6 of 365 - anthropomorphic design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
6 of 365 – anthropomorphic design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Anthropomorphic design is a method by which a designer makes use of angles and curves that are inspired by the human form to evoke certain emotional responses from the user of the design. For example, the classic Coca Cola bottle makes use of anthropomorphic design and reminds the user of the curves of the female body. One might also play with the proportions and silhouette of a form to remind the user of babies or men to evoke reasonable emotional responses to those ends. Designs that have content that is aggressive, safe, loving, stable, or kind might make use of anthropomorphic forms to evoke those responses in a subconscious way.
In this illustration, I decided to start with 4 female silhouettes, using half of each to create a form that repeats and reverses the half. Then, I created a container inspired by the result of the silhouette experiment. There is no clear connection between the end results and their inspirations, but each of them has a character to them that speaks to the original forms.
5 of 365 - alignment design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
5 of 365 – alignment design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Alignment is a design method for maintaining order, readability, and sense. Horizontal and vertical alignment in design allows for easier reading, a more aesthetic layout, and more sensible use of the designed object. Unless the designer is specifically trying to create visual chaos for effect, alignment should be implemented well. By using visible or invisible grids, tables, or other visual underlying structures to guide the placement of items in a design, the designer can improve the understanding of the design, no matter the content.
“”Should I Stay or Should I Go” is a song by the English punk rock band The Clash, from their album Combat Rock. It was written in 1981 and featured Mick Jones on lead vocals. It became the band’s only number-one single on the UK Singles Chart, a decade after it was originally released. In November 2004, it was ranked at 228 on Rolling Stones “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list.[1] In 2009 it was ranked 42nd on VH1’s program 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs.” ~ Should I Stay or Should I Go – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – http://goo.gl/iFwdF
Advance Organizers are a design method where an audience is given new information in one of two ways to become oriented with a new concept. In cases where the audience is newly introduced to the topic, we might use an expository advance organizer. If an alien was trying to learn about the way that a human hand functions, for instance, we might use an expository advance organizer in the form of a description of the look, feel, uses, and functions of the hand. If the alien had hand like appendages, let’s say 3-pointed claws, we might use their understanding of that in the form of a comparative advance organizer that showed the similarities and differences between the alien claw and the human hand. The purpose of either would be to grant the audience a better understanding of the new concept before going into deeper detail, training, or demonstration.
Above is an illustration of the comparative visual anatomy of serif typography and sans-serif typography, in which the letter A is used in a comparative advance organizational method, since you, the audience, is likely familiar with the letter A.
Welcome, all, to the 2014 edition of 365 sketches. This is a simple offering for the first sketch, but gives some idea of what I intend to talk about. In this series, I intend to learn more about design principles, because in the past I focused mostly on method and technique. I hope that this series teaches me as much about design ideology as past series have taught me about design method. It is perhaps evidence of “a cart before the horse” which I am trying to remedy.
The 80/20 Principle is one in which a well-working system of any kind (book, technology, structure, organization) has distributed value and power, where the 20 percent represents the most important, the most valuable, and the most protected, and the rest supports it. We are experiencing political difficulty in this country at the moment, according to this theory, because the 20 percent has been reduced too far. The same is true in design, books, movies, or other organizations of content: If there is too little to gain from participation in the whole, e.g., if only a small percentage holds the entire value, then the entire structure falls apart, and holds no value at all. The best design, according to the theory, balances value and support at a ratio near to, but not necessarily equal to, 80/20.
I was diagnosed a couple of years back with Adult ADHD. This was a surprise to me, but not especially for those who knew me and the sometimes chaotic way in which I respond to visual stimuli.
I did not remember ever having been hyperactive as a child, and attention did not seem to be an issue for me, though later in life, I found myself having trouble focusing on one task at one time, which sometimes made it hard to carry out tasks. Often, ADHD is lifelong, and does not typically just show up without an external source.
When researching possible causes for a late appearance of Adult ADHD, there is some evidence to support concussions and head injuries as a culprit. This made me think of the sometimes funny, often scary stories I have told of the many times I’ve been hit in the head. I’m going to tell those stories here, finishing with the most recent head injury, which happened just the other day.
1. Little league baseball.
I was not very good at baseball, and as a result, I ended up in the outfield. During practice one year, the coach was hitting out a practice pop fly, I did not have my glove in the right place, and the next thing I remember is waking up with everyone around me in the outfield.
2. Little league baseball, year 2.
That’s right, the same thing happened two years in a row, and I’m pretty sure I dropped out of little league after that.
3. Parks and Recreation.
The first time I ever got stitches was when I worked for my township’s Parks and Recreation department. Mostly, the work was emptying 50 gallon drums of empty beer bottles and cans in parks, with grass cutting in the summer, but we also maintained the playground equipment. One day, I was replacing a chain net on a basketball hoop by myself on a saturday. In order to get the hooks open to hold the net, you sometimes have to use pliers to open them a bit. I misjudged my grip and the pliers went into my head with all my might. Blood started coming down my head, and I went to the hospital. The diagnosis was a concussion.
4. Moving day.
When I moved from Levittown, PA to Ewing, NJ, we got a moving truck from the storage place we were using to hold our house’s contents between the residences. I was standing on the ground behind the truck when a wooden Ikea shelf fell over and hit me in the back of the head. We rescheduled the move, went to the hospital, and the diagnosis was a concussion.
5. First week at Princeton.
I was excited to be working at Princeton University, and was going to lunch with a friend. It was raining, and I was suffering from cataracts (I’ll explain in another post) and I misjudged the last step of a set of steps down into Woodrow Wilson Hall. I went headfirst into the glass and metal door at the entrance, and a girl who saw it shrieked. The blood flowed. I decided to forego a visit to the nurse, but I probably should have. The hit was at least as damaging as my previous injuries, and likely a concussion.
6. The occasional chandelier.
Most recently, I stood up too quickly into a chandelier and blood started to flow. I do these kinds of injuries from time to time, but this one made me think of the others.
I guess more than anything, I just wanted to note the history of these injuries, but I do wonder if they have anything to do with my recent discovery of ADHD.
I really love design play that takes the expected and twists it. This is a prime example. By starting with a photo of an original game cartridge for the atari 2600, and replacing and repainting the firefox logo into it, then adding the title in the Atari 2600 font (Mumbai.ttf) it’s fairly easy to pull off this kind of substitution. In retrospect, I should have used ALL CAPS for the title, as they did for their cartridges, but still, a fun project.
