Photo Ops

The photo ops article was five pages that went through and showed different aspects of photography. The article goes through and shows different techniques that are used when playing around with a digital camera. They talk about framing, symmetry vs. asymmetry, movement, repetition, close-ups, etc. Movement is one of my favorite aspects of photography because I feel like it gives the picture life. Even if the image is not clean cut, not even a centimeter of blurriness it can still be beautiful. In my own opinion they can sometimes be more beautiful. Framing is also very important when taking pictures because it can help move your eye through the image. I have found that people become very big fans of close up pictures. The image can be something very simple but since it's close up you may never even be able to tell what the object is. All of the aspects talked about in the article are important when taking pictures, and were helpful in taking pictures of our cardboard words.

Typography

The powerpoint on typography was a small lesson in explaining how different types show their diversity in the details of the letters. It showed how some letters had thicker lines than others, while others had small hooks or something of that nature to show their style. This is important whilst working on these giant letters because small details on a giant structure can become very seeable. While we are only using one certain font for this project, it is interesting to see the subtle differences that go into the different fonts. Even though they may seem almost to a T in similarity, they have that one detail that shows the difference.

Connect

Connect: bring together or into contact so that a real or notional link is established.

Comic Strip

The comic about how comic strips work was sort of confusing to me. If I understood correctly, than the main idea of the comic is that pictures and words aren’t actually what they are meant to be. They’re icons of whatever they’re trying to convey. Since a drawing of a person is not actually the person, that makes it an icon of that person. The article than went on to talk about how we can perceive certain things to be other things, even if they’re not. Like how you can take a circle with two dots and a curved line, and turn it into a happy face. The rest of the article went on to explain how we look at things. It also talked about how we are the ones that give icons life. Without they are just lines that were put together in a certain order. This relates to our project because we used pictures and sketches to come up with a new product, but until we actually built our product it was just an icon.

Writers Tool Box

This article, The Writers Toolbox, was given to us to show different ways of coming up with ideas. The article went through five different ways that you can use writing to come up with ideas, or continue to form new ideas off the ones you already have. The article started with the type of brainstorming that we used for our think and make project, mind maps. A mind map is a spider web like design that gets all of your words on the page. You start with one single word in the middle; this would be your main idea. You then draw off other words that make you think of the product. After you have those sub-categories you work to get down all of the ideas you have for the sub categories. The next idea for creating ideas was the concept map. This is very similar to the mind map, except you work off of concepts. Instead of making a web of ideas, you make a web of concepts, and work off of those. The third option was free writing. This is similar to the process of journaling. You start with your idea and then just continue to write everything that comes to your mind about the original word. The only problem I see with this concept is that I feel like by the end of your writing your thoughts could be scattered through in an unorganized manner. The fourth idea was brain writing. This is practically the same process as free writing but you go about it in a much more organized way. The fifth and final idea is a word list. This is different from free writing and brain writing because you do it in a list form. This could be more helpful for a lot of people because as the writing said, lists are apart of our daily lives, which would make the style more familiar. 

Ideas for Sippy Cup

Medicine Bottle Lid For Sippy Cup

Friends animal designs for cups

Camelback mouth piece 

Measurements on the side of the cup

Full handles to help from spilling

Color Police

The image above was what I chose for good color design. I think all of the bright colors help a persons eye. Also the bright colors contrasting against the darker colors on the logo looks very nice.

The next image is my choice for bad color design. You can hardly read the words because the background is practically the same color. 

Color theory lecture pictures

After the color theory lecture we were instructed to take twenty-four pictures with different types of color processes. those were, Harmonious hues, Contrasting Hues, Contrasting Values, Harmonious Values, Harmonious Chroma, Contrasting Chroma, Limited Palette, Soften Contrast, Dominance of color, Transitions in color, Use of neutrals, and Key the color.
Below, are some pictures I took that fall into one of these categories

 The photo above falls under the Key of color pictures. I used a filter to make the picture feel cooler than it did when I first took it.

This picture would be a color dominance photo. Even thought there are lots of colors in the picture your eyes are automatically drawn to the pink on the flowers. 

The picture above of the Jelly Fish would be contrasting Hue. Both of the colors are very bright but they still compliment each other well. 

Ten Principles of Good Design

In the article "Ten Principles of Good Design" written by Dieter Rams, he explains what aspects can make something a good and useful design. He lists them out into ten basic elements, each showing design in a different way. I thought that this article had some really good insight. It was set up in a way that makes it easy for everyone to understand, even if design isn't your expertise. Also, having a summary of each principle is a good way to make it easier to understand what he means with all ten of the principles.