Photography

Photography, in conception, is the process, activity and art of creating still pictures by recording radiation on a radiation-sensitive medium, such as a photographic film, or electronic image sensors. Photography uses foremost radiation in the UV, visible and near-IR spectrum. Light reflected or emitted from objects form a real image on a light sensitive area. It’s one of the effective ways to convey emotions among many skills.

Look at the following pictures. They convey the dancer’s attitudes to dance. Dance is about graceful movements, swirling fabric, emotive postures, translation of feeling and mood through positions, blur of moving hands and feet, rhythmic expressions etc. These Photos show a handful of dancer portraits which are expressive and always moving. The dancers are of all ages, styles, cultures and backgrounds. The photographer captures their lively body language and this kind of beauty may easily provoke people’s emotion, like feelings of perfect dance movements or thinking about what the dancers’ faces expressions convey.

Alamela

By: Frankie Fong

Fanny Ara. Flamenco Dancer. (#6)

By: Nikolay Chigirev

The photographer handles the light perfectly and it helps make her posture show a lot of strength and a high degree of emotions, may be pain or power and so on. She seems strong and independent. That’s what we call “drawing with light”.

s a f e

By: John Andre Aasen

Moreover, the text of a photo is of great importance. It usually introduces the topic and content of the photo, especially a photo shows the social image. The following picture is about celebrating the Sun Blessing. The photographer wrote a back story to tell us his experience of attending the celebration. 

"I arrived near 5 a.m., just before the gathering started. For the first couple of hours I just spoke to the people who were arriving, asking them questions. No one minded me being there, and I think that it helped that it was a celebratory event—they were mainly waiting for the Grand Rebbe to arrive and hear him speak.

They’d erected a platform for him, about 10 feet above the crowd, and at some point someone said to me, “Do you want to go up there? He’s not here yet, so you can take some pictures.”The men helped me climb up. It was an ideal vantage point, and it was an overcast day, which made it easier to shoot with just available light.

But soon it got crowded and, since I didn’t have any other way to exit, I climbed down to a flatbed truck that was supporting the platform, and that’s where I took this photo—right before the Grand Rebbe appeared to speak to them about the Sun Blessing."

We can see from the text that the photographer enjoys photographing in Brooklyn, it not only helps him to learn about different people’s life, but also gives him the opportunity to interact with them. It’s significant for a photographer to experience because they are just like a storyteller. Photography is the process of telling beautiful stimulating stories to people. The image is the surface of the story while the text may give a deep understanding of it. It may change the meaning of a photo by telling what really happens, not just judges from what we see at first sight.

Overall, a successful photo conveys true emotions that people may resonate from the heart and have feelings of sad or happy or others. 

Reference:

1.Spencer, D A (1973). The Focal Dictionary of Photographic Technologies. Focal Press. p. 454. ISBN 240 50747 9.

Development of Creative Thought and Structure in Illustration and Graphic Art

Illustration and graphic work is all about creativity. It is the crucial point of making great innovative designs. We should always ask ourselves the question that ‘how to create our own originality?’ Maybe there are numerous methods for that, but the most effective and primitive one is overcoming mindsets. Everyone has his own habitual thinking. For example, when I want to describe a real object I tend to think about the outline and the colour that can be showed by hand drawing. For me, image is always prior to meaning. That’s my thinking rules which I should break all the time. To be specific, I believe that overcoming mindsets will helpfully enlarge a designer’s vision and to some extent it can guide illustrators to the field they have never reached. Inspiration comes in the process of discarding habitual mode ideas and searching for new fresh creativity. Free from conventions and preconceptions calls for continual challenging activities for designers. They need careful observations and critical thinking methodology to break the habitual rules. Generally speaking, overcoming mindsets involves in breaking through traditional patterns, utilizing fresh images and bold colours, matching totally different elements or working media etc.

The following group of pictures is a typical example of breaking the rules and developing creative elements for design work. The designer uses gesture to represent faces and renders fingers to be mouths. They show a combination of different elements.

 Working environment is of great importance for designers because creativity is more than the internal thinking process of individuals. A creative working environment can help designers generate inspiration and get into the working mood quickly. Moreover, a stimulating space can allow creative people to interact and broaden their minds.  The following pictures show the workplace of Google which is full of creativity and fresh ideas. People uses slide instead of stairs to go downstairs, chairs are replaced by boats and the wall of rest rooms are covered with green grass and colourful flowers. Overall, designers need to manage a creative environment so that they can be beneficial to their work.

