Simple yet Interesting Art

Look at this simple piece of art, yet it is very interesting. Using the black on the bottom gives the image a foundation. It’s interesting how he uses a transition from black to blue in a random way and it suddenly goes to white color also in a random way. The white color makes the focal point of this piece of art. From white it jumps to dark orange and it starts get brighter until merges into the yellow color. In the center of the yellow color there is a very bright point. From there the yellow color starts to get darker until it gets to the end of the piece of art. The colors that are being used are supplementary colors. Using transition and a sudden color change makes it look nice. The material that has been used to make this painting doesn’t look like it’s a painting material. It’s either a rectangular stick or a similar object. Having the colors merging into each other in random way throughout this piece of art keeps the flow of the art smooth with a pattern. Combining all these features of this piece of art gives makes it gestalt.

(Picture taken from: http://nettieshue.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/art.gif)

What is Design all about.

Going to the lecture today by Nathan Shedroff was one of the best experiences I have experienced in my life. This person knows what he is talking about in the back of his hand. I wish his lecture was longer. Anyway, let me share with you few of the things he talked about today. Design, sustainability, business are three different circles. They all have to merge over each other to have a higher success. The overlap of these three circles is experience. The center of the experience is meaning. Meaning has four inner categories which are value, emotion, price, and feature. All these are a lot of information to be discussed. I just mentioned them so you can see the big picture. If we focus on the meaning we will be successful designers.

Let’s talk about sustainability since it’s a very important concept. Sustainability is has three inner categories which are financial, social, and ecological. As you noticed the financial is the first one because it’s the most important. He said if you want to succeed in creativity and have sustained design, cut off two zeros from the budget. Social is us human. The design must make something easier to use, friendlier, and as simple as possible. Ecological is the natural system. When designing you take in consideration of the materials being used. How is it going to affect the next generation. It must be easy to be recycled. We have to take all these in consideration to be able to succeed. I want you to think about this question maybe for the next ten years or so. What is a more sustainable world would look like? If we are able to answer this question we will be able to live a better life.

Objectified!

What is a designer? What takes to be a good designer? The definition of designer is the way you look at the world around you. Each designer should watch an objectified documentary film by Gary Hustwit.

It talks about what makes a good design. Being a successful designer requires a lot of effort, time and patience. You have to think outside the box. Be unfashionable. “Try stuff then ask forgiveness” as said by David Kelley. Designer look what are the most used stuff in daily life and try to make it easier for use. When making things easier to use they’re manipulating old thing into new things and that what we look for as consumers. We like to experience new things. Sometimes a design will make you sense an emotion that really touches you, with that you hope that others will get this sense of emotion you felt for that specific design. A successful designer should always try to have in his design honesty, simple, understandable, easier for use, smaller, lighter…etc. As you work on a design, the process is very important because it can lead you to other ideas, and the other ideas should lead into more and more… Something you never thought about will just come and make a difference in people’s life. Not all the ideas are perfect or will work as you imagined it. Like what David said “Try stuff then ask forgiveness.”

A successful designer thinks what will happen afterwards. Now day’s designers have to take consideration of the different materials they use and make sure they are environment friendly. With that inconsideration, it somewhat limits the materials. Being an eco friendly is very important for the future generation. A successful designer will be able to use recyclable materials. An example of a company that takes that inconsideration is Apple. I bet you wonder sometimes why Apple has been so successful. That is one of the reasons that make them successful.

Inside the Burj Al Arab

Let us look inside the hotel Burj Al Arab that we talked about a month ago. It is designed pretty crazy. As you noticed almost everything is designed by repetition and similarity. Let’s start from the bottom to the top of the image. Looking at the water fall how it’s making a half oval shape and the three dimension look of the square it’s coming out from with a repetition gives it a nice depth view. The windows that are in every floor are being repeated with the same design giving the hotel a beautiful view from the bottom. The colors that are being used are supplementary colors that are brown, gold and dark/light blue. The building color starts from the bottom with dark brown and as it goes up, the color gets brighter until it gets to gold. Very similar with blue lighting, the hall ways are dark blue while the outside lighting is light blue. The colors are connected by transition. The brown and gold color gives a sense of warming and comfort. Using colors with transition and the similarities of the building structure gives it a sense of unity. Notice how the bright blue color in the center is a focal point of the image.

