Design Principle Exercise 2 (Emphasis and Balance)

WEEK 2
Chan Meiling 0337771
Design Principles/ Bachelors of Design (Hons) in Creative Media/ Taylor's University/ Exercises 2

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LECTURE

For this week's lecture, we learned about the principles; balance and emphasis.

Here are the important notes that I have my summarise so that I can refer back later on:

Emphasis - to draw attention to an object and create dominance using colours, lines, values, composition etc.
Subordination - minimizing or toning down other compositional elements in order to bring attention to the focal point.

Focal point - an area in the composition that has the most significance (a particular area to draw the viewer's attention on)

Balance is the distribution of the visual weight of objects, colors, texture, and space

❤ Symmetrical Balance (equal "weight" on equal sides of a centrally placed fulcrum)

- referred to as formal balance

- Bilateral symmetry (when the elements are arranged equally on either side of a central axis)
- by arranging elements equally around a central point, resulting in radial symmetry.

❤Asymmetrical balance

- referred to as informal balance

- allow objects of varying visual weight to balance one another around a fulcrum point.

- envisioning a literal balance scale that can represent the visual "weights" that can be imagined in a two-dimensional composition

Visual Research Pictures that I like for emphasis:

Visual Research Pictures that I like for balance:

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EXERCISE

Idea Explorations (sketches):

Idea Explorations and tryouts:

Before transferring my idea sketches to an actual A4 size paper, I have tested out some different colour combinations to try out and see which works the best to me.

Final Artwork for Emphasis:

For this piece, I have used coloured art line pen as the base and rendered lightly with colour pencil. The inspiration behind this artwork was actually from the breakfast I've had while thinking of ideas. I was really craving for a perfect fried egg the other morning but I did not have much time to prepare and decided to go for hard-boiled eggs instead.

Final Artwork for Balance:

Since I've used art line pen for my artwork for emphasis, I've wanted to explore and try different medium and I have decided to use watercolour pencil even though I  have absolutely no confidence in using colour pencils. I have also used watercolour paper so that the texture will be better. I rendered lightly with colour pencil first then added some water so that it will look smoother. Then, once it dries up, I started rendering it for the second time. Turns out, I quite like this piece but I got a little disappointed to see the results after taking the picture as it doesn't look as nice because of the lightings.

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FEEDBACK

Ms Jinchi said that she liked the idea of the windows and the eggs for emphasis. However, at that point, I have only tried out the window idea and she suggested that the windows should be a little bigger. And for the ''egg'' idea, she suggested that there should be more space in it. For balance, she like the idea of my final piece and she said that it's interesting to see many different shapes are arranged in a balanced manner.

Overall Feedback

Exercise 2: Again, there are interesting idea explorations for emphasis and balance. The final idea for emphasis has a hint of the principle created by the image of the fried egg. The final idea chosen for balance reflects the principle. For future exercises, do explore with colours as well.

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REFLECTIONS

For this week's exercise, I have really struggled a lot to come up with ideas that I like. Especially for my final work 'balance', it took me a really long time to express what balance is. I also took quite some time to arrange the shapes until I feel like it is balanced. However, I did have fun exploring different mediums and trying out in different colours. What Ms Jinchi said in this week's class really made me realised that it is really important to come up with our own unique ideas, and not to plagiarize people's work after seeing the work of some of my classmates. It made me realise that plagiarism is something that I should always take note of in the future.