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BTEC EXTENDED DIPLOMA ART & DESIGN (INTERACTIVE MEDIA)

UNIT 12: COMPUTERS IN ART & DESIGN THE ELEMENTS

Elliot Rogers

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CONTENTS

2-5 BRIEF 6 INTRODUCTION 7- 12 ARTISTS 13 IDEAS & INSPIRATION 14-19 SCREENSHOTS 20 “I, C” 21 OUTLINE VIEW 22 EVALUATION 23 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Assignment Title: The Elements

Unit Title: Unit 12: Computers In Art & Design

Start Date: 20th September Finish Date: 20th November

Brief

The Vormator contest started over two years ago. It challenges artists to create a visual by using a very limited palette of shapes and possibilities. Artists are provided with eight vector shapes, called the Elements, which they are allowed to use within a given set of rules. The goal of the project is to show the importance of limitations on creativity. The results of the artwork prove that even with a large number of limitations, a surprising variation of outstanding graphics is possible.

Since the start of the Vormator project, the challenge has been successful on the internet and is widely discussed on design portals, blogs and design forums.

The Elements. The eight shapes

From these shapes you will create your own unique design within a strict set of rules. It all comes down to pure skills and creativity.

The RulebookWhat exactly is and isn’t allowed with the Elements? The following rules

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have to be followed when creating your artwork:1. You’re allowed to rotate, flip and duplicate the Elements 2. You are not obliged to use all the Elements 3. Scaling is allowed, but only proportionally, so no skewing or free

transform 4. You can add, subtract, intersect and group elements as you see

fit 5. The use of colour is unrestricted, you can create your own colour

schemes 6. You are allowed to use gradients 7. The Elements may only be filled, the use of strokes is not allowed 8. You are not allowed to use filters (e.g. drop shadows)

TasksTask 1- Grading Criteria P1, M1, D1 Research into Vormator and designs produce for their book. Produce evidence of research that has been critically analysed from your chosen images created by others. Discuss the various techniques and effects used in order to create the artwork.

Task 2- Grading Criteria P2, M2, D2Using the software package Adobe Illustrator open a document size 15cm by 15cm. Your design should be a square vector image 15cm by 15cm in size. Using chosen elements manipulate to create design outcome. Produce a title for artwork. Output final design on A4 paper.

Task 3- Grading Criteria P3, M3, D3Present design/development work and progression evidence in a folder in a clear concise order with section breaks. Produce a word processed evaluation. Present final outcome and evaluate to your peers and lecturing staff.

EvidenceTask 1 Folder containing research and elements Task 2 A 15cm by 15cm Final output on A4 paper with titleTask 3 Work in progress, Evaluation and bibliography. (Folder can be paper based or send as a Word or PDF document in moodle).

Grading Criteria

To achieve a Pass Grade you must produce evidence of the following: P1 review the potential for digital media in contemporary art and design practice P2 select art and design materials for experimentation using digital

techniques and processes

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P3 produce outcomes using digital art and design techniques.

To achieve a Merit Grade you must produce evidence of the following: M1 explain the potential for digital media in contemporary art and design practice M2 carry out effective experimentation using multi-media techniques and

processes purposefully M3 present purposeful visual outcomes showing effective use of digital

art and design techniques.

To achieve a Distinction Grade you must produce evidence of the following: D1 analyse digital media in contemporary art and design practice D2 carry out imaginative experimentation using multi-media techniques

and processes independentlyD3 present sophisticated and imaginative visual outcomes showing

sophisticated use of digital art and design techniques.

Source material:info@vormator.com.

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INTRODUCTION

I was tasked with the assignment of creating a piece inspired by the artists who submitted to the Vormator book, all whilst using the restraints addressed by the brief.

The difficulties which I would face would include; the forming of familiar compositions with the given shapes, matching the gradients between overlapping and intertwining shapes, applying an outline, correct placing within the layers to give a foreground and background effect, the blending of the base shapes to form new ones, such as “eyes,” getting the correct shape, layer and placement will be difficult as I am new to the concept of Vormator art and finally creating something coherent and valid in its appearance.

The research that I performed would include scouring through the online Vormator e-book samples for an artist that took my liking through their style. I came across many varying artists that have a unique styling in the work they presented to the book. Each artist comes from backgrounds of diversity, allowing it to come through their art with the use of specific colourings reminiscent to Brazilian festivals or the forms that are exercised to give the piece a feel of new York graffiti. Further on I shall display their work and my thoughts in a concise manner, allowing insights into my thought process.

