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Frameworks for Design
your design challenge: draw a frame, fill it in with something
"There is no theory. Pleasure is the only rule"- - composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Many Paths, One Destination. As you begin your work with design, you'll be confronted by many theories of design, many different approaches to construction principles. But bottom line, you're working in a FRAME - a limitation, a structure. Ask yourself:
What KIND of Frame are you working in? Print? Screen? Label wrapped around a can of bug repellent? Image projected onto a vertical column of steam?
How BIG is the frame? What's the ASPECT RATIO ( relative width to height)?
How is the frame DEFINED, or HOW DEFINED is it (i.e., the edge)?
Your first sketches can just be frames, with just a few elements to create a simple composition.
Here are some frames, with some very basic visual compositions filling them:
The above frames address (at a very elementary level) notions of SYMMETRY/ASYMMETRY (POSITION - BALANCE ), HORIZONTAL/VERTICAL, PERSPECTIVE, HUMAN FORM (FACE/TORSO - BODY), ORGANIC (meandering), TEXT (communcative intention / pictoral or visual intention).
Now, ask HOW THE FRAME IS FILLED. Three questions:
1 - Does your subject matter belong to a world of ABSTRACTION or a world of REALISM? Or, is it somewhere between the two poles (i.e., STYLIZED in some manner)? If STYLIZED, in what manner?
2 - Is the overall density of the design SPARSE or DENSE? Are there lots of elements, or few elements? What's the relationship between THINGS (subjects) and SPACE (or relative empty areas)?
3 - How do you organize the various elements in your design - - is it ORDERLY (possibly some kind of pattern or repetition) or is it CHAOTIC? You might substitute GEOMETRY and BIOLOGY for ORDER and CHAOS - how does that impact your thoughts on design?
Where is your visual outlook when mapped to this approach? Do you combine elements from different parts on the same axis? How do you combine graphic elements (orderly, chaotically)? Are your pages typically very full of elements, or is there a lot of relatively empty space (called "white space" in the trade)?
If you're looking at one of your designs, and it just doesn't "work", somehow, try locating it somewhere in this design space paradigm. Try moving the design toward one of the poles, i.e., if you're working with realistic subject matter and something's not "working", try moving it toward the abstract; if you're happy with where you are on the realism/abstraction pole and the order/chaos pole, try making the whole composition more sparse by eliminating some elements, or maybe add more elements until you can't add any more.
Sometimes you'll achieve greater design clarity if you move your design toward one of the poles, any pole.
For More Investigations: Additional Design Elements
What do these words mean to you? COLOR - SPACE - FORM - FRAME - IMAGE - TEXT - RHYTHM - PATTERN - SEQUENCE - CONTINUITY
How would you create polarities with them? Do they even have "opposites"?
Where do they fit into the bigger pictures (are they the FRAME or part of the FRAME - - or are they CONTENT, the stuff that fills the FRAME) (Try substituting the word STRUCTURE for FRAME - then can you apply these ideas to media that incorporates MOTION, SOUND, and INTERACTIVITY?)
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