1)Both the image (a bench) and line study have this organic flowing curve (see the first iteration for the best example). The study was also broken up and seemed to appear as a grid that was in a wave. This gridded study matched the weaving that occurs in the bench. I then went on to weave the line study in and out of the bench to complement the pattern already in the bench.
2)The photo loses its context in the bottom two studies. The second iteration could come off as an upward look toward some skylines while the third iteration loses the bench through the spiral made. I plan on trying to add other visual elements to the composition to create a contextualization and properly inform the viewer that it is a bench.
3)All need to be vectorized and smoothed out. They are very rigid and rough.
4)The typeface chosen has smooth curves and an organic feel which reflects the curves well. The text is also weaved into the composition like the line study to compliment the bench. In the second study the text placement is a little distracting and doesn't really reflect the study well.
5)The first composition sits in a corner to create a relaxed feel, and the line study integrates with the picture through the use of alignment and continuation. The framing of the second study is what gives the skyline feel and scale is used in the final study to create a large distance between the foreground and the background.
6)The bench and smooth flowing curve both give a relaxed feel which is a major concept in the
West Port scene.
Only two here because the third image won't upload.
1)The gridded structure of the West Port roads was complimented by this angular and simple line study. In some places of the study a gridded and consistent horizontal and vertical composition is interrupted by some lines extending away from the grid. It was these squares and lines coming off the standard grid the reminded me of this map and West Port in general. West Port is askew with the rest of Kansas City and sits at an angle to the rest of the KC road system. Some better alignments could be established to make a better reference and a clean up in craft will help as well.
2)The photo is a little blurred, pixelated, and the contrast isn't great. The map that I took the picture of doesn't help either because it is pixelated and really bad too. However, since I'm looking for just the grid of the area and the shapes that are made I was able to put a filter on the picture to smooth out the edges. I still want to play with the contrast though and see what can be done.
3)Some craft should be addressed to better establish the relations between the streets and the lines.
4)The typeface was chosen to express the simple and square grid that is present. However, I think that all capitals will help reinforce this idea better.
5)alignment and continuation are used to establish the connections between the roads and the lines both in positioning and in size.
6)Since West Port is at an angle to KC, this concept used in the poster design really reflects it well. The angles are complimented through the dark bold blacks. If the angles and cockeyed West Port was unnoticed then the black forms should point it out.
1)The strength in these ideas comes from the rows of bricks and their correlation to the random rows of white in the line study. This particular brick formation is broken up which is complimented by the randomness in the line study. I believe the final study works the best. The line study can sit behind the bricks and through this has a better attachment to the bricks. The first two feel slapped together and sloppy. The line study just sits on top of the bricks and doesn't really integrate. In the final study it seems like this line study is hiding behind the bricks and the bricks are being removed to reveal the study behind.
2)The photograph is easily read as bricks and the different size of these brick fragments correlate to the different sizes of white rectangles in the line study
3)The quality and craft is pretty good in these and should really just be refined to create better alignments and correlations.
4)This typeface is heavy, solid, sturdy, and the slab serif directly compares to the bricks. I want to find better ways to integrate the type however. The type also, like the first two studies in general, feels tacked on and just thrown on top.
5)In the final study the framing that occurs within the bricks is what I find really appealing and an attempt at an alignment was made to line the bricks with the line studies in all compositions. This alignment idea will need to be refined and worked with
6)The bricks give an antique feel to West Port. The bricks remind me of a time when travelers were heading out West in wagon trains. Old cobbled stone roads and horses. Prospecting for a better future and what have you. Nostalgic to the max. And the type helps establish this feel too. I think I've seen it used on a salon in a western movie or something similar.
curvy bench compositions:
ReplyDelete1. this pairing is really nice and its integration is so subtle! it could almost be worth it to let a little more of the line study show up (it's so hard to spot). it's very very well connected and continuous.
