Kristen Impicciche - ART 252: Image - Kristen Pericleous
(Un)Common Objects
August 23rd - August 31st
2021
The Project Statement
This project was the introductory assignment for the Image class. For this assignment, the challenge was to produce different types of marks using various objects in an unconventional way. The end result of this assignment was to pick a few different kinds of markings, scan them into Adobe Illustrator, and digitally compose these markings into a word. The techniques and skills I learned from this assignment was how to mask effectively in Adobe Photoshop, how to import multimedia onto the computer and digitally arrange, as well as how to communicate through composition.
Target Audience
There was no real specific intended target audience of this project as this was one of the beginning introductory projects and focused more on introducing skills and techniques than for clients.
Research
Before digitally composing my word and even before sketching, I first thought of what type of feeling these markings evoked and because using plenty of thesauruses and the dictionary to try and come up with the perfect word that I wanted to encapsulate with these markings.
Design Process
The entirety of this assignment was composed of four different phases. The first phase was the mark making phase. In class, I was given an option of plenty different types of random toys, tools, every day materials and ended up with a golfball as my chosen marking. I dipped the golfball in a plate of acrylic black paint and would scrape, smear, drop, and roll the golfball all around my sheets of blank white paper. After creating all these markings with a few other items that weren't as successful, I was ready to move on to phase two. Phase two was the word choice phase. This is where I spent most of my time using dictionaries and thesauruses to come up with an engaging active word that wouldn't have related to the golfball. After deciding on a few words, the class broke into small groups and I discussed my chosen words. After choosing a word I was ready to move on to phase three which was the compositional design part of the assignment. I sketched a few compositions out and decided my chosen word was not the right one. After hearing some of my classmates words, I was inspired to continue researching because I wasn't as happy with a few of them. After going back to phase two, I did a bit more of research I decided on "outbreak". I then returned back to phase three and then was ready for the digital construction of phase four. In phase four I decided on a composition I liked and start scanning in my marks through Adobe Capture on my phone. I uploaded these scans to my computer and started using Adobe Photoshop to mask out markings I wasn't pleased with. After using Adobe Photoshop, I began arranging each marking to create my word through Adobe Illustrator.
Design Solution
My final design consists of my word placed on an artboard that is 10" x 10" and exported from Adobe Illustrator. I chose the word "outbreak" because the golfball markings from when I was rolling it around the paper and also smearing it, reminded me of parasites, a disease, and even DNA strands. I decided on "outbreak" because I wanted to push the artboard boundaries of just barely extending the "k" off the page to show that it was growing and evolving from all the previous smaller letters before the ending. I chose this choppy alignment and inconsistency within the letterforms to force these organic formations to look natural.
The deliverable was strictly in black and white so if I were to continue on this project outside of class time, I would change my letterforms to shades of red. During this assignment process I didn't want to obstruct the word itself with too many markings surrounding the word because that does not fit my word since "outbreak" is so bold. I believe that if I were to change the colors around, I could use a hierarchy within a color palette to use more markings to make the word seem like it is crumbling and/or shattering as it gets closer to the end of the word which could make it more successful.
