ordinary yet meaningful poster!

I was reading about color theory when I saw this poster. Actually, it has been in my room a long time since it belongs to my roommate. However, after the reading, I found this poster kind of interesting. It is the depiction of Che Guevara, the famous revolutionary. I found that this poster is somehow following the color theory. Instead of using the exact picture, the artist chose to transform Che’s face into a graphic, which is more universal, more people can understand the meaning. The graphic also consists of many colors. Color can provide a very strong emphasis. It can also create visual surprise by the use of color discord. The technique simply means you juxtapose odd colors so that it creates an unusual combination. Disturbing yet attention grabbing is one of its advantages. The poster attracts the audiences by its strange combination such as a green with a pink or a red with a blue. These extraordinary mixtures of colors grab the audiences’ attention and emphasize the meaning of the poster. And as you can see, the middle depiction is the only one with white and black combination. It attracts the audience’s eyes and conveys the most meaning because it shows the most details and emotions of Che’s expression.

deception in visual sensation.

Color deceives.

It is almost impossible to see a color alone and it is almost always that we perceive many colors at a time. Referring to the Gestalt theory, we tend to perceive things as a whole. Therefore, we tend to see color as a whole. We see the interaction of colors. However, color deceives. People cannot remember certain color exactly as it is. Our visual memory is very poor. A single color can achieve many different roles. Same color, under certain situations, can be seen as many colors. Artists can make one color looks like two by altering backgrounds and the more different the backgrounds are, the stronger the influence they have. By contrast, two colors can be perceived as one. Different colors can look as if they are the same if place in different grounds. You should sometimes try it by yourself! Try to cut a piece of colored paper, place it on different grounds and amaze yourself how color deceives us!

pictures taken from:

http://asnailpace.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/crowded_crayon_colors3.jpg

http://www.stanford.edu/class/linguist34/Unit_13/graphics/colors_alcohol.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/5/5681426_c652e6de08.jpg

color lies!

Optical mixture is one of the color theories. It states that when two colors are perceived simultaneously, they could be seen as combined and merged into one new color. In other words, colors are mixed in our perception, not on the canvas. The value of a color varies with its combination with other colors. This technique has been widely used by impressionists. Instead of mixing blue and yellow color physically, the artist would paint the two colors next to each other so that the audience will perceive the color green in their mind. This would work better with distant view because colors are mixed, at a distance in our eyes.

Another side of this phenomenon is that the change of one single color can modify the color combinations of the entire design. It can alter the light and weight of the original design and sometimes it even changes the emotion. When white is added to the image, it tends to be lighter and this happen vice versa with black color. This incident is called the Bezold Effect. For example, the picture below shows the combination of white and black color on one design. The altering backgrounds grab the audience’s attention and emphasize the picture’s meaning. If the background were all black, the emotion and meaning of the color would be different. This shows the impact of the Bezold Effect on designs.

pictures taken from:

http://fineartamerica.com/images-medium/flower-painting-impressionism-flower--original-art-by-impressionism-oil-painting-artist-rybakow-valery-rybakow.jpg

http://imagecache5.art.com/p/LRG/16/1686/4L61D00Z/ginette-callaway-monets-bridge--impressionism-by-ginette.jpg

http://www.filecluster.com/screenshots/87479.jpg

psych side of color !?

Have you ever heard about warm/cool colors?

In somewhat ways, colors can have psychological effects on people. Because we tend to relate color with physical objects, color can be perceived warm or cool. For example, we think of red and orange as warm colors, probably because we associate those colors with the sun, which is hot. On the other hand, blue and green are considered cool colors, simply because we link them to sky or grass which provide calming and relaxing feelings. Therefore, selecting a color for each room in your house is quite important since it can affects your emotion.

Light color makes your room seems larger and brighter. For instance, red gives energetic feeling to the room. Amazingly, it can stimulate conversations between people! Orange, another bright color, provides excitement. This color would perfectly fit your fitness room in order for you to exercise vigorously.

