1. One Element, Many Patterns

    Our pattern assignments look beautiful in the gallery wall, don’t you agree? I love the many interpretations and creative approaches to patterns in your work. Great job!

  2. Stefan Sagmeister shares happy design

    Graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister takes the audience on a whimsical journey through moments of his life that made him happy — and notes how many of these moments have to do with good design.

    This is the video we watched in class as an introduction to the Final Project. What did you think of all the examples we saw in today’s lecture? How can you use your work to make a positive change in your community?

  3. Designing a Visual Narrative: Found Materials

  4. Creating a Visual Language

  5. Primary Geometric Shapes

    There were a lot of great compositions for the Primary Geometric Shapes assignment. The biggest improvement I saw was the attention to craftsmanship and relationship of the shapes to the margins. 

    How can you challenge yourself to push abstraction through your forms and compositions?

    What kind of composition achieves an effective figure/ground relationship?

    After today’s lecture, you should be more comfortable with the foundational Gestalt principles of design. A firm grasp of these principles is probably the most powerful tool at a designer’s disposal. Alternately, those who don’t have a deep understanding of Gestalt are often lost when faced with design projects and imitate compositions from other designers, being relegated to cliché motifs and layouts. Resolve to learn the Gestalt principles of perception and you will see how your work improves.

    You can find more information on today’s lecture by going to the library or bookstore and browsing for books on Gestalt Principles of design. You can also find good resources online.

    Do you have any interesting links on visual language that you’d like to share with the class?

  6. Tangram Assignment

    Thanks for a great inclass critique of your tangram solutions. Your comments, feedback and participation was great. Overall, the solutions were creative, dynamic and unexpected.

    A few tips to improve your composition in future assignments: consider relationship of the form to the margin, activate the whole space, evaluate the figure/ground relationship (design the positive AND negative space), and pay attention to craftsmanship. 

    Good job everyone!!