Platforms and working methodology

Platforms that chose by illustrators can be used as an effective way to establish their own markets and find their stable clients. There are all kinds of platforms like publishing, advertising, branding, fashion, installation etc. For instance, the following picture shows the album art of he Rolling Stones “Love You Live” in 1977s, it is created by Andy Warhol, the famous avant-garde artist. The cover is a portrait of the lead singer biting at one’s hand. The illustrator used strong colours to stress the name of the album and the rock band, which makes the album more artistic and represent the free creation spirit of the band.

Moreover, this cover may attract more rock fans and as a successful marketing strategy, it would gain more benefits. Recently, a increasing number of illustrators tend to create their own-label products such as T-shirts, shoes and so on. Generally, young people are their clients. This trend indicates the diversification of the art market.

Creating our own design process is of great significance. I gather experience from every visual practice of mine and gradually make my own design process. I believe that a thorough and versatile process may contribute to my independent work. Meanwhile, I may gain more professional skills from researching the most appropriate way for me. A great design needs a combination of working medium or method. As the following picture shows, it’s my original script of a design. The basic idea or inspiration comes from the dragon and fish. I intend to show a Chinese style, so I drew the sketch at first step, then copied it and use my computer to revise its shape and fill it with strong color. After that I added some words and focused my eyes on the layout and typestyle. This process of mine is a combination of handwork and digital technology and I will try more method such as photography, 3D sculptures, model-making and so on because they are beneficial to my design.

 Reference:

1. Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. 2002.

2.Official website of the Rolling stone

Film structure and characters

Most films have the 3-act structure. The beginning, middle, and end. At the beginning of the film, the protagonist often appears in a stage of equilibrium. In other words, the character often begins with a harmonious, peaceful situation. Then something happens to break the balance and lead to a sequence of events which may challenge the protagonist. After that, the protagonist will experience much frustration and in this process it may change and strive to survive in the adversity. In the end, the problems or events will be solved and reach the final equilibrium. For instance, the movie “Shrek Forever After” of which the protagonist is the monster Shrek has the 3-act structure. The film starts with a very harmonious scene: Shrek, her wife princess Fiona and their Triplets baby lived a peaceful happy life. Shrek has become a domesticated family man. However, Shrek was fed up with the life which had nothing to do with a real monster’s life day by day, so he became anxious and fretful. Finally after quarreling with Fiona one day, He left his cozy home, looking for the things a real monster should do. This scene is a transition to the middle. Then Shrek met the Rumpelstiltskin who offer him a contract that would help him back to the old life, Shrek couldn't resist the offer so he agreed. Rumpy had a pretty good deal – all Shrek had to give him to get a day off was a day from his own life. Unfortunately the day that Rumpy decided to take out of Shrek's life was the day that he was born, meaning that, since Shrek was never born, he never existed. Shrek finds himself in a twisted, alternate version of far Away, where Rumpy has now ascended to king, ogres are hunted, and Fiona was a hunting ogre and the leader of a bunch of other hunting ogres. At the third act, Shrek regretted and decided to pursue Fiona again using his own ability. He helped Fiona beat enemies and she finally remembered him. In the film, Shrek had changed two times, and the second time he woke up to reality which make the movie a happy ending. 

Character design plays a pivotal role in film-making. There are four aspects: protagonist, antagonist, dialogue and stereotype. In “Shrek Forever After”, Shrek is the protagonist who experienced a conflict with the antagonist Rumpelstiltskin. Rumpy is the cause of the conflict, he used Shrek’s intention to be a real ogre to frame him up and won himself a large fortune. The dialogue between them was started with the contract which made Shrek get into trouble. It shows Rumpy’s evil face and let us knows his bad image. The movie is kind of stereotype which describes a man beat his enemy and finally live a happy life with his wife. Shrek, as the following picture shows, is a monster, a fearful ogre, but he has a kind heart. He never fear people and got very well with others. He is a man full of courage and a good husband. In the film, he got lost in the quiet life at first but finally found what he really wanted.

The Rumpelstiltskin has a red brown hair, looks blackness and contemptible. He is a man who only cares about money and the end justifies the means. As a result, he reaped as what one has sown.

Other characters like Fiona, donkey, they are all interplayed. Without donkey and other friends help, Shrek will not find the real thing he need. Similarly, without Rumpelstiltskin, there would be no conflicts. To some extend, he is the essential role of the film. Fiona is a important role, too. Without her Shrek would not realize his fault.