(Picture taken from: http://www.transit-port.net/Galleries/Dubai/images/Burj.Al.Arab.Pattern.jpg)

3 pieces = 1

Three pieces of art make an abstract fine art. Look at the similarity in each one. Notice how they flow into each other. The curved lines give the art a rhythm to it. The gutter between the three art works lets the brain relate these images to each other. It’s actually called closure. The two different textures used in the background makes it interesting and at the same time its filling all the negative spots. Let us focus on the colors of the art work. The two supplementary colors that are used are blue and brown. The textures are mixed of these two colors. The oval shapes are blue with shading to make them look 3-D. Adding white in the centers of the oval shapes shows how the lighting is coming on the piece of art. To keep the picture balanced they used few oval shapes that are in brown color. Notice the striped lines across the image are combined of the two colors. They go inside, outside and between the oval shapes keeping the piece of art balanced. Check the pattern on each part of the art and see how they’re related to the whole art. You notice how they flow into each other’s. Being a successful designer you have to be unique.

(Picture taken from: http://www.paintingsdesign.com/images_art/fine-art.JPG)

Warm & Cool Colors affects

This piece of art work is showing fall season. Looking at the interesting colors of the trees gives a person a sense of warm weather. It is funny how we relate the visual sensation of color to warm and cool. Warm and cool are sensation of feel, touch, not sight. How did we know it’s warm not cool? Let us associate the colors with objects so we can see how it’s related to physical sensation. The color red and orange relate to fire and yellow to sunlight. Because of these we relate those colors to warm colors. Similarly, blue is for sky and/or water, green is for grass and/or plants. Those colors relate to cool colors. Now you know how to give a sensation of colors on an art work. Looking at the different value of colors shows us were is the light striking in the image is usually called tint. This done by adding white to the color you’re using to make it bright. Having low value colors were the light is not hitting it directly and just reflecting on the tree is called shade. Shade is done by adding black to the color you’re using to change its value to dark. Color plays a BIG role in your everyday life.

(Picture taken from: http://api.ning.com/files/c2AtTFyjLBqa8YkY6y0dQ7X*3V886d-nmXE9JPN4cwecMR8VClH4IsShREXtGnz7xVYXMx-Cog4ScLqxFkHteDIBzdHF-UV2/Fall_in_Northern_Michigan_nature_art_computerdestkop_wallpaper_1600.jpg)

Hmong Story Quilt

Title: Hmong Story Quilt,
Date: 1970s
Author/Designed: Bee, Montana USA
Location: UC Davis Art Museum

What comes to mind when you first look at this quilt in terms of design. We see pattern, repetition, and rhythm. There is more but we are only going to focus on these three terms. Where do we see repetition? The two outlines of this quilt are done by repetition. Looking inside the outlines we see different symbols. Each symbol in the quilt has a meaning to it. Will get back to the meaning but let’s pay attention to the different scales of the different symbols that are in the quilt. Notice that they’re few different symbols, but each symbol has a certain repetition with also taking in the consideration of the pattern it’s in. Looking at different patterns we can see the rhythm in the quilt. Using the word rhythm sounds funny because rhythm is used to when expressing sound. But in design rhythm is a visual sensation. In this quilt it has been expressed as the repetition and pattern of different symbols. It gives a unity feeling. Let’s look at it closely ands see what the author trying to show us. It looks like we are shown how the Vietnamese are living. We are not going to go in details in this but now you know how to express rhythm in design.