Color Reflection

This first semester in design was really good. I learned a lot more than I thought I have. In terms of color, drawing, and form, delineation studies and orthographic views were my favorite parts. I've learned color before so it was more of a review for me. I feel like overall, the course was helpful and I know it will be useful. The last projects we did was the group calendar and our color book. I need to document those and I'll try to post them over the next week or so. The calendar turned out really well and I'm really proud of how organized we were and how nice they came out.

Final pages for color book

So these are my final pages for my color book. I renamed some and then took some new ones. First is warm-cool:

Vibration:
Simultaneous contrast:
Munsell's diagonal (I think I'm going to take out the yellow hearts/words):
Munsell's 3d through space:
Cover (on left) and then the back:
Yup. Hopefully these are good and I can finish up printing. :D

Last "official" week of color

Yay. Last "official" week of studio work...but there's still so much left to do! So we worked on our group project this week along with RGB-ing our leaves. First, I'll show my calendar page.

I had June and the color scheme was warm/cool as an effect. I did 2 versions, one using gradient and one using opposites. The above design was the final design except there are some tweaks in it not shown. I'm super excited to see the whole calendar together. I feel like it will be good. We also worked on changing our CMYK colors into RGB colors for the web. So below is my RGB fixes with the scanned color aid on the left. If you want to see the CMYK one, its in and older post. :D
RGB is definitely easier than doing CMYK. For some reason, I never had problems with printing what I see on screen but the Konica is like a totally different coloring so it was so much harder. In the next week, we are finishing up our calendar and our environmental color book. I'm so excited to see the final products. It will be good. :D

Delineation pt.2

We didn't have class this week and so I guess this post will be for November 29th. All I really did so far is redo my tone delineation so I'll post those below. I think some parts work but others could be worked on, like the inside of the "cutout".

I also redid the texture for Munsell's. I wanted the inside of the texture to have the blue but I couldn't figure it out so I did it like this. It's interesting I guess.
Yup. I know for the last weeks we are working on a class calendar and I'm real excited for that. Maybe we will work on our leaf studies and I think I definitely need help, so that will be cool.

Leaf Study

So here is my leaf study so far. My leaf dried out so I can't really put it on the sheet. I already worked on correcting the PMS and some came close while others still need to be worked on.

Delineation

This past week, we worked with delineations of our letterforms in terms of line, shape, tone, and texture. We made four sets of them: black and white, 1 PMS color, 2 PMS color, and Munsell Arrangements. I'm only posting one of each type along with one color scheme. So first off is my black and white set with line. I really love this one and I feel like the black set has more power than the color sets.

I'm showing my shape with my 1 PMS color.
Tone with 2 PMS colors. I need to change the tone since it isn't really working. We were to choose complimentary colors according to Munsell's color circle so I did blue-green and red.
And lastly, texture with Munsell's Arrangement, which I chose to do contrasting colors. So I used yellow-green, red-violet, and blue? Something like that. I really like this color combination and the texture is a flower petal really close up.
These sets were really fun to make. I still need to make changes according to the crit, like changing all the tones and fixing the texture just a bit. I'll post those in the blog for next week.

16 Pictures for Color Book

Here are my 16 found color photos so far. The names are what I think they should be but suggestions would be great. So first off, it's warm-cool.

Triad? (new)
Transparency? (new)
Simultaneous contrast? (new)
Opposite (new)
Munsell's harmonious hue, contrasting value, and contrasting chroma? (new)
Munsell's helical
Munsell's flat spiral
Munsell's contrasting hue, contrasting value, and harmonious chroma
Munsell's contrasting hue, contrasting value, and contrasting chroma (new)
Monochromatic
Itten's light-dark
Itten's contrast of hue? (new)
Itten's complementary
Itten's cold-warm? (new)
Achromatic
Yup. Input would be great. :D

Munsell Arrangements

We finished our color studies with Munsell's arrangements. I felt like these were "easier" than the scores, and even Itten's and Alber's studies. The hardest part was maybe choosing the colors since they were based on themes, and really, those weren't hard hard. My first page was based on winter, summer, spring, and fall and they used arrangements one through four.

