Design 1: Mastering the Basics
Like many web designers, I came into this field via a long and meandering path. Now that I know it's what I want to be doing I really should get better at it.
I've diligently attended many conferences, read blogs, and experiment with the latest stuff. I know all about Ajax, Web 2.0, CSS, web standards, and all the rest. What I lack is a strong foundation in the core principles of design.
Yeah I've read a few color theory books. I've learned to pay attention to everything around me for inspiration. And yet as I look at the designed world we live in, I feel that I can only pick out bits and pieces to use in my own work; a typeface here, a color combination there. What I want to is truly master the processes that undergird what I'm looking at.
A core assumption of mine is that I need to learn to work with my hands. This led to my taking a drawing class last semester. I spent the fall smearing charcoal on paper. Drawing lines and blending them until my hands were black and I had an image that reasonably approximated three-dimension. I tried working with pencils and I've tinkered with ink but nothing is quite as pliant as that charcoal. It moves with your hands. It smudges and blends into itself. You can erase it and put it back. You can darken it to jet black and lighten it to a muted gray.
But drawing is almost too advanced. You make decisions before you even start drawing. You choose to crop the image a certain way or highlight particular aspects over others. What I need is a foundations class. I need some discipline.
And that's just what I'm getting this semester. I am enrolled in Design 1: Element and Form. I've attended one class and am intimidated and excited. By the end of the semester I will have created a textbook for the course. I can do the layout and typesetting digitally but all the examples, of color wheels, gradients, etc. must be painted.
Let me add here that I have never, at least not since I was a kid, painted anything.
In this class I won't learn to paint per se. Instead, I will master color. I will understand how to make precise colors and how they work together. I will understand the fundamental concepts of form.
For my first assignment I must precisely cut out a series of shapes twelve times. I must then arrange each set on a piece of paper (that I have also hand-cut) to express each of the following twelve concepts:
- Figure on ground
- Figure/ground ambiguity
- Order
- Randomness
- Symmetrical balance
- Asymmetrical balance
- Horizontal
- Vertical
- Emphasis
- Movement
This sounds easy but the assignment is graded on two levels. First I get a grade for the concepts. Each tableaux must represent one, and only one, of these concepts. The second part of the grade is for my hand work.
Today I've already gone through four or five sets of shapes trying to figure out how to use the OLFA circle cutter.
This device is handy but a little unweildy.
As frustrating as it is, this is the point. I can make circles all day long in Photoshop but I don't really understand a circle, I haven't mastered it, I haven't earned it. Cutting twelve perfect circles, keeping the square I cut them out of, and cutting the rest of my shapes before I can design with them is part of the process.
This exercise, and the rest that will be expected of me this semester, will teach me patience, a patience that casually creating shapes and textures out of thin air can never create. This is the whole point for me.
The whole thing is more than a little terrifying but I trust that my instructor will teach me what I need to know when I need to know it.
Update: Julie took this picture of me working on my homework that seemed worth adding to the post.
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3 Comments
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Who is this guy?
Congrats on picking an intimidating goal!
And the pix with the Digital Rebel XT are quite fitting.
it's interesting for me read something like this because I am making the exact opposite transition. but we have similar end goals, to better our digital designing abilities. I however have been jaded somewhat by my incredibly unproductive experience in art school.
I don't understand the big distinction between computers and other art tools. I know traditionalists like to preach about the superiority of their processes and how they work with their hands and blah blah blah. But that is them needing to bring down the value of something they feel threatened by. Working with a mouse and a monitor is no less working with your hands than using a brush and a canvas.
I have no idea what you mean when you say you don't understand a circle, and I am only further confused by how cutting a bunch of circles will make you "understand".
I am starting to work digitally and I wish I had more digital experience. I wish I had more digital classes, and more design classes. A fine art background might not teach you what you are looking for as much as design courses that can you teach you theories regarding layout, color, and typography.
I went through 4 years of art school and learned little more than fine art is all about politics and rhetoric.
Learn what you want to. But don't lose sight of your individual taste, remember there is no real right or wrong, and always keep those bullshit detectors at full power.
Smart of you to branch out and expand / reinforce your skill set. I should really take a class on principles of design myself. I bet there's a school nearby up here that'll get me started.