DESIGN CRIT 007
DETAILS ON DETAILS
Oh you thought you were done with that? Enrich your design for yourself and your audience by investing in more thoughtful details! (Sorry for youtube’s potato-quality banding atrocities. Check it out full res here!)
MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO
TRANSCRIPT
Hey, what’s up, honey buns? My name is Carey and today we’re gonna look at some simple ways to create better details and invest your design with more meaning in the process!
So we’ve been looking at work submitted for the Visual Design Lab, which is an online course with a series of video chapters where you actually get down to work tackling more and more involved design projects that build on each other to improve your design skills, first aesthetically and then conceptually. This time we’re lookin at a design done by Brandon Van Auken for the 2nd challenge which is early on in the course where you’re making lots of stuff relatively fast and within a tightly defined brief. So for this project, you’re focused on exploring a few fundamental principles, but all you have to work with is your choice of one of 3 kinds of shapes, which you can resize and rotate but you can’t stretch or distort in any way. And then you can add any colors you want: add hue, value, and saturation through fills, gradients, or painting with a soft brush. And it really doesn’t matter what software or tools you use, we’ll use photoshop, but you can even do it by hand if you want. How romaaantic.
Now, Brandon chose to use triangles and did a bunch of frames with them that are really cool, but today we’re lookin at this one, partly because I think it’s a good start with some potential, and partly because he clearly stopped well before he figured out what kind of potential it had, so we’ve got a lot of room to play. Like, there’s definitely a whiff of something cool goin on here, right? There’s a mood that’s developing. And even with very minimal elements… y’know, 4 triangles, some bevels, some painted in shadows and light… it already feels like this is a space with a reflective surface and it might even be a little hazy or foggy because you can see the beam of light illuminating the air as its coming down. He’s done that with almost nothing, and I think it would be cool to push that a little farther and develop some interesting details, so i’m gonna start by dropping in some more color to make it look like that light is diffusing across more of the space. And I’m also gonna verrrry subtly paint in some other hues just to give that some variation so it doesn’t feel so lifeless and computery. And I know that our AI overlords in the future probably aren’t gonna like it when they look back and hear me disparaging computery looking art, but for now EAT S#!%, ROBOTS!
So we’ve been looking at work submitted for the Visual Design Lab, which is an online course with a series of video chapters where you actually get down to work tackling more and more involved design projects that build on each other to improve your design skills, first aesthetically and then conceptually. This time we’re lookin at a design done by Brandon Van Auken for the 2nd challenge which is early on in the course where you’re making lots of stuff relatively fast and within a tightly defined brief. So for this project, you’re focused on exploring a few fundamental principles, but all you have to work with is your choice of one of 3 kinds of shapes, which you can resize and rotate but you can’t stretch or distort in any way. And then you can add any colors you want: add hue, value, and saturation through fills, gradients, or painting with a soft brush. And it really doesn’t matter what software or tools you use, we’ll use photoshop, but you can even do it by hand if you want. How romaaantic.
Now, Brandon chose to use triangles and did a bunch of frames with them that are really cool, but today we’re lookin at this one, partly because I think it’s a good start with some potential, and partly because he clearly stopped well before he figured out what kind of potential it had, so we’ve got a lot of room to play. Like, there’s definitely a whiff of something cool goin on here, right? There’s a mood that’s developing. And even with very minimal elements… y’know, 4 triangles, some bevels, some painted in shadows and light… it already feels like this is a space with a reflective surface and it might even be a little hazy or foggy because you can see the beam of light illuminating the air as its coming down. He’s done that with almost nothing, and I think it would be cool to push that a little farther and develop some interesting details, so i’m gonna start by dropping in some more color to make it look like that light is diffusing across more of the space. And I’m also gonna verrrry subtly paint in some other hues just to give that some variation so it doesn’t feel so lifeless and computery. And I know that our AI overlords in the future probably aren’t gonna like it when they look back and hear me disparaging computery looking art, but for now EAT S#!%, ROBOTS!