My next page was based on salad, vegetable, meat, and dessert and was based on arrangement five through eight. During our crit, "everyone" was saying how they don't see the color choices as associating with the theme, which I totally agree with. The only thing I think I had a problem with was that people thought it was too subjective, which in a way, I see but I mean, that's how I see these themes to be colored and I feel like they are universal enough. But whatever, the only one I had a problem with was meat, which I totally agree it sucks.
We also expanded our found color projects with more pictures. I think I'll post them sometime later when I have them all revised and better looking. It's hard finding what I need in store windows since it is something I have no control over and I feel like I have to work harder with what I got/chose. It will work out though, so whatever.

Munsell Scores

I finally have pictures!!~! Except they are really bad quality. Oh well. So these are my Munsell scores that we worked on last week. I think Color Aid needs to have a Munsell color set. The concepts weren't as hard as I thought it would be. Once I read what they are and start choosing colors, it got easier to understand. At first it was definitely hard and the hardest ones for me involved the change in saturation.

On Friday we went to see Warhol's exhibit at Union Station and that was cool. I really don't understand his art work, even after reading the descriptions, but just looking at the colors, they were good combinations. I really enjoyed his line drawings the most since they were very different from what society remembers him by.

We also started shooting our environmental colors and I'm going to do shopping windows, which I think will be fun. I'll post them next time when I have 8 total. Next week we are working on Munsell arrangements with themes and I'm excited for that since there will be a direction unlike these where we started wherever we wanted to.

Itten Studies

So I suck officially at taking pictures of all my color studies. But I have decided to mass post them once I get them all back. Promise promise promise. Last week, we worked with Itten color studies that were much easier than our value and saturation studies (I think). There were 8 different contrasts that we worked with and the most difficult, was the simultaneous contrast (for everyone). I somewhat achieved it but I felt like I could've done better. Another one that was wrong was the cold-warm contrast. I thought it was just the comparison between a cold and warm color but apparently, it was suppose to be a gradation from a cold color to a warm color. The study in general was very contrast of value though and that made me somewhat satisfied. Next week we are doing Albers and starting our environmental color studies. I think I'm still doing the shopping windows but I've been looking around and have yet to figure out if that's the final decision since there isn't very colorful windows right now. But we shall see.

Color is...

...the subject that causes trouble.

...more than just a visual phenomenon - it is a uniquely emotional language and a symbolic tool for all designers.

...the element closest to the client and the audience's subjective identity.

- Sean Adams

I really enjoyed the readings, especially the reading from the workbook. It helped clear up a lot of questions pertaining to color theories. Saturation and value is still confusing so I'm hoping a "a-ha!" moment will come soon. I thought I understood it but then I read the reading and then started doubting myself. I understand that saturation is the intensity of a hue and value is the brightness of the hue. The part I guess that I'm not getting is how to not mix the two together. Other than that, when I read about color harmonies, it was just a review of what I learned earlier, just with more details. I liked the Albers reading but it was still hard to read. The exercises that he talks about makes a lot of sense and it describes how we see color. I tried taking notes but that didn't go very well...I do get the overall idea though. :D In general, LOVE the color workbook, pictures help (and that it's in color and has awesome examples).

Color Basics

Last week we turned in our final accordion book of our contrast photos and started on our color unit. My accordion book turned out ok, the pictures weren't as good as I wanted them to be but whatever. Color is really fun. We did our color circle in class. I chose some pretty good ones but then we had to switch some around so that they would make sense. Now we are learning about value and saturation. I am still confused about these two. I can grasp the concept of them, but I find it hard to choose colors to represent what I know. The readings that were assigned definitely helped. Notes will come before Wednesday, right now is not the time to do that. Next week, I will try to have pictures of what color exercises we have done and maybe my accordion book. We shall see.

Environmental Narrative Ideas

1. Doorways

I want to focus on doorways of houses and how they interact as a whole with the house color. I see some doorways that are just odd colors but as a whole, they work. Maybe it would good if I chose one specific hue and then see how the color of the house relates to that hue.

2. Colors of Fall

This is an idea that I definitely want to pursue. I want to capture the leaves as they are changing colors, from green to reds, oranges, and yellows. I think it can become a very nice book showing the transition of trees from summer to fall. The hard part would be time. I would have to do this very quickly before the leaves all fall off.

