Project 3 | Visual analysis

Week 10 | Week 14

Mohamed Hammam Chebel (0342483) /B'des Creative media (hons)
Design principles
Taylor's university lakeside campus

Project 3 | Visual Analysis

Lectures Week 10 live session

In today's online class we were introduced to this topic " visual analysis". the lecturer explained what is visual analysis and the importance of it.

Visual analysis is a crucial phase in visual literacy, it helps us see art in the right way, understand, and criticize any sort of artwork out there, a poster a painting ...etc 

It's good for everybody to learn and apply this technique to see the unseen and to read between the lines.

there are three main phases in visual analysis which are  

• Observation
• Analysis
• Interpretation 

Observation is looking closely to the details of a design, identifying the visual elements like shapes, colors, texture ...etc

it is basically describing what you see in a design in the right words.

Analysis is based on the observation, it's making more detailed and specific description of the items observed in a design, see the design principles in that artwork and describe how are they combined to make the whole art stands out.

Interpretation is simply facts about the analysed design, it can be about when and where that design was created, by whom? and the idea of the one who made it behind that artwork.

Instructions

The project

in this project we were asked to select a design (poster, billboard etc) and apply the phases of visual analysis, after that we are to explore more on similar designs and come up with our own design in A4 or A3 size.

Inspiration  

For this project I decided on focusing on flat design, since I rarely used adobe illustrator or vector art in general, I wanted to dig in this style, observe and learn in order for me to execute it in my final artwork.

those are some of the artworks that inspired me to choose this type of design.

Fig 1.1

https://society6.com/product/world-to-see-0cn_print?curator=paolotonon

Fig 1.2

Chosen design 

Fig 1.3

Chosen design

OBSERVATION

This artwork is in portrait format. It is a simple illustration, a circle is placed at the top of the canvas with three layers of wavy shapes. As for visual element as you can see the main colors used in this artwork are beige, blue and orange. Blue is used for the wavy shapes, each one the background is in beige color. the overall design looks flat and 2 dimensional with a beautiful light texture to it. The circle perfectly traced, the curved shapes are curved with no angles and inner shadows placed on top of each other to create depth illusion.

ANALYSIS

The design is symmetrically balanced, the sun is placed right in the middle of the canvas. Emphasis is on the sun because of its unique darker tone, the observer will distinguish the sun from the other elements easily. the first thing you see is the sun then the waves, the sun is a perfect circular shape, the waves are curved and placed in order in three layers with different blue colors which creates a feeling of depth in the image. the design is well balanced, I guess unity is the principle achieved in that artwork because all the elements have the same texture which give the feeling that it's drawn on a real canvas.

INTERPRETATION 

This illustration is designed for home decoration purposes by a company called "society6". This company has a lot of artists and illustrators, the design above is considered as flat design, built with simple shapes and colors, this company is famous of doing similar designs.The artwork is considered as modern digital art. The artist goal behind this design is to satisfy the customer , to customize his life with unique art products that speaks to us. To make houses a comfortable place to live in. The design is a landscape so it will add a good mood to the interior of a house especially if the house is lacking organic elements like plants, also the colors appearing in the design are picked carefully, each one of the colors has a psychological meaning, The blue represents peace and comfort it causes the body to release calming chemicals, the beige color means purity and innocence.

Ideas for the final design 

Sketches 

Fig 1.4

Idea 1

    

Fig 1.5

Idea 2

Fig 1.6 

Idea 3

As you noticed I went with the "Sahara" theme, I always wanted to go on a wild solo trip to the Sahara desert in my country, but i never had the chance to, I'm always thinking about visiting that amazing beautiful place. My final design is inspired by the figures above [1.1-1.3], I will try to use the same techniques and use similar colors, my final design will be a flat illustration with minor shading. I will mainly focus on picking the right colors and making neat shapes that will please the observer.

While sketching those ideas, I noticed that this style is easy to execute, also the design only contains two to three colors and simple shapes. I can make a living out of this in the future.

Feedback 

Add your personal touch to the design, it can be a text or any other design element.

Change the blank background to a darker color like in figure 1.4.

Final design variations

For the final design I've chosen Fig 1.5 as the lecturer suggested, i added text and changed the background as Miss jinchy advised me last week.

Here are the variations I made for the last design.

Fig 2.1

the overall look of the design

(no text)

changed the background to a darker blue color

Fig 2.2

Added a moon and faded stars and text

Fig 2.3 

changed the background to a lighter color, added text inside a faded box.

Fig 2.4

sunset theme instead of night theme

Fig 2.5

As I mentioned in the previous description, I really want to visit the Sahara in my country in a solo trip. I did a lot of research about a famous area called DJANET. I made my design look like a travel poster by adding the typographical element to it. Honestly I do like it more with the text. I chose "Broadway regular" as a typeface, I wrote the word DJANET in capital letters, I think this typeface works well for this theme. 

i did not change the sand dunes in all these variations, since it's not a realistic design, the color doesn't have to match with the background. 

Final design 

I chose Fig 2.4 as my final design, because it represents the heat of Sahara, also I think the colors are matching better then the other variations.

Fig 2.6

Final design