Exercise 11—Basic Elements

For this project I analyzed a Michael Austin Wine label designed by Hatch Design Firm in San Francisco.

The above highlighted area is where dots have been used in this design piece. They appear to be periods from a rough typewriter. They are unevenly spaced out, but clearly in a direct path. They serve as a spaceholder where a date will be stamped and a name will be signed. The designer could have simply used lines, but the dots were used instead to denote a different era and a handmade, quality look.

The above highlighted area is where lines have been used in this design piece. The lines forming the house and the airplane have a ragged look to them, in order to suggest that they are drawings. The lines making up the clouds are smooth and appear to the viewer as if they are cut-outs. The line-work in this design is able to mimic different forms of medium on a single piece of paper.

The above highlighted area is where movement is exhibited in this design piece. It is in the form of different colored lines of varying thickness. It is in the form of a swirl, and represents the flight path of the airplane. Without these lines, it would look like the plane could just be floating in the air, upside-down, above this house. It would look quite awkward, and even though the viewer would assume that the plane was moving, they would not be able to tell if it were falling from the sky or if it were in a safe and controlled flight pattern as it appears to now.




*I know the due date on the assignment page says this was due Friday, but the first blurb I see when I go to iLearn reads: ANY EXERCISES ASSIGNED (Monday-Assigned = Due Friday Midnight, Wednesday-Assigned = Due by Next Class), so honestly I hadn't even looked at it until it was too late :(

Design Success and Failure in Relation to Syntactical Guidelines

The above is an example of Good Design that successfully employs appropriate syntactical guidelines. The guidelines employed here are balance, symmetry, and harmony. This is appropriate for the design goal because it is easy to use web interface.

The above is an example of bad design. The interface is unbalanced in a bad way, and is in no way harmonious. As for its purpose as a website interface, it is cluttered an confusing, and utterly disregards all existing syntactical guidelines.

Ex 9: Visual Thinking Research

The objective of this puzzle was to find as many triangles in the cat as possible. There were 20 total triangles, and we each found 19. To find each triangle, we each started at different ends of the cat. I did it by counting all of the triangles in each “group” (the head, body, then tail), then adding all of the sums up. My mother did it simply by starting at the tail and counting each one. I had originally counted 22, but in using the Gestalt visual operation of pattern-seeking, I counted two groups that were not actually triangles. We both employed the Gestalt strategy of finding to located each triangle. The way the solution to the puzzle displayed the strategy of categorization. A person is unable to use this strategy in a timely fashion for this particular puzzle.

Neither me nor my partner were able to find the cross in this puzzle. We each tried for about five minutes and it was passed around, but no one was able to do it. To try to solve the puzzle, we tried rotation in hopes that a different angle would allow us to see past the intense pattern, but it did not work. We used the strategy of pattern-seeking, but we could not detach the portion of the top square that was necessary to see the shape.

Exercise 6—Top Down Visual Processing

This political cartoon is an example of Top-down processing. The viewer must use high level, preconceived cognitions in order to discern the meaning behind the cartoon. The viewer first sees the four different figures wearing suits, two of whom are behind a desk, so it is assumed that they are business picture. They then note that two of the suits are on an elephant and a donkey, meaning they represent the republican and democratic parties. One of the suits behind the desk belongs to a George Bush caricature, and the other represents the insurance industry, which is made evident by the label on his lapel. The viewer then reads the speech bubbles and relinks them to their respective figures, giving them clues to what the political cartoon is about. The entire process employs goal-directed eye movements between the words and cartoon figured, and the viewer must constantly relink between the actions and cognitions of the figures and text.


*This political cartoon was taken from a political blog: http://nikchng.wordpress.com/

Exercise 5

Representation

The photograph of the brownies is the representational portion of this recipe design. It is clearly a representational element because it is an actual photograph of the finished product.

Abstraction
The ground of the design, which resembles a folder or a tabbed index card is the abstraction. It is the abstraction because though it is not an actual tabbed index card, it denotes the old fashioned way of keeping track of recipes. Another abstraction in this design is the pointing finger arrowheads. They are the form of a person’s pointed finger, but in this case they are a directional tool used to let the user know where to add the ingredients.

Symbols
The symbols present in this recipe design are the degrees symbol (°) and the inches symbol (″). The inches symbol, known as a double prime, is a nationally used shorthand symbol. The degree sign is an internationally used symbol which literally means degrees. They are symbols because they are arbitrary markings agreed upon by the common public to mean what they mean.



*Please note that the pose was originally posted on time, but due to readability issues, was reposted at a later date:

MEANING 1 Application Exercise

The graphic shown is an instructional graphic that shows its audience through step-by-step pictures how to tie a tie. This is a representational graphic because the depictions of the tie are as life-like as possible. There were no liberties taken with abstraction whatsoever. The steps are made clear with a simple numbering system and arrows that show where the end of the tie must go. There is no text needed, although the task of tying a tie has been viewed as quite difficult for some, which is made evident by the many tie-tying diagrams that can be found ont he internet.

The graphic shown is a courtesy sign that is commonly displayed in parks, requesting dog owners to clean up after their dogs. It is an abstraction due to the simplified shapes of the subjects. It expects the onlooker of the sign to assume that the figure on the left is a human, the one on on the right a dog on a leash, and the small pyramid of balls is dog poop. They are also made to assume that the person is bending over to clean up the poo pyramid. The average American will understand the meaning of this sign because of the common usage of that particular human figure, as it is similar to the ones used in crossing signs and restroom signs.

The symbol is an alert that can be found on the menu bar of a laptop, a cell phone, or any such device. It tells the user that the device they are using is in danger of “dying” and needs to be charged. It is a symbol because the particular shape it is in is reminiscent of a standard “double-A” battery, which is likely not the type of battery that is in the devide that displays it. The color of red denotes danger, which lets the user know that if they do not soon charge their device, it is likely to die. Since double-A batteries are still used today in things like flashlights, fire alarms, and other household items, most everyone is likely to recognize the shape and where it comes from. It is likely that in a few generations, kids will start to think of this symbol in the same way as kids that do not recognize the “save” button as a floppy disc.


*Please note that this was originally posted on time, but due to readability issues, it has been reposted: