Self-expression poster (mind map, mood board, concept, poster)

Mind map

Mood board

Concept

Poster

Aesthetic design process-Paula Scher

The first image created by Paula Scher is one of my favourites. Its simple creation of typography has visually formed the ambiguous perceptual experience by having two alternative interpretations. Other than viewing as a group of letters gathered altogether, we can see it as a woman in a dress lifting her leg, especially the letter 'L' is more of the edge of her dress. According to colour and contrast theories, there are only two colours here-black and white, the complete opposite colours are highly contrasted as the figure and background are distinctively identified. The visual construction is most likely displayed as random that words are exhibited differently on different axis and sizes are varied.

The second image I chose is that I think this design is really vibrant and lively, which is full of elements. The proximity from top to bottom in an orderly fashion from the patterns she used, some words are underlined, some are not, but they are displayed within a block-shaped manner which diagonally designed based on modular system. Adding to the colour theory which she used two primary colours-red and yellow, and neutral colour black and white is to construct the meaning of naturalness. But the use of red and yellow for some letters is to highlight some important elements.

The third image is one of the typical examples of showing radial visual construction when all elements are extended from the focal point, the red circle on the left in this case. The highlight of red to the name 'Paula Scher' with enlarged size over other elements ultimately stands out. The background is using the neutral colour-grey which further highlights the group of elements, some are bold, some are less visible by using white. This design largely uses Gestalt's principle-continuation in my point of view, when the radial shape leads my eyes from top to bottom in the flow.

Structural system CREATES the difference

Final postcards design overview

Mind map - Feelings (Hope, peace, love, purity)

I have selected all the components to ideally represent my core concept in this design. As the theme is feelings, I needed to consider the composition I used to illustrate this well. Taken the first postcard as an example, I use large amount of blue to represent the sub-theme of 'hope', also to place the letters 'O' and 'Y' in the middle, is to form a person as if he/she is stretching arms to embrace freedom. The highlight of the letters by using the complementary colours in 4 postcards is in order for viewers to distinguish the abstract shapes of the letters mixed. Colours are essential to be using to relate back to my chosen theme, hence, I carefully selected each set of colours, including the 'white' colour to make my design seem more dynamic. Talking about the saturation values, the two dominative colours such as dark green and red/pink-ish colours in the second postcard, are needed to be highly saturated, whereas the supportive colour, grass green is tint with 30 to 40% of saturation. This is regarding to the colour contrast theory which the darker colour in the background is strongly contrasted with the brighter foreground.

Colour combinations/selections

Primary colours:

Blue, red and yellow are the primary colours using in this image. According to the principle of colour theory, those three are the essence of colours without any additional colours. It creates a sense of simplicity towards fashion design due to the full saturation and brightness, which constitutes a high level of colour value.

Secondary colours:

The second image is to illustrate the concept of secondary colours in photography. Purple, orange and green are the colours achieved by the combination of red and yellow, red and blue, and yellow and blue. Hence, using secondary colour has increased the variation but simply with less contrast.

Tertiary colours:

The third image is an example of showing tertiary colours. As we can see, the colours have made this photo more vibrant with its fantastic combination of choices reproduced by the mixture of both primary and secondary hues. Other than this, the background is largely filled in with orange and red colours, whereas the windows are with cold colours-green and blue as though a highlight of the window frames.

Analogue colours: 

The two photos above are to demonstrate the use of analogue colours when the chosen sets of colours are the ones close to each other on the colour wheel. Examples such as light pink, rosy red, and dark red in the first photo, which mainly shows the variation of a hue either produced by the addition of black(shade), or white(tint). The second photo is another example showing this concept within the range of cold colours. Lime, grass green and blue are the typical use for gradual change in naturalness.

Complementary colours:

The last two photos carry artistic values by using only two colours to show the ultimate contrast. But in this case, the choice of two colours are the ones located opposite each other on a colour wheel. In the first photo, the use of orange and blue is as a division, separation, border or edge to its demonstrated purpose aesthetically. And the second photo is another way to show contrast as red strawberry in the glass has greatly contrasted with the green background. 

Examples of Gestalt theory

Similarity- From this image, the square in the centre is as similar as the ones around it as they all are formed with both 8 horizontal and vertical lines, except that the colour of the middle one is different, as well as the shape of the lines.

Continuation- Second image is to convey the idea of continuation from how it directs the viewer from left to right by firstly forming a solid line, it changes to a series of circles which gradually shrink to a tiny dot in the end.

Closure- The simple design of the letter 'B' is to show the law of closure as each component (3 components here: solid thick stem, two semi-circles) is not fully attached to each other but leaves some gap in between, but viewers are still able to recognise this is a shape of 'B'.

Proximity: A simple design in this image is to show the law of proximity from how all the squares are united as a group. We recognize they belong together because the same sizes as well as the gap between each of them are exactly the same.

Figure and ground- The circle in the middle is as a focal point when its colour has made it stand out in the image, whereas the background shows contrast to it with light green. Adding to the trapeziums from the corner of the big triangles towards the centre, the figure in the middle will be even highlighted more.

Raification- This image carries the law of raification by leading the viewers to have a more experienced perception as this design contains more than one sensory stimulus. The letter T, and the two blocks next to it will be the first image can be seen, and the constructive 2 in white colour is as a hidden image that dissects other elements in black.

Multistability- The last image is to visually express the ambiguous perceptual experience by generating an alternative interpretation when viewing the image. We can either see a peacock is spreading its tail on the side, or an incomplete heart shape that is formed by the arcs.

Gestalt Law on images

1. From town to person

The first image is amazingly expressive according to one of the laws based on Gestalt's. It's one of the typical examples of showing the concept of continuation because it occurs when the design directs the view to the gradual change of other objects. Accordingly, this design naturally forms a fascinating and interesting viewing experience as houses change to cubes, then to leaves and finally to a complete shape of a person. Apart from that, the principle of proximity is another principle that I find it applies to this image as well. Though it's not as obvious as how the continuation has shown, somehow a group of cubes, the ambiguity of the formation of leaves are perceived as a group.

2. What can you see? Naked couple showering or skull?

Second image was purposely chosen to be one of the kinds I like for optical illusion. First of all, the figure and ground is definitely applied to this image when the naked couple are the focus of this image, in contrast to the background where it shows their action has taken place in this eerie shower room. What makes the figure so clear is that they are placed in the middle. Not much proximity here except that the bricks formed as the shape of the arc at the background can be perceived as an unity. Lastly as a typical optical illusion image, it tends to generate dynamism within this image when we are uncertain whichever image comes first. This is what we call multistablity, as it contains two alternative interpretation, the naked couple, and the skull which they form a part of it. Hence, viewing experience for each person can be varied.