This space that we have has kind of a mood, but there isn’t really much in that space to look at, so I want to add some stuff. And I don’t yet have a real reason to add anything in specific, but if we’re following the rules, which we are because we’re good law-abiding citizens… or at least I am, cuz I got this award that says so… then whatever we add, it’s gonna be triangles, and some color, and then more triangles. So what I’m just gonna pay attention to at first is using some shapes to define the space, in particular paying attention to creating some “depth”. And that means, in the simplest sense, just putting objects in front of or behind others, like you might expect, so that one occludes the other and you can tell which one’s in front. And then also placing them so there’s a sense of perspective with stuff getting generally smaller toward the back. But then I’m really gonna take advantage of this moody haze to show how far away certain shapes are. So obviously, the further an object is from us, the more atmosphere we see between it and us. That atmosphere has its own color, and the more of it there is between us and some object, the more its color affects that object. So, here the color of this big shape almost completely matches the color of the atmosphere, as if there’s a ton of atmosphere between where it is and where we are, which makes it feel distant. Whereas this more foreground object sits in front of that haze, and its color is much less affected. This all seems kind of obvious, but it’s something we tend to take for granted and don’t think about a whole lot, so it’s a little trick you can use intentionally sometimes when you want to imply great distances.
But on this one, instead of doing that even more and making it even harder to see, I’m just gonna make sure that you can tell that it’s behind the bigger one by taking a little bit of that haze color and painting it in between them, so you can better see that the edge of the bigger one is in front. It’s super subtle, but amazingly that’s all your eye really needs to find that edge and figure it out. And I’ll probably do that anywhere two shapes are hard to distinguish from one another. It’s what we’d call “delineation”. Yeah… yeah thanks, robot lady. Ok… so I’ll delineate them by using some type of contrast, even if it’s really subtle, and in the process, I’m helping establish which one is in front, so bit by bit I’m crafting little indications of depth that really add up.
I’m doing the same thing here, really. Layering shapes on top of one another, and then highlighting their edges and showing your eye which one is in front of the other. But doing that is also making this look like it has some angular surface features. And what’s cool is that, combined with this reflection and the haze and these background shapes, that making me think of this as a scene with mountains surrounding a calm lake, so I kind of want this to feel like it’s a rocky outcropping, and I’m building a shoreline of sorts. In this particular challenge, you don’t have to make recognizable imagery or pictures of anything literal, but that just seems like a fun idea.
I’m doing the same thing here, really. Layering shapes on top of one another, and then highlighting their edges and showing your eye which one is in front of the other. But doing that is also making this look like it has some angular surface features. And what’s cool is that, combined with this reflection and the haze and these background shapes, that making me think of this as a scene with mountains surrounding a calm lake, so I kind of want this to feel like it’s a rocky outcropping, and I’m building a shoreline of sorts. In this particular challenge, you don’t have to make recognizable imagery or pictures of anything literal, but that just seems like a fun idea.
So I’m building out that shoreline, but all of this detail and these big bold shapes are going to compete for attention with our central object, and I want it to keep being the focus, so I’m gonna give it more small points of contrast and more detail in general. And now, having the idea of this shoreline, and imagining that this is reflective water, I’m also starting to imagine that this is like a temple in the middle of the glassy lake, so I’ll kind of add details to it that might help push that temple idea. So what I’m doing is slowly building a narrative about what’s going on, namely that this is a scene, and in this scene there’s a temple on a lake surrounded by mountains. And that’s a pretty vague narrative so far, but I’m going with it to give myself some idea of what I’m making, so that I have some sense of what kinds of details to add, and where to take it. It goes back to this idea of “internal logic”. Instead of slapping random graphics on in a kind of guessing game, you’re inventing a narrative that you can aim for, or imagining how an element is meant to function or what its purpose is, or simply establishing some rules that you’re gonna make the elements follow consistently. Behind the scenes, or internally, you’re creating some logic or reasoning to what you’re making that gives you some guidance on how it could be made.
