Chieh (Jade) Wen, YEAH RIGHT by Joiji

Concept and Design

The music gives me a feeling of a place that is filled with smoke, is mysterious, blurred and full of grief. Therefore I put in mostly the letters and the fonts that are with curved and smooth lines instead of elements that are sharp and defined. There is a little buzzing noise to the background music, like the radio noise when the connection is not good, creating a vibe that is not clear, not complete and broken. To express that feeling, I had some repetition of dots that gives the sandiness (while at the same time still maintaining the feeling of smooth curve), and sliced the figures in the work. Some of the pieces at the bottom are falling down, while the overall figures are going upwards like smoke, creating a different flow of movement. The three decorated smaller circles represent the feeling when the strong beats enter in the music, like rocks dropping into the water and creating rings of ripple. 

Gestalt gives me the impression that it is playing with our human’s vision. Even though the letters have been sliced, our eyes can still be able to catch the original figures/letters. I think it’s related to the principles of continuity. And the interesting part is using the different amount of space in between the elements to create the gradient to the overall figure. When the dots are closer to each other, our eyes take this part as darker than the other part where the space between the dots is bigger. The biggest takeaway I had for the One Black Square project is that a good piece of design should have a different impact to a viewer’s eyes when he/she stands from far away to close to the design. The overall visual feeling of my design is the curves that go from the bottom to the top, like smoke. And when a vier gets closer to it, the tension of different movements of pieces as well as the flow of the small letters embroidered in the main figures can be captured.

Process

From the mid-critique, I didn’t change my overall design, because I had a complete consideration to the balance of the general image. However, the advice I received was that the work was too straightforward, bold and no details. Originally, I didn’t have the slicing and all the details that were added to the main figure. It was too plain and not interesting. To make it more delicate and refined, I placed more details that provided fun and complexity to a viewer’s visual experience. Also a complete work needs to be balanced and harmonious. At first, while I had all the curvy fonts that echoed with each other, the dots were crowded at the right bottom of the paper, which was a little out of balance. Therefore, I added some to the top to correspond to the design. 

Conclusion

If I had more time, I would like to get deeper into the relationship between the figure and the ground, because I still rely more on the black figures without taking good advantage of the white space. I believe with a more interesting relationship between the figure and the ground, my design would be more meaningful and fun