Design Principle/Project 03

6/16/2020 - 6//2020/ Starting Date - Ending Week
Zhao Hanbo /0343769
Bachelor of Design in Creative Media/Design Principle
Project 03


Visual Analysis

This weeks lecture was on Visual Analysis. Visual analysis is studying the different design elements in an artwork and explaining it in words. The Analysis is in 3 phases which is observation, analysis and interpretation. This project is divided into 2 parts. The first part is visual analysis of a poster (the 3 phases). The second part is using that visual analysis to create a piece of our own.

figure1.1:Exhibition Poster: Schweiz Japan. Stephanie Cuérel / Josh Schaub. 2015

Observation:

Poster just use black and white colour, in the central part have nothing there just black. And the black central part surrounded by big white texts, and the texts used sans-serif front. Then I see lots of people's name behind the big texts, all these name are small. These texts formed a rectangle. Lets check the detail part of this poster, I can see lots of stuff interspersed in the text, for example: screw, temari ball(a traditional Japanese toy), latern, dust in firework, dialog box in comix, building stick figure,etc.

Analysis:

This is a symmetrically stable composition poster. Generally, in such composition, the focus are in the central, but in this poster, has nothing there. However, the black part of central did a very important role that is make the white tittle looks more conspicuous(contrast). And the black part can give viewer lots of imagination. Lets see the other part, we can clearly see the words“日本”“スイス” “JAPAN”“SCHWEIZ”. And there are many details, you can see some of them represent Schweiz, some of them represent Japan. The big siz text on the top layer, and the small size text at the bottom layer, the detail image elements interspersed in the design, some Japanese character beside the big text. All these composition seems very chaos, but give the poster a sense of hierarchy and make the whole poster rich and interesting(unity). Then the whole work is in a symmetrically stable composition, so even there are lots of elements there still looks tidy and stable(balance).

Interpretation:

This is a poster designed for a exhibition about Japanese and Swizerland graphic designer's work in calm&punk gallery, Tokyo, Japan. The symmetrically stable composition are showed in this poster is also similar with calm&punk gallery's layout. This gallery is also a rectangle buiding.

figure1.2: calm&punk gallery's layout

This poster design by a Swizerland graphic designer——Josh Schaub. But in this poster's central part let me associated to a usually design skill in Japanese design——余白(yohaku),it also have same means words in English, that is negative space. I guess, the Swizerland graphic designer maybe want shot out to this Japanese design style.

Yohaku: The beauty of the extra white, the space left empty, is called yohaku no bi in Japanese. This is a concept borrowed from Chinese landscape ink wash paintings, where clouds, mist, sky, and water could be left unpainted. Their presence was suggested only by the carefully rendered edges of the surrounding landscape.

figure1.3: Yohaku in Japanese paint (Pine Trees

, 16th century, by Hasegawa Tohaku)

figure1.4: Yohaku in Japanese product design（Naoto Fukasawa）

figure1.5: Yohaku in Japanese architectural design（Tadao Antou）

Design

figure2.1：final design poster 1-bauhaus&yohaku

figure2.2：final design poster 2-WANG SHU

figure2.3：final design poster 3-MA YANSONG

Rationale:

When I first saw the middle part of the poster I chose, I thought of 'Less is more'. This is what the third-generation principal of the Bauhaus said, so I decided to make a poster about the Bauhaus.

At week 13's lecture, Ms'Jinchi gave me a lot of inspiration. After the Ms'Jinchi's feedback, I decided to make a series of posters about Chinese architects and use the technique of the poster I analyzed.

Then I chose Wang Shu and Ma Yansong as the architects who made the posters. In both posters, I only used black and white and gray as the color, and then left a negative space in the middle. The purpose is to give the entire poster a sense of breath.