an American symbol, the bald eagle, to indicate that this meal from Jack in the Box is "All-American". The meal is also on leveled ground and the background is an ordinary color which allows focus on the product and the ads message without distractions.

This is an amusing ad, but a rather bad use of syntactical guidelines for advertising and just to be clear this is supposed be about Altoids mints. The perception is far too focused on the shocked mother and boy rather than the actual products Altoids. Another reason viewers might not perceive this as an Altoids ads is because there is no clear indication of the logo/brand that catches their attention, the product is not in focus. This clearly displays positive and negative in a reversed situation where the ad has the product in a passive role to the eye while the boy and mother are playing an active role of grabbing the viewers attention. The message is not clear at first glance, the Altoids product should be positive while the two people should be a negative, but that is clearly not the case. The roles are very ambiguous in this ad causing the message to fail. Honestly I thought this was something about sex ed until I saw the small red box of Altoids which just proves that this ad fails to properly utilize syntactical guidelines.

Visual vs symbolic language

Representational responses:
the City
workers
line
free food

Underlying Composition structure:
Depression
laid off
desperate
middle class (aka working class)
In between employed and homeless

Symbols:
City clothing
side walk
sign


     

               The black and white photo reports a  bad economic time (probably the Great Depression) judging by the film picture quality and the clothing design of the men waiting in a line for free food. These men are waiting in front of a store with a sign saying "Free Cup Coffee and Donuts For the Unemployed". The area appears middle class or some lower income area since the sign has faded painting, the front steps have chipped painting, and so on. Note, these men appeared to have had jobs at one point since they are all wearing hats, trench coats, ties, shoes, etc. work clothes and do not appear homeless. No one is happy which should be natural considering the circumstances.

Meaning 2: Interaction between the 3 Levels

Representational: The  image displays a clear visualization of an iPod nano  back and front. It displays the screen, the controls, the hard drive size, black color and the Apple logo for authentication. Importantly only the iPod is shown and nothing else to distract from it. This picture would be a good representation of an black 8GB iPod nano in a store catalog. The logo clearly denotes the Apple Corporation and the image displays the design of the iPod.
Abstract: Only the back and front of the iPod is displayed in this image with nothing else in the background allowing viewers to focus on the product. This image would be of use in a catalog since viewers can see the iPod's design like the screen, controls, the shape and physical size. The iPod has a fairly simply but easy to access design so that anyone can use it. A screen for displaying things like menus and song titles, a control for selection/pausing/playing etc. and naturally it is designed for handheld use for travel. The Apple logo also functions as a way for Apple to trademark the iPod.  The iPod control has clear representation of a menu function written while including several symbols denoting different functions.
Symbolic: The iPod symbolizes a product of Apple and obviously the logo is Apples brand or seal. Users and viewers will know this product was created by Apple (or at least trademarked). The Apple logo can also be seen as a seal for a competent product making viewers think, "Oh, Apple makes iPods and therefore the iPod must be a pretty good device". Apple has a long history as a popular computer company and consumers might naturally think of all their products as highly competent so the logo give partial incentive to purchase the iPod. The abstracts of the iPod is an example of Apple's modern functional designs. The product itself is a good representation of the high quality products Apple outputs into the electronic market.

Meaning 1

This image is representational of a pet dog because it displays details indicating certain traits of a pet dog. It is easily recognized as a dog standing on four legs, has a lot of fur on its body, ears flapping down and the signature black beady eyes all dogs share. The environment of the picture is indoors seeing that the dog is standing on wooden floorboards and noticing the pink clothing indicates someone dressed it. These represent signs that this dog is owned and the fact that it is inside can be a indication that it is housebroken, another recognizable trait of pets (although to be fair not every pet is housebroken). Viewers can clearly identify the traits and environment so they know the photograph does in fact represent a pet dog.

 The DC (Detective Comics) Logo is an example of something symbolic as the image is clearly recognized by the public to only refer specifically denotes Detective Comics the comic book publishing company and the logo is not mistaken for anything else such as D.C.. The logo operates for viewers as an easily recognizable symbol with its own individual traits that also prevent ambiguity with other meanings of "DC". This logo has visual information such as the large blue font with a star makes it so the logo is remembered to symbolize Detective Comics and not anything else.

This image of a storyboard is an example abstract of how animation for a cartoon is made. The example displays sketches of a cartoon called The Boondocks as the storyboard shows several motion by motion frames which significantly help plan out the animation process. Each frame sketch function as part of a visual plan for how the cartoon will be animated.The storyboard drawings shows the viewers how the animated show might look like and what to expect for the final product. This storyboard informs viewers that this episode will include the characters drawn and the following actions drawn will occur.