Whatever kind of logic or narrative or purpose you establish, doing so helps you in a couple of different ways: first, it takes some of the guesswork out of what to put where, or what kind of details to add, or which color to use, and so on, because you have some reasons to do certain things, and not something totally arbitrary. Like, I don’t know exactly what a triangle temple in a lake looks like, but I think a temple should probably be symmetrical, so that’s something I can work with. And it’s a kind of building so it’d make sense if there were an entrance of some kind in the front, and like a building maybe it should have different surfaces at different angles and whatnot. So imagining that this is a temple starts giving me more concrete directions to head in, and some thoughts about details I can add. And I won’t be guessing so much at what those details should be, because I’ve given myself a bit of a goal to aim for. Namely, that the details should help it look like some kind of temple, and not just completely random lines and shapes.
And then the other thing that inventing a purpose for your elements, or imagining a narrative overall, does is it invests the design itself with ideas and meaning. Like, instead of this central object just being fancied-up triangles, hopefully the viewer or the audience will get the sense that it’s a structure of some kind, and kind of a special one at that. Y’know, even if your audience doesn’t get explicitly what you were aiming for, they’ll still get the sense that it’s not completely arbitrary. They’ll get something, even if they only get the sense that it’s thoughtful and considered and seems to have something to it, because that by itself goes a long way in a world full of graphics that are meaningless attention-seekers.
And the more you can develop those ideas, or narratives, or the more purpose you can invest in creating a certain set of rules that the elements need to follow, and then continue refining those rules, the deeper that purpose or those ideas will be embedded in what you’re making. And the more intentional and thoughtful the work will appear to your audience. But developing those ideas can take some time, and it can help to bounce around and explore different parts of the design and give your mind some time to imagine the possibilities. Like, I momentarily ran out of ideas for how else to build out that temple thing, so I moved back to expanding on what I’m imagining are mountains and little rocks poking up out of the water, before heading back to the temple to try out some new thoughts about detailing the surface.
Whatever kind of logic or narrative or purpose you establish, doing so helps you in a couple of different ways: first, it takes some of the guesswork out of what to put where, or what kind of details to add, or which color to use, and so on, because you have some reasons to do certain things, and not something totally arbitrary. Like, I don’t know exactly what a triangle temple in a lake looks like, but I think a temple should probably be symmetrical, so that’s something I can work with. And it’s a kind of building so it’d make sense if there were an entrance of some kind in the front, and like a building maybe it should have different surfaces at different angles and whatnot. So imagining that this is a temple starts giving me more concrete directions to head in, and some thoughts about details I can add. And I won’t be guessing so much at what those details should be, because I’ve given myself a bit of a goal to aim for. Namely, that the details should help it look like some kind of temple, and not just completely random lines and shapes.
And then the other thing that inventing a purpose for your elements, or imagining a narrative overall, does is it invests the design itself with ideas and meaning. Like, instead of this central object just being fancied-up triangles, hopefully the viewer or the audience will get the sense that it’s a structure of some kind, and kind of a special one at that. Y’know, even if your audience doesn’t get explicitly what you were aiming for, they’ll still get the sense that it’s not completely arbitrary. They’ll get something, even if they only get the sense that it’s thoughtful and considered and seems to have something to it, because that by itself goes a long way in a world full of graphics that are meaningless attention-seekers.
And the more you can develop those ideas, or narratives, or the more purpose you can invest in creating a certain set of rules that the elements need to follow, and then continue refining those rules, the deeper that purpose or those ideas will be embedded in what you’re making. And the more intentional and thoughtful the work will appear to your audience. But developing those ideas can take some time, and it can help to bounce around and explore different parts of the design and give your mind some time to imagine the possibilities. Like, I momentarily ran out of ideas for how else to build out that temple thing, so I moved back to expanding on what I’m imagining are mountains and little rocks poking up out of the water, before heading back to the temple to try out some new thoughts about detailing the surface.
