WEEK 9 The basic elements

My area of interest of design is in illustrations, which include book illustration, magazine spreads, posters and much more. It is a broader range of area because it includes so much, basically, any type of visuals can be categorized in illustration. To condense it down, I’m more interested in vector based graphics, that is simple and meaningful. I can be drawn traditionally on paper, later prototyped in CS suites.

These images are favorites I collected are from different famous illustrator out there.

Blog Exercise - The Basic Elements

1. Color, Shape, Scale. The first image i pick out is the elephant character, the image is consists of bold, clean shapes with the main object in the middle, in 3 distinctive light and soft colors. The color is settle, by using the scale of the small ice, it represented the bigger size of the elephant.

2. Lines, Direction, Movement: This is a vector animation captured from a famous advertising campaign made by Nike. In this image the shape of the hands are long and abstract, surrounding around the little girl which made her the focal point of the image. The direction of the image moves along with the direction where the hand moves.

3. Depth, Tone, Shape and Color Group. In this image, clear features of shape and color pops out immediately. The 3 different drawings have 3 different color tone, pin/red, green and multicolor, the tone is the intensity of the darkness or lightness of the object, which this image is very strong at . With different color tones and abstract shapes, these drawings developed a great depth into the shape, which gives multiple dimension and multiple perspective.

Week 8 Blog Exercise: Visual Thinking Research

To Do : Scan or take digital photos of the four (4) results, post one image for each and below each one describe the puzzle solving strategies each of you employed. Work to identify when and how you used the various visual thinking operations defined in the McKim reading. Remember, the blog exercises are an opportunity to practice using the vocabulary.

1. The first puzzle we did is "The Cat". In this puzzle we are trying to find how many different triangles can be counted in the cat. My friend and i each get our separate page and did the puzzles separately, it isn't too hard to find but we both missed one, I was over by one triangle and he was one less. For my puzzle, i counted all the individual triangles first and then i count the ones that grouped into triangles. I figured out where the triangles were concealed in the picture (according to the McKim reading from the chapter Images in Action). By the end, i over counted by 1. My partner Jacky visually draw out the triangles in the brain and counted from top to bottom. He count from small triangles and then the big triangles that's around. He got 19 and miss one as well.

2. The second puzzle is counting the cubes' direction and match them in pairs. I found this more difficult than the first one because there are a lot of rotations and memory processes in brain that makes the shapes more confusing for me. We both used the rotation method in the brain and both tried to capture the image at the same angle and find the corresponding pair. Another strategy i used is to convert 3d to 2d in my brain, which is only remember one setting of the squares from one single side and eliminate the mis-matching ones then keep going. (McKim's image action and converging), it took me so much time to figure out the pairs but gladly the answers were all correct. I like the 2nd puzzle more than the 1st one because it uses both side of the brain visually and logically, very challenging but fun little games.

WEEK 7 Blog Exercise - Visual Perception 2 / Feature Hierarchy

Blog Exercise - Visual Perception 2 / Feature Hierarchy

Find an example related to both this week's content - feature channels and their role in visual

search - and your planned major course of study and professional interests. Post at least

one image of it and write at least 8 sentences explaining (in your own words but using the

vocabulary of Ware, lectures, links, etc) HOW it is related to this week’s topics. The example

could be a website, poster, book design, tangible product (which often must communicate with

their users without resorting to text or icons), user interfaces, etc. Find something from an area

that YOU might like to design for. Be sure to provide credit for the example's creator and cite the

source (book or magazine title, WWW URL, etc.).

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For this week's blog i choose some illustration images done by pen. Being a graphic designer has so much to learn, such as rules and strains, but been a traditional drawing person for so many years, i'd want to combine my interest and my field of study together. This week's image is somehow related to the area I want to look more into.

These images are abstractive and interesting. With lots of great balance and compositions. These image gives a great movement. I especially like the first image. It is very expressive with the combination of geometric shapes and lines. The weights are focused on the right side but it's not out of balance. The hierarchies are very intricately mixed. Although the organic black shape on the right is more bold, those repeated shape and pattern on top of is has a great details which catches the eyes first. Making viewers wanted to see them first, the movement of eyes is supposed to be from top right to the bottom left, but the image is abstract enough to have other variations of visual perception.

Artist's Name: Cloudery

Word press address: http://cloudery.wordpress.com/2008/11/06/

Info: Cloudery. Drawings in Pen & Ink. In October 2008

WEEK6 --Blog Exercise: Visual Perception 1 / Top-Down Visual Processing

Blog Exercise: Visual Perception 1 / Top-Down Visual Processing

First, make sure you clearly understand the difference between bottom-up and top-down visual processing and the role of attention in visual perception and cognition.

Find a design example related to BOTH Top-Down Visual Processing (see Ware Reading + Lecture) and your intended/existing area of study.


Post at least one image of it and write at least 6 sentences explaining how it is related (in your own words but using the key vocabulary terms from the reading/lecture) and HOW top-down visual processing operates in its design.

Be sure to provide credit for the example's creator and cite the source (book or magazine title, WWW URL, etc.)


This is an image of a make-up desk with cosmetic objects on the desk and the mirrors and lighting on the side. It includes both Bottom-up and Top-down elements;
For the bottom-up processing it includes features, patterns and objects; the features in this image is the edges of the table, the reflection of the mirror, the depth of view created by different sizes of the make-up element. The pattern in this image is the texture of the wall made with the repeated rectangles and the lines. The objects in this image are the variety kinds of make-ups including lipstick, eyeshadow, powders and brushes. These objects made up the visual memory for this particular image.
This image also includes top-down visual processing which leads to directed eye movement and it has a action goal or cognitive goal that constant relates to each other. The eye movement for this image is defiantly the big brush and the powder lid that's in the center of the picture. It is in the front of everything, and the position makes this object the first thing to look at before other objects in the back. The image begin with short-fixations, the overview of the entire makeup table. Later concentrated in longer-fixations for more detailed visual process.

Image source: Fashionolia: http://fashionolia.com/how-to-become-a-make-up-artist/makeup-table/