Elements and Principles of Design

January 23, 2013

Elements of Design - Space and Principles of Design - Proximity

Use the following documents at the bottom of the page to gather information about the principle of design known as Proximity.

• Powepoint titled " Proximity"
• Word Document titled " Proximity Note Taking"

January 23, 2013

Elements of Design - Line

Upon learning about using lines, you will then complete the following activity:

Within Photoshop, you are going to take a longer block of text and divide it up using shapes and lines in a creative way. You may do one of two things:

• Take a famous piece or piece of a speech, and divide it up into sections.
• BEFORE YOU BEGIN DESIGNING, I need to see/read the quotation you will be using. This applies whether you are making your own introduction or using a famous quote, as to ensure it is long enough for this project.
• Create something of an introduction for yourself, a classmate, etc. Think of how boxers and athletes have long, drawn-out introductions hailing their feats and achievements.

Your composition should include an image of the person who the speech is attributed to or the introduction is introducing. Your design should use a monochromatic color harmony, along with some black and white for accent. Your title/name of the person should be very large and at the bottom of the page, though it doesn't necessarily need to span the bottom of the page. Use text warping and layer styles to add visual interest to the heading's design.

Your composition should look something like the picture below, though it should include some shapes as well as lines.

January 22, 2013

Elements of Design - Shape

Upon learning about the four types of shapes, you will then complete the following activity:

Types of Shapes Activity

1. Pick an object, any object. Keep it general. For instance, instead of picking ‘Pontiac Firebird,’ choose ‘car’ instead.

2. Open up Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer.

3. Using an image search, find and label a representation of the object you picked in each of the four types of shapes, copying and pasting each into the Word document:

• Natural
• Stylized
• Geometric
• Abstract – Describe to me what exactly about this image reminds you of the object you have chosen. Don’t simply choose a random blob of color and think that it can go without explaining how that resembles a banana.

4. REMEMBER: This is four representations of ONE object, not four different objects as examples of each type of shape.

5. When you are finished, save your document to your usb/documents, naming it firstname-lastname-shapes-exercise, and then also save it in the correct folder on my USB drive.

January 14, 2013

Elements of Design - Color

The first element of design we will examine is color. To do this, you will look to the Web or the powerpoint below to find out information about the following color harmonies:

• Analogous
• Complementary
• Split Complementary
• Monochromatic

You will then partner with someone, pick two theories apiece, and then use Photoshop to create an illustration to exemplify this. The illustration must include:

• A document size of 8.5 inches by 11 inches (or 11 by 8.5, depending on which way you want to design it), 300 ppi, CMYK
• Use guides to create 0.25" margins on your page
• For the monochromatic design only, you must use at least one image that has been 'tinted' using the Gradient Map adjustment layer; you may use more images if you like
• Decorative use of the brush tool (and possibly layer styles added to the brush tool) using custom brush libraries to illustrate that harmony (such as paint splatters, cracks, symbols, etc): get creative!
• A large text heading for the theory's name itself, with smaller text directly beneath it that says 'Color theory.' If the text is top and center, it will be 25 points off. Get creative!
  • The second line of text must be a different font, but work well visually with the other.
• Use of shapes, be they transparent or semi-transparent. Remember that semi-transparent shapes make good backgrounds for hard to read text!
• Descriptive text placed on the page to describe the concept of the theory, how it is created, its uses, or any advice for how to use it.
  • For all theories besides monochromatic, you could consider listing some possible combinations
• IF YOU USE A PHOTO, DO NOT MAKE IT A FULL-PAGE BACKGROUND, unless it is something more of a background object, such as a simple pattern, landscape, etc.
• Save the file as (your name)-(color theory the page is about)-illustration.psd (for example, josh-gaston-monochromatic-illustration.psd)