2. the photograph has a really strong graphic quality, as though it's been vectorized, even though i'm pretty sure it hasn't. i'd be curious to see it in a more basic, less manipulated way, just to see what it looks like? but like i said, what you have is so well united that it's almost hard to say that.
3. the line study looks pretty okay... you'll round out some of its pointy edges, given the curvilinear nature of your composition.
4. i feel like across the board your type is too big. like we were saying earlier, people are always going to read type. even if it's little. even if it's almost hidden. our eyes are drawn to it, so you don't have to overstate it. the typeface isn't bad, but watch out for typing along a curved path... sometimes you'd do better just to create outlines, ungroup, and rotate letters along your own path, because the type-along-a-path tool can get kinda wonky. but even that would get cleaner with just smaller text.
5. all three of these have a really unique sense of scale, of receding in space... the continuation between photograph and line study is really smooth, and the orientation of the elements within their space is working really well.
6. i wasn't really so sure about this, but then i read what you had written about the sort of "chill" feeling you get around westport. i can buy that. it'll help when your type is more relaxed, too.
[overall favourite? the first one.]
angled map compositions:
ReplyDelete(luckily the one that you couldn't upload was, in my opinion, the weakest of the three. so it's not as huge a loss as if you were missing one of these.)
1. both the photograph and the line study here are really complicated and they do a bit of fighting for which one is in charge. i think that conflict is better resolved in your first composition, but then you lose the specificity in your line study that you've got in the second composition. i think either unifying them still more, or letting the photograph look markedly different from the line study might help those two separate elements work better together.
2. the photograph is extremely engaging, but it is a little confusing. i was wondering if there was more information in the original photo you took, because it looks like you blew out a lot to get your contrast that high... maybe some midtones could help explain better that it's a map, or better still, where the map itself is located?
3. it's kind of hard to get much of your line study out of this composition. given that no jagged edges stuck out to me, it seems okay... probably worth a good vector if you haven't, just to see, but other than that, you just might want to see if you can allow it to look a bit more like the lines.
4.i definitely think you'll wanna go with caps on these, and bonus points if you can find a rigid, angular font with fewer curves. the first example has closer to a good type size... the second is really big again. i think unless you're really brilliant with the way you fold type around a corner, you're probably better off running on diagonals like you do on the top poster.
5. i think that first composition works extremely well, it's very dynamic and full of movement and randomness. the second one at first looks really complicated, but then kind of becomes just a thing inside a page, and then some things around it? the weaving of your materials is more effective in the first one, for sure.
6. i love the idea of using a map, particularly one located on site. it's so clever. i would like to get a bit more "mapness" out of it? but using that sort of timeless imagery against futuristic vectors gets at the sort of old vs. new that makes westport so cool.
[overall favorite? hard, but probably the first one. with some tweaks though, the second would be great.]
bricks & blocks:
ReplyDelete1. this pairing works when the white blocks have perfect correspondence with the crumbling bricks... they reference each other effectively without being perfect, boring matches. just make sure your white blocks don't look out of shape next to the bricks.
2. this is by far the most legible photograph of your set. i think it's quite well composed without being tricky... just a simple, straight shot. i think it's really nice.
3. this line study looks good and clean from here!
4. i definitely like the caps you used in the third rather than the title caps you used in the first two. that font is pretty effective but the right-in-the-middleness is maybe not the most active and exciting it can be? maybe even if you turned your letters to white and bumped it into the blackspace right underneath that box. just something to give it some nice asymmetry.
5. framing works really nicely in the third poster because of the way you've framed your line study within your photo. it is a very striking method to create a kind of breaking-out, as though this new futuristic westport is there, too, and you can see it where the history is wearing away.
6. i think this might be the clearest and best out of your directions for conveying westport... it's the simplest, least abstract composition, and while your abstractions are really lovely, i feel like this just really speaks about westport in a more tangible way. you can feel the bricks wearing away and all that.
[overall favorite? that one.]
anyway, hope this helps. thanks for being my partner!