The main aspects I searched for whilst researching were; style that resembled cartoon and animation as this would interest and inspire me greatly to produce a similar creation, an artist who uses bold simple colours which would support a simple cartoon like style and finally the construction of the image is important as it will guide me to lay the shapes in such a way.

To create my masterpiece I shall use the package “CS5 Adobe Illustrator.” Using mainly the “Tentacle,” to birth the outline and form the desired shape. The use of the “Tentacle” shall give me the rough edges that I need to create the hair formations needed.

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BARBOLETA

“LIMITATIONS TURN OUT TO ENHANCE THE DESIGN PROCESS PROVIDING AMAZING RESULTS.”

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Artist: Barbara EmanuelBirthplace: Rio de Janeiro, BrazilWebsite: www.barbaraemanuel.com This image was designed by Barbara Emanuel, a Brazilian designer born in Rio de Janeiro. She has been influenced by nature to produce art. Structure and natural themes take priority within this illustration, as the designer attemspt to convey a natural environment.

I believe that this piece with its simplistic colouring matches my desired outline for a simply coloured and arranged design.

This piece has clear correlation with the beauty of nature conveyed using vibrant colours blended together in a seamless pattern. I sense a sort of sexual message emblazoned in the design, perhaps an homage to the human body through the use of pastel-like colours.

The artist has been influenced by butterflies, as seen in the centre of the design, thus applied symmetry to bring forth a new more interesting form. The most recurring shapes used are the wurst to create a contextual landscape and rounded edges, the badge is used for the base shapes to create the outlying form and the chevron is used as the inner design that allows the outer to take form around it. A clever use of layers to hide excess under overlaying shapes. There is no use of gradient, only the shapes with bold colourings placed upon another for an illusion of shade.

Barbara would’ve edited the shapes given with the macro Ctrl+T which rotates and alters the size of the shape, opacity is brought lower on the wurst shape used to create the grass and pastel colours are also implemented.

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UNTITLED

“ONE TWEAK OF AN ELEMENT WOULD ALTER ANY ARRANGEMENT HAVING A DOMINO EFFECT ON ALL OTHERS”

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Artist: Andy KingLocation: North East Lincolnshire, UKWebsite: www.mobobo.co.uk

This illustration practically offers you to interpret it, with its incredibly simple design and colour scheme mixed in with smart gradients. This piece achieves an abstract theme, allowing it to be an unique design.

Andy King was finely trained in art, with a successful sculpting career and an extensive computer graphic experience; this clearly shows in his design giving it a professional feel.

The reason why this abstract design is perfect for my inspiration is exactly what Andy King describes it’s inspirations as “roots in a variety of sources; early video games, scrawled caricatures made in school sketchbooks and cave paintings. All of these, to a greater or lesser extent, added to a love of play with simple forms, gained when studying minimalist sculpture.” As is evident with his description, Andy King admits it to have roots with video games and simplistic design. Thus becoming an instant attraction to me as one of his inspirations and described style is in relation to my work.

An apparent form takes center stage; it appears to have a tribal sculpture influence as it has a distorted, elongated head. It may have a tribal influence but it is taken to a very abstract place, giving it its simplicity.

Andy King did not change his shapes in any way he used them in their rawest form; believing gradients, blending the elements, rotation and stacking were enough for his vision to take shape. King took use of all the given shapes, believing they all had a purpose in his creative process. I shall also take use of each shape to blend and form new ones.

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SPACE INVADERS

“THE ARCADE EXPERIENCE IS DEVELOPED A SINGLE FIGURE IN THE GAME.”

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Design: Mauro CaramellaLocation: Milano, ItalyWebsite: www.designaside.com

An obvious reason to why I am drawn to this piece is shown in the shape given to the picture (Space Invaders) by Mauro Caramella, the homage to the retro game instantly swayed me to select it as an inspiring piece.

Mauro Caramella is a prominent artist within Italy, fronting an Italian digital marketing company as their director, creator of designaside.com which is a popular site for varying digital arts, dabbling also in painting and photography.

