A. Dana Zinchenko, Disfruto, Carla Morrison
B. Concept and Design
I wanted my project to have a simple, elegant, and balanced design, with some white space and flowing curves to create a warm atmosphere. This mood of the whole project was chosen to align with the emotions and lyrics of the song. For the figure/ground relationships, I wanted my image to expand a little outside of the frame. I have a lot of elements that are “connected” together by the use of proximity (elements that are close to each other are perceived as a group) effect. For example, spirals are going from one to another, however, there is no pictured link between them – the human eye connects them together because of the proximity and closure effect. The closure effect also works here, because people are filling that missing part with their brains as one connected line. It gradually flows from one to another even though there is a space between the two of them. I also used similarity right in the center – I mirrored and turned my central letters to connect them into a wave, however, the main purpose of it was to connect black and white backgrounds. I linked two parts of my image by mirroring that phrase and making it one whole element to create a flowy connection. I used ScriptS font as my main theme because it’s curvy and not that bold – it looks classic, but creative which fits the atmosphere of my song and Spanish phonetics. I also used repetition/similarity in my depictions of small notes – I balanced them to the opposite corners and different colors. One Black Square project influenced my design a lot. I got inspired by the balance of white/black and wanted to try it in this work. I also used similar principles. When I was doing my Black Square I loved repetitions and proximity effect (grouping closely placed objects together), so I tried to explore it deeper in this project.
C. Process
I started by trying out what the illustrator can do. I tried some functions to get an idea of what I could produce. Then I started to think of my own project. In the beginning, I wanted to find an idea creatively, so I just played the song and started my free-drawing on a piece of paper. I always use paper drafts at first. It helps me to get the design faster and better. I did a lot of corrections along the way. I decided to use two background colors and to create a balance between them. I tried to make a silhouette of hugging people, but it was against the rules of the assignment, so I just changed to two parts of the picture. I was drawing curvy lines a lot, however, really often they were not as pretty as I wanted. Later, I discovered the figure “spiral” in settings and used it a couple of times. One of the things that disturbed me was the constant change of a computer. I started at the Windows lab, then went to the Mac lab, and then used library computers – and they all have different available fonts, so I needed to change my fonts every time I changed a computer. Critique influenced my project a lot. First, it made me do it more accurately – better lines and figures. I used all of the advice and it made my work look so much better. The second round of critique (one-on-one talk) made me change my “Lorem Ipsum” to other letters. I found it funny, but useful. Also, I changed my “Spanish” non-words (originally they were supposed to be small romantic notes) to letters “I” placed horizontally, so it would look like lines for the same small notes. This gives the whole picture a feeling of incompleteness and an open ending where people can by themselves think of the content of these notes. I also deleted my white corner – this was one of the best pieces of advice. I love how balanced my picture looks now with half black and white. For the biggest failure, I forgot to add trim marks and did the whole picture in A4 format. So I opened a new document with the right dimensions and redid the whole design. Also, I had trouble with printing. Even though I went to the printing store with my Chinese-speaking friend, we still did not receive the right size. So I went there a second time with the example printed by Professor Danni and they did it right.
D. Conclusion
If I had more time, I would’ve used more techniques of the illustrator. I feel that you can do so many different things in this program and I would like to try them. Because my work consists mostly of self-drawn curves and spirals and different fonts, I used some effects too, but I wanted to try more, to experiment more. I would’ve also changed the font of the spirals in the right center. I would want to try using letters for building different objects or frames.
E. Process documentation:
- Trying out different functions and the first draft:
2. Idea
3. First big change of an idea (minus the silhouette)
4. The second big change of the idea (after some critique – deleted white corner and font change)
5. Final on A4
6. 
After format change