Project #2

My theme for this design project was how communication occurs. I eventually narrowed down this topic to the concept that communication, regardless of whether it is between people, objects, or places, is ultimately presenting an idea or message that intends to be heard.

1. Emphasis and Economy:

For the composition, I kept it simple because my emphasis was on manipulating the flexibility of the headphone cord to spell out “talk”. Because the constraint was economy, I was concerned with keeping the piece dynamic while minimizing the number of displayed elements so I tried to do that by separating the piece into three uneven parts at the top, cutting off the top of the headphones, placing the end of the headphones at 1/3 of the page down, adding movement to the cord, and placing the headphone jack at the left to maintain balance in the image. My overall message is that the headphones are a medium for communication, or music, and hence they generate “talk”.

2. Balance

My method of achieving balance was to play upon the battle of ink vs. paint. I made the two distinct by making ink black and paint white, or in this case, black outlines. Also, I tried to incorporate the natural characteristics of the two mediums by showing how ink drips down the page and how the edges of the letters in the ink are uneven and curvy. As for the paint, the paint splatters and the letters are implied through the grouping of the paint spots. I was careful in balancing the number of ink drops and paint spots on each side of the piece so that they were not symmetrical, but that they carried equal weight. Also, the paint tube is black, though not completely, so that it could balance the weight of the black ink spill at the top right of the piece. The meaning behind this work was that paint and ink could also be a form of communication as long as they are applied with an idea.

3. 3. Repetition

In the earlier phase of this project, I had the misconception that repetition was simply repeating a certain pattern. After learning that this produces a static composition, I tried to vary the length and direction of the lines, as well combine several roots together to create density. To relieve some of the weight where the roots and rectangles are, I made some of the rectangles into black outlines while I added more lines to the right of the composition so that the elements of the piece were evenly distributed. I was also trying to make sure that in maintaining this balance, I would not compromise the focus on the roots, so contained most of them to the left side of the page. This piece is probably the black sheep of the set, but nevertheless, the idea is the same. The background pattern is similar to what you would find on a microchip, a symbol for information. The roots draw this data from the surface of the chip and bring it to the surface, communicating a message that was once obscure.

4. Movement

Though one can say that there is an element of movement in all the pieces, I tried to emphasize this by exaggerating the curves so that it would make up most of the composition, hence encouraging the viewer’s eyes to travel over the entire image. I also tried to highlight movement by juxtaposing the movement of the lines with the stationary position of the cassette tape. Also, I wanted to avoid a static composition by arranging the “a” to end at 1/3 of the page down instead of the top right corner which would form a straight diagonal. Using the cassette ribbon, I spelled out “idea”, with the “I” implied to show how the cassette is an unlikely though effective tool for communication.