Operation: Emphasis!

 

For this image, I chose to begin at the upper left hand corner, draw the focus to the bottom (and perhaps to the right, as the circles trail off into smaller sized ones), and lead the viewer's eyes back toward the center again. This was done using several proportioned sets of various-sized black circles arranged in a linear fashion diagonally down the page. The white circles (again, proportioned similarly as the black circles) were then stacked atop the sets of black circles to give those black circles an appearance of depth. 

Design elements: Contrast, repetition.

As for this image, I chose to bring the viewer's eyes from two opposite corners to the center. This time, I used the symmetry of the image, as illustrated through the placement of the white and black circles, to achieve this effect. I started by creating two identical black circles, then identical white circles to be attached to the black circles on the ends. Then, I created the larger black circle in the middle, and the two white circles that accompanied that. Each white circle has exactly one other white circle that bears the same dimensions.

Design elements: Symmetry, repetition, balance

Failed Package Design: Magnetic Magnets

I've never come across magnets that weren't actually magnetic.

Criticism - Peter Precourt: "The Katrina Chronicles: Volumes I & II"

Recently, I have had the pleasure of visiting what was perhaps one of the more interesting graphic novel-style displays of artwork I've seen. Peter Precourt's "The Katrina Chronicles: Volumes I & II" were on display in Jewett hall. While I had taken many glances at them in passing, I never fully understood its true meaning until I decided to take a closer look at each of the panels, and piece those together into a greater meaning. In this work, he provided a serious, yet humorous perspective regarding the events of Hurricane Katrina as shown through his life experience in the events leading up to, during, and after.

The concepts of the uncertainty and frailty of life, as well as the many gains and losses one experiences were reinforced successfully with the choice of materials (paper, Sumi-e, acrylic, among others). The style of the artwork and arrangement of elements on the pages seemed to be rough, while the various materials used were fairly fragile. Each page showed an ever-changing variety of materials, with not a single panel composed of a similar amount of the same media. This reinforced the idea that his life was indeed fragile and in flux.

Particularly, I was fond of pages two and three in Volume II, in which he describes his wife's reaction to an offer for a position that paid far less than what she had desired. This specific set of pages showed a picture of the map of the United States turned upside down on one page accompanied by a small, detailed picture of his wife in the lower right hand corner, and a few panels of the author sitting in the darkness wondering what to do on the other page. On the first page, his wife was less than pleased that he wanted to accept a job offer in which he would make less than the job he was working previously. She was actually furious that he would think of turning the lives of his family members upside-down merely to revive his career. Her disdain was shown in the colorful, detailed painting of her holding a less detailed depiction of his daughter, along with the viciously but brilliantly illustrated upside-down map of the United States. The second page conveys his ambivalent feelings toward the situation, as well as his reaction to the decisive words of his wife. A strong sense of discouragement, frustration, and a slight force of lighthearted anger was exhibited when he was trying to come to terms with his wife's rational opinions. The two panels held an appropriate juxtaposition, as the cohesive and decisive feelings of his wife and the chaos, frustration, and rage towards his situation complemented each other fairly effectively.

Tabletop Role Play

One of my (relatively interesting, maybe?) hobbies is tabletop role-playing games. Anything where I can get together with a group of friends, create characters, and roll some dice to simulate various events in a fantasy universe falls under this category, I believe. You can't forget about the role-play of course, but hacking, slashing and burning packs of monsters and finding awesome treasure is equally satisfying.

That said, every dungeon master (the person who creates the setting, pretty much) needs a few good tools. My husband created this simple visual game board by scoring lines into a magnetic dry erase board in a grid fashion.

We have assorted magnets which represent our characters and non-player characters (merchants, adversaries, and various other creatures). Dry erase markers are used to draw boundary lines and other landmarks in areas. To give you an idea of how much space is shown on this board, each magnet (player or non player character) occupies a five-foot square.

The most obvious disadvantage to this board is that we can't easily display flying creatures, due to the lack of a third dimension. For the most part, though, we've had great success in our games with showing the positioning of the player and non-player characters.