For any of you who haven't heard, my first project in my 2-d design class this quarter was to compose and bind my own book. The pages of the book were to be made up of 5 different elements of design. I chose: line, balance, pattern, repetition, and economy. We had to find images that demonstrated these principles and then extend them onto the page with our own design as to further drive the point home. It was quite stressful of a process because my teacher basically stated right off the bat that he never gives out "A's" because those are reserved for people who go above and beyond. He said that if you do what is expected that deserves a "c" for average. Well, I must have done something to impress him (and I sure tried) because this little lady got an "A". Yesss! (mom your time at Kinko's with me was well spent!) So here are the pictures so you can see the hard work. I'm quite proud of myself. Plus, how cool is it to learn how to bind your own hard-cover book with book-cloth, drill the holes, and sew it together with needle and thread?
The Cover: grey paper, black book cloth, black thread
close up on thread
From the get-go I decided I wanted to do a food theme to unify the images. This first page I collaged images from a food magazine and then photocopied it onto nice gray paper at kinkos. (all images were cut and paste with construction paper and then photocopied onto good paper)
First Principle:
Line: a Length that is either straight of curved with out breadth or thickness.
(oh yeah, we also had to select a different font for each image that would compliment the definition)
Second Principle:
Economy: Using only what is needed
(this one is rather strange, I had never heard the term before but basically as you can see in the image we know that this is a piece of bread even with out seeing the other half of it, which is why I cut it in half and put in the blank white half.)
Third Principle:
Repetition: The act of doing or performing again.
Fourth Element:
Balance: Exact reflection of form on opposite side of a dividing line or plane.
(That is the food pyramid. In order to make the page feel balanced I flipped it upside down and made it look like a scale. I have the two smaller people weighing the equivalent of one large person.)
Fourth Principle:
Pattern: a repeating decorative design.
And this was the end page with another collage.
The End!
And now I am slaving over the next project. The assignment is to create a 24" x 18" drawing of yourself. The catch? It is to be a gray-scale drawing made entirely of words. What? It's pretty intense. I will surely be taking pictures of this and posting the final project.
Love, Katie