3. Shopping Windows

This is pretty self-explanatory. When the assignment was given, I automatically thought of stores and their window displays. I work in retail so I know that there are color themes that they use for a season and their window displays reflects that. I’ve seen some pretty awesome window displays that just used several colors that are part of different schemes.

Contrasting V

This week we worked on contrasting pairs in relationship to design principles like figure/ground relationship, balance, and movement. Below are some of my pairs but first is just a shot of my 12 inch letter form.

Craft could be worked on. It was definitely harder working on the big letter as opposed to the small. Focal point:
Neutrality:
Contrast (I really like this shot because I shot it from behind):
And minimal detection:
Minimal detection and reversible is pretty similar but they work individually and with the pairs. Making the pairs was definitely hard. The reading Terri assigned didn't help very much in what each pair should be like. It was helpful to define contrast in a whole though. The first round of pairs was horrible and my second attempt was more successful because I knew what I should be aimed for. I'm really excited to make it into an accordion book and we are now moving into color!!~!

Extrusion V

Last week, we worked on our 12" extrusions of our letter. I stuck with the Univers V. I shall post pictures later of it (as you see, I fail when I have to take pictures of projects) but above is my 6" letter. The 12" one had a V inside of a V. It was definitely harder than doing the 6". Which you expect it to be easier because it was larger and you know what you were doing, wrong. It was much harder for me because my V inside of my larger V was small and my hands are small, but it was still hard to get between to fix the craft. Overall, I like it and I could have definitely made it more interesting. Craft was really bad on it so hopefully it will look better when I photograph it. Next week we are taking photos of it to describe pairs like stability and instability. I'm pretty excited for that but I think I will find it challenging. Then we are moving onto color!!! I'm excited for that.

Building V

Last week in Form, we built a 3 inch letterform. I chose to do V for my name. I figured I could put it in my room after I was done. So anyways, that was a fun project. I wish I took some process pictures but I'm really bad at remembering to take pictures. I started out doing a Baskerville V but then ended up doing a Univers V instead. I cut out the form for the Baskerville but I didn't like how it looked. I can't really do curves well on foam core so I figured I should do a more simple font so my craft will be better. So I did that and I was very pleased with it. I learned that sanding bristol paper does not work and building the inside of the V and then covering it with bristol makes it look so much better. I also painted the edges with white paint to make it even but some fell through the cracks so it's not perfect perfect. I really enjoyed the practice because now when we build our 12 inch letterforms, it will be somewhat easier. There are final pictures on Amber's blog so go there and check out all of our letters.

Booklet

So this week we finished our drawings in Illustrator with our initials. At the end of the week, we compiled all of them to make a booklet. This was my cover:

As I was looking at it right before I turned it in, I realized I forgot to delete like 3 lines. >.> Oh well. After the cover were pages that I posted last week, but with alterations (not that many so I won't repost them). What I didn't show last week though, was my elevation of the Design building. So the next two images are of the south (front) and east (side) side. We needed to put our environmental letterforms on them.

Yup. I worked on the building lines with Amber and I did the front side (LOTS of lines). After this project, I definitely learned A LOT. I got the hang of Illustrator more and I know how to do masking now (!!!). When doing the obliques, it's critical to be selective (which was hard for me, especially with the curve of the p). Line weight was also super important since things that were closer to us, were suppose to be darker/thicker, and lines that we can't see are dashed. I think this whole project relied on the "less is more" phrase since you want the viewers to understand it without overdoing everything. Therefore, being as minimal and simple as you can be is great. Overall, I'm enjoyed this project but I'm so done with it. Next week, we are going to be building letterforms, which I'm worried about but I think it will be fun.

Obliques

So this last week we made obliques with out initials using the pen tool in Illustrator. So here's my initials:

After that we made orthographic views of the letters and then elevation obliques and plan obliques. The following pictures aren't correct (I'm still in the process of correcting these).

Yup. Next week we are going to make a booklet out of all these (which I think will be super cool) and then something else. At first, it was hard grasping where lines would go and connect the letters but it takes effort and I think I'm getting it slowly. We also drew out the Design Building, which was fun. I felt like I did too much work though. I will post the picture next weekend when I'm done with everything. Yup. I'm sort of done doing obliques and whatnot. It's fun but it's getting tiring. >.>