Dimension, Scale, and Space

        Perspective and dimension are important in both manga and graphic design. By applying depth and space into the composition will allow the  picture to have reality and  the visual message that the content conveyed will be more persuative.  In the picture above, the relative size of the hands and the body act as a cue of depth. It shows the position of each part of the character's body. The shadow on the ground show the distance between the character and the ground which also make the character to be much more real. The flow of the clouds in the sky,and linear perspective and the texture gradient of the ground are working together as other cues of depth and space. Viewers that see those cues will perceive the dimention in the picture and sucessfully put enough emphasis on the character.  Because of dimension and space, the character is effectivly expressed.

Tone and Color

           Illustration, which can be used on book cover, packaging, or the content of books, is a good example of utilizing elements like tone and color. Tone is operating significantly in the illustraion above. Tone helps to define lightness and darkness in the graphic and creates the feeling of dimension. Tone also tells how light is reflecting on the subjects like clothes and statue in the illustration which shows the reality. Tone let people to see the different levels on the image and disguinsh the object.

           Tone is usually interacting with another visual element which is dimension. Tone shows shade and light that help reinforcing the sense of reality and distance. It aids other method sof plotting space to visualize the objects.

          Color is also important in illustraion because color can stimulate emotion feeling and define the characteristics of the subject in the illustrantion. Color can convey messeges together with tone. For example, color tells the material of swords in the image above. Moreover, depending on what kind of color theme that the illustrator used, the illustraion can have different feeling. Using black, grey and deep blue can shows elegancy and seriousness. Color can also used to show the contrast by applying complementary color just like using black and white.

          Color and shape have interesting relationship because shape always have a color, or you may say that color helps define shapes. Since color has strong hiearchy, things that has similar color are more easily seen as one shape. Furthermore, color and shape together can convey more message rather than just by one of them all alone. Circle is just a circle but a yellow round shape can be interpreted as sun or coins.

Web Design

LINE
 












           Line is the basic structure of web design. It can be  frameworks and textbox on the web page or it can be implied as the boundary of two blocks. It also can be border, divider, contour, or decoration.  Even though it may not be seen on finished work, lines can also be important in planning website like grids and columns to provide clear structure whic increase readability . It is also a useful too to connect elements and enhance comprehension of design.




 

SCALE
 










  

      Scale is important in web design when dealing with the lay out of the web page.  Right kind of scale can relieve viewer's eye and help convey the visual messege more clearly.
For example, you do not want your header and your side bar to be too large that make your main content, where you put the most of information, does not have enough space.
Each element should be put in a appropriate scale and proportion according to their function.As architect has the famous "Golden Mean", web designer also apply golden ratio to arrange their contents. They use the ration to decide the size of different columns. Using scale in design can make it aesthetically pleasing.



COLOR



     













         Color is so essential in most of the visual design field and web design is not in the outside of this range. Color creates feeling and there are many color theories in the world. Designers have to choose a good color theme to reflect the site they are designing. It is also important to consider your audience because different colosr convey different messages and connect different emotinal feeling. For instantce, children like brighter color and men tend to prefer cooler colors. Color also has fashion and seasonality , so it is important to consider a color theme in web design.



Reference




http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/other/the-golden-ratio-in-web-design/

The Synatical Guidelines

I found this book cover is not so good because it looks
uncomfortable. The monotone background created the feeling of leveling and the layout of the types are balanced. However, it doesn't tell much about the book and it can hardly catch people's attention. I think the readers would be easily misunderstand the book just by looking its cover.

I belive this one is more appealing and better. The layout of this bookcover is imbalance and it makes a focus to people. The background looks very dynamic since the strokes  creates stress and suggest a feeling of motion. It show the impact of the loudspeaker which relates to title of "Blogging" and its influence. I thnk it conveyed the message more sucessfully.

Visual Language

                          

Manga is the Japanese name for comic and  pictures above are two different manga series that are translated in Chinese.

The picture on the left is showing a fighting between three monsters and a "gorilla" is running away from the battle after it see that one of the monsters is eating  two other monsters.

First, it shows the scene of the fighting and then shows the power of the winning one (it begins to eat another). After that the scene changes to the "gorilla" and shows its expression. The dialogue frame is in the irregular spiny shape to show the cries and emotion within them. Finally, the panels are showing scenes that the "gorilla" decides to run away.

The layout  and sequence of the panels is according to the reading style of Japanese which is the right to the left. The eye movement of people who used to this reading style will read from the right to the left and from the top to the bottom.

The picture on the right is the conversation between the women and the man. It shows the rejection of the woman and the response of the man. It emphasis on the scenes and the dialogue of the women in order to show her feeling and her expression.

In the manga, exaggerated facial expressions and movements are used to show certain qualities  like humor, scare, and surprise. Also, the background under character may be used to show the feeling of the character by applying focus line, lighting, flower, bubble, mist,hazy rings, shadow,etc.

Visual Thinking Research

The result of my brother

The result of mine

For the stained-glass one, basically it just need the least amount of strokes to finish the pattern.
Both of us tried to draw the inner part first then finished the outer circle. The drawing process for inner parts are pretty similar: we used longest lines to reduce the turns. However, our procedures of how we deal the outer parts are different. I tried to finishe the circle first and completed the last two straight lines and he tried to finished the straigt lines first. Therefore, the numbers of strokes we used are different.
For the space one, it also the least amount of lines possible to close all the spacepods. Both of us failed to use the least amount of lines ,which is four, even though our strategies are similar. We want to draw lines that can across space between as many spacepods as possible and then close up them. However, we failed to find the best spot. His result is 5 and my result is 7.

Feature Channels and Visual Search

The picture above is NIKE ID poster for the Nike Store.


 

People's attention is unconciously attracted by certain elements and those elements are feature channels.  We can easily notice some differences over others. If we apply powerful channels in the design, we can easily catch people's attention. For example, the outdoor poster above would be seem to be pop out when we pass by becasue our color feature channel would dectect the red orange background preattentively. It can grab pedestrians' attention. Using feature channels can help important things to be first identified.


Reference 


http://blog.largeformatposters.com/smart-design/how-to-make-striking-poster-designs/