On the other hand, dark color makes your room more sophisticated and relaxed. Purple or violet for example, this color gives the room a sense of relaxation and luxury. Many hotels take this advantage and decorate their rooms with this color in order to achieve the heiress atmosphere. Blue is another cool color, which also offers a relaxing feeling. The color itself looks calming. No wonder this color works best with bedrooms. Because colors create atmospheres that people response to, carefully choosing the color of your room is important!

pictures taken from:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEQfsA-c71I0oTcfPvn_wCDvGfD2heBKPa9GPuICDgfzM7212b_NwIrqDSkoeSEHjRchv5LMXt77VXD0v5UE191nP6Jg2EqGWIJrBjq8ZrHHDdkHHWZM4Zu7Gsx24hgXLoJorgnx-gylT8/s400/red-living-room-design-582x404.jpg

http://www.aboutbar.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/modern-bathroom-with-violet-dominant.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3121/2876913357_a00e216c2e.jpg

some information taken from:

http://freshome.com/2007/04/17/room-color-and-how-it-affects-your-mood/

sustainability !!!

Sustainability!

Is that word sound so familiar to you? You would probably said YES! :D

Nowadays, sustainability is a big issue all over the world. Finally, people start to worry about how they consume. Often when we talk about objects, people link them to design. But isn’t design contrast to the idea of sustainability?

In some perspectives, design is the problem. According to Nathan Shedroff, the author of the book Design is the problem, there’s no such thing as sustainable design! Therefore, to get rid of all the environmental problems design brings, designers should combine design with sustainability. But how???

There are several guidelines to solve this problem. First of all, a design should be useable. If it is very precious, people will keep it longer. So designers should design things that are meaningful. Second of all, a design has to be dematerialized. It should be made of materials that are recyclable and easily disposable. Otherwise, multi-function it. Lastly, the design should be for all systems. We are all members of an economic world at the moment. A world where more purchase implies a better living or in other words, a better GDP. Therefore, people tend to half the value of materials because we always want to consume more. Economic model gives priority to money but in somewhat way, their model is impossible in the real world. Contrastingly, designers create models that visualize possible solutions. Designers are trained to work and manage constraints. Therefore, designers along with economists should come together and make a better model, which leads us to a better world. A world we really want to have!

objectified

Because people tend to want new things all the time, we end up with a world full of objects. An objectified world.

People interact with objects. They tend to think of objects in many perspectives as they see it; what it does? How well it works? Those objects somehow represent their user of how they are. When people choose to buy some designs is when they choose objects to speak for themselves about themselves because after all, they themselves are the only audience that matters!

Couple of days ago, I had the chance to watch this amazing documentary film called objectified by Gary Hustwit. The film was mostly about people and how they interact with objects. It also interviewed a lot of designers. One of the designers I found most interesting was Jonathan Ive, the principal designer of Apple. He mentioned about simplicity, how the product should be able to use right away. He said that good designs should be as if they are not designed. They should be made in a way that it could not be any better! According to his saying, sometimes design is the way of figuring out and all of a sudden feature is a not feature. It is just a considered solution because design somehow understands people. May be even more than they understand themselves!

a not-really-balance balance!

A sense of balance is in every human’s instinct. In other words, lack of balance disturbs us. Often when the word “balance” is mentioned, people relate the term to a symmetric lever where like shapes are place in the same position on both sides. We call that kind of balance a “bilateral symmetry”. However, feeling is more casual than this kind of balance. Therefore, another kind of balance comes to our mind! Asymmetric balance is when two dissimilar objects provide an equal visual emphasis. Balance is not always has to be in the middle. This informal balance is more complicated yet more expressive. Portraits often show this kind of balance in order to express feelings.

For instance, instead of just standing straight in the middle of the frame balancing every parts of body, these fashion models express their feelings through their actions. The portrait does not represent any symmetric balance; everything is not in the middle yet we can still feel the balance. A balance with feelings.

pictures taken from http://www.vandaimages.com