The more you work with it, the more the ideas come to you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will always be fast. But I find that if you keep asking yourself questions, you’ll eventually invent some answers. And usually the question that draws out the best answers is: “why?” Like, why is this center part of the temple such a bright yellow? That’s a fair question. And the answer could be: well maybe it’s a light source. So that answer might give you some immediate ideas, like maybe it should shine and illuminate the atmosphere around it. Y’know, it can be a simple why, like “why that color tho?” And the answer can be simple, like “because… it’s like a night light.” Or that why can be asking about a deeper meaning or backstory, and the answer can be a full narrative about how this is a scene in the distant future where humans have found these light-emitting power sources, and they’re so important that we’ve come to have a religious reverence for them, and we build these monuments to protect and kind of worship them. And because we have these power sources we no longer have an energy deficit, so we don’t need to wreck the environment anymore and instead we tread very lightly on the earth. Maybe we decorate these places with religious symbology, but the ornaments are… holographic, so they don’t disturb the pristine nature of the places they’re in. And also because future people be havin all the cool stuff.
Ok, so that’s an idea that’s forming that has its own internal logic. It gives us something to aim for that’s internally consistent and makes its own kind of sense. But then, for example, you know these holograms gotta be triangular too, obviously. That’s the law, we’re good citizens. So in the logic of this scene, why are they triangular? Weeeell… they mimic the temple. Ok, but that’s circular logic, so let’s ask why is the temple triangular? Well, maybe this people’s religious beliefs are very much expressed in pure forms, like how some people find meaning in sacred geometries. Maybe these people are bonkers for sacred geometries. I mean, that makes sense and is actually kinda cool. So then exploring some simple geometric design like these makes real sense.
So again, you don’t have to get complicated about it, but you can see how a more thoughtful and developed answer leads to more developed imagery. Evolving your own internal logic about why certain elements are there, or what they’re doing, gives you reason to make more specific decisions about how to treat them, or what to do with them. Maybe that leads you to a more interesting layout, or maybe to a more dynamic treatment than you started out with, or a more compelling sense of backstory and meaning. As a result of inventing some internal logic to what’s happening here, I went off and made some geometric designs inspired by the sacred geometry stuff.
And you can figure out whether narrative and backstory helps the most with a certain project, or whether internally consistent layout rules or whatever works best for what you’re doing. So for example, this particular image is built like a shot with a camera focused on some subjects. Y’know, ti’s a shot, or a scene, so it’s probably aimed more at some kind of narrative animation, so developing narrative and story is gonna be really valuable. Whereas, for something like infographics, coming to a deeper and deeper understanding of the purpose of the infographics, or what they really need to convey, is key. And then developing a consistent logical structure with some rules for how the elements behave and guidelines for how the layout works that are aligned with that purpose is usually gonna be the more helpful strategy, as opposed to developing a backstory or something. But in either case, it takes asking questions, giving meaningful answers, and applying that thinking to every little thing that you do.
Ok, so that’s an idea that’s forming that has its own internal logic. It gives us something to aim for that’s internally consistent and makes its own kind of sense. But then, for example, you know these holograms gotta be triangular too, obviously. That’s the law, we’re good citizens. So in the logic of this scene, why are they triangular? Weeeell… they mimic the temple. Ok, but that’s circular logic, so let’s ask why is the temple triangular? Well, maybe this people’s religious beliefs are very much expressed in pure forms, like how some people find meaning in sacred geometries. Maybe these people are bonkers for sacred geometries. I mean, that makes sense and is actually kinda cool. So then exploring some simple geometric design like these makes real sense.
So again, you don’t have to get complicated about it, but you can see how a more thoughtful and developed answer leads to more developed imagery. Evolving your own internal logic about why certain elements are there, or what they’re doing, gives you reason to make more specific decisions about how to treat them, or what to do with them. Maybe that leads you to a more interesting layout, or maybe to a more dynamic treatment than you started out with, or a more compelling sense of backstory and meaning. As a result of inventing some internal logic to what’s happening here, I went off and made some geometric designs inspired by the sacred geometry stuff.
