Minimalist Landscape Series
Digital Landscapes
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Though these pictures were not what I intended my pieces to look like. They didn't fit into the criteria of being minimalist pieces while looking very complex and abstract. This mean I had to rethink my design process and attitudes towards using Photoshop and Illustrator.
Producing
Still using Photoshop, I created the first piece. A big issue that I had when creating the piece is that I used the rectangle tool to create the landscape and the walls for the barn, but I couldn't just use it on the roof. The only other way I could figure out how to create it was to zoom in and individually color each pixel to create a slant in the roof.
This was a tedious process that was both frustrating and time consuming. I believed that there are a better and more efficient way a creating slants and cures using these programs. I searched in internet for tutorials and found that Adobe Illustrator was a much better tool for doing things like that. |
Illustrator was much more useful with creating simplistic shapes that could be manipulated to look similar or representative to nature and landscapes. I did this by creating organic shapes and figures that looking similar to mountains and plains and lakes.
I used the pen tool to create smooth curves the represent the landscapes. For the other two pieces in my series, there were much more straightforward and effortless to construct. Once the outlines of the elements of the landscape were produced. I turned each layer into its own shape and was then able to color it all in. I just different variants and magnitudes of color to display depth and contrast.
After, I created an invisible circle that I cut out from each piece to have all of them sized and shaped equally. |
Reflection
This process and outcome is in very close relationship with Communication Design. Communication Design is a mixed discipline between design and information-development which is concerned with how media intermission such as printed, crafted, electronic or presentations communicate with people. Often times illustration, web design, animation and advertising are medias used to create visual communication and graphic design. I have immense respect and passion to work in the Communication Design field. Challenging myself and giving myself an opportunity to see what I can product was the purpose for this series. It gives me a taste and an insight into what I have ahead of me.
Meaning
There are certain principles that I wanted to follow to help generate ideas and increase my creativity. One of these principles is simplicity. I believe that minimalist work isn't just an easy way to produce a piece, I see it as more of a challenge to create something that express a very complex and artistic way in a remarkably modest fashion. That is put in the best way why I love working with minimalist, contemporary and modern styles. Another principle I implemented was natural transition. Transition is basically gradual change. I best illustrated in it adjusting height or color of objects to give a sense of depth and distance, making it seem like how it would really be seen. In other words, transition can be achieved by the gradual, ascending or descending, arrangement of different elements with varying textures, forms, colors, or sizes. The last principle I looked at was lines. Line is of the more structural principles of my landscape designs. Straight lines that I made were more forceful and direct while the curvy lines had a more natural, gentle, flowing effect.
Connecting to the ACT
1) Based off of the inspiration I researched that influenced me to create my minimalist series made me practice and experiment different techniques to use to make the piece in order to get a general concept of what I had to work with for my piece(s). This effected the outcome by creating a final piece that was more what I would have wanted the pieces to look and feel like.
2) I took a very open-concept and open to ideas approach when working on this project because of my little to unknown knowledge of the style of minimalist digital art. I found that when implementing Minimalist-style art across all of my pieces, I could use my inspiration as a way to better represent the meaning.
3) I discovered the value that minimalist advertising has on people's everyday lives. I found how valuable communication has towards people with putting value and expression into simple techniques for everyone to appreciate and relate to.
4) The conception of observation was found to be very relevant for inspiration for me. The value of how my pieces was presented was immensely important to reach to every person.
5) Concluding from my research, I discovered a deeper understanding of what my I used for my inspiration and was better able to produce a more meaningful and understandable art piece.
2) I took a very open-concept and open to ideas approach when working on this project because of my little to unknown knowledge of the style of minimalist digital art. I found that when implementing Minimalist-style art across all of my pieces, I could use my inspiration as a way to better represent the meaning.
3) I discovered the value that minimalist advertising has on people's everyday lives. I found how valuable communication has towards people with putting value and expression into simple techniques for everyone to appreciate and relate to.
4) The conception of observation was found to be very relevant for inspiration for me. The value of how my pieces was presented was immensely important to reach to every person.
5) Concluding from my research, I discovered a deeper understanding of what my I used for my inspiration and was better able to produce a more meaningful and understandable art piece.