Mauro Caramella shows his thought process given to the piece with his ascii (art of creating images through the use of keyboard characters) example art, applying a Vormator shape to each digit used within the ascii. As shown he used each base shape to compile his ascii guided project. With such a simple concept, it appeals to my way of thought, perhaps guiding my final piece.

Mauro Caramella instead of keeping the design completely grey, he applied bright colours to the inner edges of the imvader. This updates the image and prevents it from appearing like the original space invader, bringing it to a modern stance.

Mauro seems to have kept each bar shape the same colour and size, the reasoning for this is to give an initial shape for the Space Invader.

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IDEAS & INSPIRATION

My orignal concepts borrow simplistic design from my previous mentioned inspirers. These designs use bold outlines and basic colours to present themselves as simplistic and cartoon like. My use of gradients is amatuer at best, exercised to give an attempted 3D depth.

Initially I aspired to create a sort of child comic strip, which failed as I believed it to be too basic for any sort of proper recognition. My second initial design aspired to have an anime style with its simplified features and again basic colours, I believed this to look more detailed than the first and so went with this style.

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To achieve this zigzag pattern I duplicated a previously appropriately scaled chevron shape and over layered them for my desired outcome. Because of the abrupt white outline on the bottom left I needed something that would block out the white and complete the pattern. To do this I duplicated a zerk that had been scaled to a desired size using Ctrl+T and layered them on top of another so they reflected, they resided on the same layer. The purple colour I used (C= 75 M=100 Y=0 K= 0) was to achieve a ghostly feel.

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The shapes that were used during the creation of the eyes were four drops, 2 lower scaled than the other that lay upon the bigger drop shapes. This was done to get the basic shape of the eye. As you can tell one of the smaller drop shapes is coloured white whilst the rest was black, my reasoning for this was to create the sclera and separate it from the rest.

I chose the badge shape to act as part of the pupil, this was because it took up the majority of the desired shape and is open to be formed around.

Every shape in this layer is set as sixty transparency separating it from the foreground layer.

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Only the wurst shape is used within this layer, I have compiled them upon each other in a circle form. These were created so I could alter where they are placed and to complete the pupil effect. Their transparency is also 60 and their colour is the same as the chevron.

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I chose the wurst shape because it is perfect for creating an oval as it is naturally curved.

To separate the background eyes with the main foreground shape, I needed to add a misty atmosphere. To do this I used the zerk shape, 4 in total all assorted to create 2 rectangle shapes, this was done with Ctrl+T to resize. I applied the colour white to them and reduced the opacity to twenty six percent for an ominous misty effect.

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This layer is to give the top most layer a shadow. Using the tentacle shape was a natural selection as it is the same shape as the ones on the top layer, so no reshaping is truly needed only movement with the selection tool. The colour used was black because of it acting as a shadow(C= 0 M=0 Y=0 K= 100).

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The colours I used were red (C= 100 M= 100 Y=0 K=100), light pink (C=0 M=18 Y=14 K=0) and dark pink (C=0 M=55 Y=44 K=0) these colours were used to give tone and aesthetic pleasure.

I used the tentacle shape to give the edges an appearance of hair and the cobra shape to give the inner fill colour without having hair flicks flowing out.It is clear which strands are under another by the use of multiple layers.

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“I, C”

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Outline View

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Evaluation

With my final design I feel there were aspects of it that I liked and disliked. The likes were; the shapes design on the eyes, the colours complimenting another in the background, the foreground colours elevating themselves from the background and also the shadows that help separate the foreground from the background.My dislikes of my design is the less varied shapes in no particular order, hard to understand and label the piece as something distinguishable and finally the shapes showing on the background eyes due to the opaqueness being reduced.

The parts of my design which I would change is the background as it seems to not have any context to what the foreground shape is, add a wide smile to the foreground shape to give it some more recognizable features and improve on the zigzag pattern in the background, perhaps with varying colour and sizes.

My last thoughts on the final is the placing of the shapes could have been more calculated and flattering to the overall piece, adding more shadows to the interlacing hair strands to give it more depth and more detail on the eyes giving them a more maniacal theme.

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Bibliography

www.issuu.comwww.barbaraemanuel.comwww.wearesmiling.comhttp://www.mostardesign.com/works/static-design/vormator-book-197/https://www.elance.com/samples/vormator-book/38733839/http://www.vormator.com/http://www.justinkok.com/http://www.marinachaccur.com.br/http://www.q2design.com/