In conclusion, Film structure decides the narrative pattern and the way it communicate to audience. Meanwhile, the character makes up the basis of the film. They influence and interact each other.

Reference:
1."Shrek Forever After (2010)". Box Office Mojo. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved August 22, 2010.

Visualize the originality

In visual communication practice, we need a tool for making the ideas and inspiration specific and developing our creativities. This tool is the RVJ, which is the essence of visualizing our originality. How can we make it? I think the key point is using your hand to draw and create your own visua language.

Working by hand when the inspiration comes, draw or mark it in a paper. This can be really helpful to extend ideas and explore what you need in the creation. In the process of drawing or mark making, the eyes, hands and brains will be used at the same time. This kind of synergy may greatly visualize the scattered inspiration and hypothesis in mind so that we may feel easy to find it out. For instance, the following pictures are Leonardo’s manuscript. They show us his process of design, his inspiration, and originality. Instead of using words, he just drew them, described his thought in figures. There are no intact figures in the picture; all of them are just primary drafting show structures and shapes. It’s better using the way to approach what we really need in creating.

Drawing has no limitation, so it is not just about pens and pencils. We can use many kinds of tools to do this work by hand such as chalks, stones, or as the following picture shows—the cassettes.

 The designer uses cassettes to make the image of the rock stars, to make up their curly hair, their body and convey his attitude and spirit of rock music. It’s really vivid and creative. In addition, I do not think the computer will be work, because it can not keep up with the inspiration in mind.

Another important method to visualize what we think is developing the visual language. Compared with the textural language, visual language which helps us establish our own visable visual vocabulary makes the confused ideas comprehensible and is more effective than it. Visual language, in my view, is just like mind maps. A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. It is used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid to organizing information, solving problems, and writing. This kind of maps can show the cue of one’s thoughts. Visual language has the same function, which may develop our ideas or describe what we think in a better visual way. For example, the following picture is from HOKUSOEM, a Japanese painter. She uses pens to record her daily life. She makes a sequence of visual stories to show her life as a single woman, her traveling experience, her happiness and sorrow etc. 

Overall,drawing and develop our own visual language is of great significance in visual communication practice or the RVJ.

Reference:

1. Buzan, Tony. (2000). The Mind Map Book, Penguin Books, 1996.

2. della Chiesa, Angela Ottino (1967). The Complete Paintings of Leonardo da Vinci.

3. hitorigurashi na hibi shufuto-seikatsusha(2010/7/2)

vis-com

Legibility is one of the critical principles in visual communication. Generally, it can be affected by type, layout, colour, and image etc. The typeface may be clear and easy to understand instead of abstract and elusive. Sometimes a simple typeface works more than a complicated one. The type size also must be appropriate, for example, the headlines in the front page of a newspaper should be big enough to catch the eyes of readers on the first sight. Conversely, the type size of routine news should be smaller. As the following picture shows that a big headline is easy to be found and effectively reinforces the theme of the newspaper.

Layout affects the legibility as well. It makes the visual structure which decides the communicating forms of messages while colour and image make the visual content. Look at the following picture, it is not legible because of the color and image. The background images and the headline are all black and white which seem to have no point. The patterns are confused and the image is not clear. Also, the title of the book is not legible if it is been put in a book store. Images are used for making complement explanation to the text, which makes the theme more vivid and graphic. The second pictures is a good example.Pictures and texts perfect combine each other, clear, legible and improve the readability.

Designers use many devices to affect the visual hierarchy. Look at the following picture, it is a creative resume. Where do you look first? I first see the name of the employee, but next I cannot figure out which part is more important and the colours are not changed in each part which makes me feel confused. In terms of grouping, the three diagrams are of identical importance so that the employer may not quickly find the information they want. Compare with it, although the second resume is not that creative, but it is more clear and simple, the colours are just white and blue which makes me feel comfortable to read. The content’s themes are obvious and easy to be found. In addition, the layout and type are appropriately combined with each other that the composition of each part is orderly listed below.

In summary, legibility and the visual hierarchy are all the important principles of visual communication and they promote each other. A good visual hierarchy will make the structure clear and tidy so that it may have a nice legibility which will communicate more effective messages to the audience.

Reference:
1.Wyszecki, Günther; Stiles, W.S. (1982). Color Science: Concepts and Methods, Quantitative Data and Formulae (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley Series in Pure and Applied Optics.
2.Wade, T. and Sommer, S. eds.