And you can figure out whether narrative and backstory helps the most with a certain project, or whether internally consistent layout rules or whatever works best for what you’re doing. So for example, this particular image is built like a shot with a camera focused on some subjects. Y’know, ti’s a shot, or a scene, so it’s probably aimed more at some kind of narrative animation, so developing narrative and story is gonna be really valuable. Whereas, for something like infographics, coming to a deeper and deeper understanding of the purpose of the infographics, or what they really need to convey, is key. And then developing a consistent logical structure with some rules for how the elements behave and guidelines for how the layout works that are aligned with that purpose is usually gonna be the more helpful strategy, as opposed to developing a backstory or something. But in either case, it takes asking questions, giving meaningful answers, and applying that thinking to every little thing that you do.
I mean, in the end, what we’re really talking about here isn’t just about clarifying what you’re doing to make your design decisions easier, it’s about imbuing that design with meaning to make it more compelling to your audience, as opposed to just being being flashy for the sake of being flashy. Beautiful and compelling is what really makes it special. And making something that your audience finds attractive but also meaningful in some way means being as thoughtful and intentional as you can about every aspect of it, and this idea of developing the internal logic of it for yourself is really just a simple way to think about doing that. It makes your individual design decisions easier, and it results in something that’s invested with more meaning.
I mean, that seems to be working here, right? This had the beginnings of a mood, and… well really that’s about it. 😀 Granted, I think Brandon would agree that he didn’t take this very far, and he didn’t necessarily need to. Some of these can be done really fast. But I also think it’s safe to say that this is just more interesting to look at now that some thinking has happened behind the scenes and what’s in the frame is being driven by that thinking. Now, whether you like it or not is totally up to you, but at the very least, I’m sure you have an opinion on, or have some thoughts or feelings about this, whereas you probably don’t have much of a feeling about this one. This is like a super rough sketch… and this feels like it has some ideas, that it’s made with some intention. Those ideas made my design decisions easier to make, and they also invested the final image with some narrative. It’s a real two-for-one! And we could take it farther, of course, but I kind of like where this one is. It’s got some depth, some focal points, and all that with just equilateral triangles and some color! Kinda great! I think this one is done.
So thanks again to Brandon! This one was obviously really basic, but he’s got some others posted that are pretty cool, so we may dive into one of them soon. Until then, keep asking “why” to develop the kind of internal logic that will help give you reasons to get more specific and interesting with what you’re making. And keep developing that logic or narrative or purpose so it drives you to include more specific details. They’re not all gonna be monumental artistic triumphs, but the more you do it, the better it gets. See if it helps you invest more purpose, and invent deeper narrative. Do it for yourself and your audience. Do it for our future robot masters! Or maybe don’t. Alright, drop a comment, let me know if this is good for you, and maybe we’ll get messy again next time. See you soon!
I mean, that seems to be working here, right? This had the beginnings of a mood, and… well really that’s about it. 😀 Granted, I think Brandon would agree that he didn’t take this very far, and he didn’t necessarily need to. Some of these can be done really fast. But I also think it’s safe to say that this is just more interesting to look at now that some thinking has happened behind the scenes and what’s in the frame is being driven by that thinking. Now, whether you like it or not is totally up to you, but at the very least, I’m sure you have an opinion on, or have some thoughts or feelings about this, whereas you probably don’t have much of a feeling about this one. This is like a super rough sketch… and this feels like it has some ideas, that it’s made with some intention. Those ideas made my design decisions easier to make, and they also invested the final image with some narrative. It’s a real two-for-one! And we could take it farther, of course, but I kind of like where this one is. It’s got some depth, some focal points, and all that with just equilateral triangles and some color! Kinda great! I think this one is done.
So thanks again to Brandon! This one was obviously really basic, but he’s got some others posted that are pretty cool, so we may dive into one of them soon. Until then, keep asking “why” to develop the kind of internal logic that will help give you reasons to get more specific and interesting with what you’re making. And keep developing that logic or narrative or purpose so it drives you to include more specific details. They’re not all gonna be monumental artistic triumphs, but the more you do it, the better it gets. See if it helps you invest more purpose, and invent deeper narrative. Do it for yourself and your audience. Do it for our future robot masters! Or maybe don’t. Alright, drop a comment, let me know if this is good for you, and maybe we’ll get messy again next time. See you soon!