Design 101

 content line exercises

mishchelenaus

collages

individual evolution

ear and the final bridge

Elena Shchibrik’s portfolio

lines for mood

lines for square

lines for square twoo

group collage

two designers and a penguin

9x9 design

•All four

3X3 design explainedFor beginning I made several simple sketches of possible collages in Photoshop® and

let my husband choose one for me to incarnate in paper. He chose the one with the arch-like bold black line, arguing what the composition looks simple and with some hidden story behind. I agreed, I also liked the color involved and immediately had some ideas about creating texture to them. For example, I imagined the white semi-diagonal line as a slit and tried to make it such. For the blue "sky" I wanted to make some soft, almost liquid filing by en-pasting curving and curling elements, and for the "wall" I imagined to use more rectangular, angled forms.

The first iteration took more than 5 hours, in which I don't include the time I spend choosing and copying materials. It appeared that I couldn't manage the time I spend and that my ideas and skills were not matching one another, and therefore the good quality of the final piece was more difficult to achieve than I thought initially. The result I got was more or less interesting visually, adequate for the basic requirements, i.e. showed grid, had line, color and texture use, and appeared to be a narrative composition. The biggest downside was the quality.For the second iteration I intended to do something else, I wanted to start from the

very beginning, but exactly that was utterly prohibited. So I actually started recreating the same thing without much of an idea how and what I should change. I just thought about improving quality and trying some different textures for the "wall"-part. Using the same technique I managed to spend less time now, about 3,5 hours. All the requirements as stated for the first version were met, and even the color of the "sky"-part was better. But the overall quality didn't improve significantly, the new textures on the "wall" side created feeling of shallow picture. I'd call my second trying "a baby step", not up but down. So it was pretty much a disappointment for me, but a bad experience is still an experience after all.

With the third iteration I had rather clear understanding of what I wanted to change. I really wanted to add some true collage attitude to the picture, by using bigger pieces of magazine photos with some parts of the original images and text showing (indeed, this is not a construction paper application). And in addition I decided that I wanted to put some "point of interest" somewhere at the end of the white semi-diagonal line to "reward the viewer", who follows it. I tried several different variants and all of a sudden was stricken by the thought that some repetition of blue would serve this purpose and I added the "crack" in the "wall". Plus, I tried to put more vertical lines on the "wall" part and more horizontal lines on the "sky" portion to emphasize contrast. At this stage I spend even less time - after all the decisions on materials and composition changes had been made, it took only around 2 hours. Trying to evaluate the result I reflected on the possible story the picture narrates, how the ark looks old (even older now with the crack) and the gray colors add to it, and how the blue is the color of new hope and the white line is pretty much hope itself (my husband jokingly remarked that it looked a lot like a jet track and I embraced the note - jet track among old ruins! there's life with its continuity).

At exactly that moment, a new idea appeared - why don't I try to invert the colors? What kind of mood will I extract by that? I did it in Photoshop® first and it looked pretty much like Apocalypse with white and black on bright red background (I returned the black to the arch, I didn't want to capture the moment of actual detonation, it's better with gloomy aftermath). Now the story would be quite different - the black semi-diagonal line now seemed to scratch the red skies, in which all hopes were burning down. And so my forth iteration was born. It was more like searching and discovering in a simple switch of the color palette, but I found the result interesting.

If I were to make the fifth version, I would like to use only text on the "sky" portion - blue on white and white on blue, and to add texture to the "wall" part I consider to actually tear and crumble paper pieces. The accent will be again on enhancing the quality.

individual evolution(all and rationale)1. Position Statement (personal interpretation of the topic)In my model I wanted to show the Evolution through the chain of rebirths. In my understanding this is how Evolution is possible - when Something What Already Exits gives birth to Something New, passing along some of its best and the most prominent qualities, but leaving enough room for changes and mutations

3. Hierarchical Design Language (include positions related to use of materials, connections, and ordering)The only material I used for this project was wire, and I chose it because of- the flexibility I needed to show an article of organic nature,- variable chroma and thickness which gave me a chance to represent different ideas graphically,- shiny metal quality, giving the piece the "jewelry" appearance and reminding about ancient craftsIn all my iterations I planned incorporating a part, which is not steadily fixed, which has some independent movement, that generally would stand for possibility of mutation and change, some iterations include it as possibility of movement forward, to the new life, itself.All iterations consist of "Mother" and "Progeny" shapes -- one to embrace and one to be confined

4. Primary, Secondary and Tertiary ElementsThe primary element is set of the two, "Mother" and "Progeny", shapes. The secondary element is the border of loops, which refers to DNA and spiral and by that -- to life and evolution. The difference in color, length and curving of Mother-shape endings is my tertiary element for all iterations meant to illustrate the selection of developmental paths

2. ConceptsFor basis I took paisley - the ancient symbol of new life from Middle East and Central Asia. Usually it pictures a flower "pregnant" with new seed, containing new flower, and by that -- endlessness of life

first

second

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forth

fifth

sixth

seventh

earrrrwhen my partner told me about the tongue being his project, I decided to work on ear, because the connection between the two is obvious and logicalfirst, I wanted to show the idea of deafness by incorporating a part in form of an ear-hornour lost ability to move ear in the direction of a sound, and my trying to return it to us, shown by the prolonged part of the construction, which I can turn at my willinspired by the intention to "bring the hidden out", I made my composition actually imitate the schematic representation of the inner ear, which I'm putting outside: here how I offer one of the main evidence of evolution - the similarity of the inner ear structure for all the vertebrate - for everyone to seethen, the gyroscope in the middle of the inner ear stands as a reminder of balance, maintenance of which is the major function of the earsome of the adornments and overall jewelry quality of the piece reflect the cultural aspect - pervasive use of ear ornaments in different culturesthe broken circles and spirals on the receiving part and along the connection cord symbolize distortion and leakage of information we gather through earsinitially the whole of my model was made of wire, but adding materials, borrowed from other members, I managed to make the thing bigger and easier to read

trying I

trying II

trying III

trying IV - final

final bridge sum

misc