The key point of illustration

An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information (such as a story, poem or newspaper article) by providing a visual representation graphically. This definition shows us that one of the key points of illustration is the deeply understanding. How can an illustrator better understand the meaning of a subject? He need to focus on a few questions like what the text intends to show us, in which aspects can it be extended, what way is the best to express its meaning in visual communication. Then it should come into the practice part. This important part includes many procedures. First, the illustrator should research all the information or data of the text or narrative by observation, collecting, studying and exploring. Observe the main idea of the text, collect the facts it shows, study the significance of every discussion or example, and explore the things that confused you. During this part, an illustrator will have a basic understanding of the text. Then we may summary the text and try to extend it in our own words. This is all the preparation for visual representation and the understanding of the illustrator decides whether the illustration success or not. There are a set of pictures which propagandize the World War I.Support the Red Cross, and free lending activities. They might be used in the newspapers beside the texts that refer to the World War I. The illustrators must research all the information about the war and make a great deal of visual practice, and then extend the theme to several aspects such as family, soldiers, hospitals and so on. 

Inspiration plays an important part in visual creation. It’s a sudden creativity in the process of observation, collecting, studying and exploring. That is the preparation that mentioned above. Inspiration derives from our daily life, every place we go, everything that we see, feel and everybody we have talked to. It’s all around us. We should have a pair of eyes that good at finding and rich imagination is necessary, too. Write down the inspiration immediately when you think of something. The origin of inspiration influences the style of the creation. A modest, pure and touching painting often derives from the sincere emotions and bright wishes of the illustrator who lives a modest, happy life. As the following picture shows, the illustrator’s inspiration comes from the swimming pool which is full of water. It’s creative indeed and will better convey the theme.Excellent inspiration is the essence of making a excellent illustration. 

In conclusion, illustration is the process of understanding, summary, extending and transforming. Inspiration is the precondition of creation.

Reference:
1. Ivan Viola and Meister E. Gröller (2005). "Smart Visibility in Visualization". In: Computational Aesthetics in Graphics, Visualization and Imaging. L. Neumann et al. (Ed.)

2. Brogan, T.V.F. "Inspiration" in Alex Preminger and T.V.F. Brogan, eds., The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. 609-610.

Originality and recontextualised ideas in contemporary culture

With the development of media technology and diversified way of contemporary communications, artists will sometimes imitate the basic originalities of the early art works by drawing on the experience of their art elements, styles, and form etc. They are not trying to plagiarize because they often use new methods such as photography, collage, computer technology and so on to make changes on the basis of the early work. These changes involve from the methods of creating the work—media, to the art form and the intention of it. They know that what is the essence of notion originality and combine their own creativity with the existing one. For example, compare the following two pictures,the first one is the advertisement of Ashanti Beer, the second is the old Japanese painting “The great Wave of Kanagawa”, by Hokusai. We can easily find that they are similar in a way.The advertisement’s inspiration comes from the old painting, but it has quite different intention and audience from that one. The old woodblock printing is a study of contrasts between thundering waves and the small but mighty Mt. Fuji. which is just for enjoyment and only has decorated value in old times. Now artist borrowed the same element—waves and even the same composition of picture combine with the new visual technology to make it an attractive advertisement which is showed to drinking lovers, it finally has the commercial value.

The selectively borrowing of ideas, forms and styles from other’s work, from historical culture or other aspects of man made visual or non visual culture brings modern people lots of benefits and better promote the society process. The inherent in the process of imitate and creating is the fact that the new work recontextualises whatever it borrows to create the new work. The recontextualised idea can be contemporary in some extent. For instance, the following first picture “Venus standing in her landscape” shows the beautiful gesture of Greek goddess of love, Venus.  Compared to it, the second picture also uses the image of Venus but create a different background and shade which seems to represent a mysterious meaning. The first picture is just a regular oil painting while the second is created in new media technology. Moreover, this is a kind of cultural borrowing that whether the art elements are modern or not, it can be contemporary by new ways of creating.

In summary, originality is the essence of creating, recontextualised ideas is the way of changing, modern artist use different ways of communication and make various changes of the art forms in order to endow them with new values such as commercial values, journalism values and so on. It’s a process which show the development of visual communication.

Reference:
1.Nagata, Seiji (1995). "Hokusai: Genius of the Japanese Ukiyo-e." Kodansha International, Tokyo.
2.Hillier, Jack (1980). Art of Hokusai in Book Illustration. Sotheby Publications, London. 
3.Snyder, James; Northern Renaissance Art, 1985, Harry N. Abrams