Design Principles - Project 2: Sense of Place

10/10/22 - 04/11/22 (Week 7 - Week 10)

Hayato Saito / 0350466 / Bachelor of design in creative media

 
Design Principle

 
Project 2: Sense of place

---

INSTRUCTION

1. Within your given space, observe your surroundings. Could even observe if there are any human activities.

2. Record these observations in photographs or sketches.

3. Select visuals that you find relevant and interesting to you, which you can translate into a design work that reflects your interpretation of a place, showing multiple aspects of the place. Remember to apply design principles in your work.

4. Final outcome must be accompanied by 150-200 words.

---

The place I wanted to create was the sea at night where I used to go a lot with my friends. Because that place has a sense of calmness, sadness, and depression. The feelings that this place gives me are joy, happiness, and nostalgia.

VISUAL RESEARCH

I explored the various kind of art styles to get some inspiration.

Fig.1.1 https://pin.it/33l0lqO

At first, I just liked the vibes of this artwork and the style but as I see it carefully I realized that it is created with a warm color palette and cold color palette. These two colors are making good contrast and describe the sense of nostalgia.

Fig.1.2 https://pin.it/1rXw1Sa

After I found Fig.1.1, I came across this artwork and I realized that this also use two color palette which are warm and cold but I found the difference that this artwork has cold color palette more than warm color palette so It has more negative impression compared to the Fig.1.1.

Fig.1.3 https://pin.it/2Z7osXh

I liked this because this style is what I've always wanted to try. 

Fig.1.4 https://pin.it/67IoPpG

PROGRESS AND IDEA EXPLORATION

Fig.2.1 Late night sea in japan

These pictures are taken in Japan. For this project, I wanted to do something related to my memory of the past that I'm missing. The reason why I'm missing this sea is that I used to go there with my friends at late night and this is where we go when we didn't have things to do. At that time I was kinda bored with this place because we went there too often, but now I'm missing this sea with the memory.

Fig.2.2 First sketch

I didn't know how to create the sketch so I just drew with the same composition as the original picture and added some black figures people because we went there with around 5 people most of the time.

Since I got feedback that I should think about the feeling that this place gives me, I thought about that, and every time we went there we mostly went because we didn't have things to do so we were just chilling without talking sometimes or we talked some jokes and laughed together so the feeling that place has is kind of depressed and sad because we only went at late night but the feeling that this place gives me is joy and nostalgia because we had always fun with jokes and random talking.

Fig.2.3 Second sketch

Fig.2.4 First outcome

In this artwork, the dark colors represent the feeling that this place has which is sad and depressing, and the orange of the moon represents the feeling that this place gives me which is joy and nostalgia. I created the contrast of feelings with dark colors and orange. The reason why I didn't put a human figure and only put shadows is that it describes that I am the only one who is living in a different country and I can't meet them physically so that one human figure is me and shadows are my friend's shadows.

Final outcome

I changed the shadow and people parts based on feedback that I got.

Fig.3.1 The final outcome

In this design, I used a darker and cold color palette to describe the feelings that this place has which are depressing, sad, and calm. For the moon, I used a warm and bright color palette to express the feelings that this place gives me which are joy, happiness, and nostalgia, and this difference in the color creates great contrast and it also represents the contrast of the feelings. A person on the right side is me looking at the moon and that describes that I am missing the feeling that we had in this place back then. The Group of people on the left side are my friends, the reason why they are blurred and why they are distant from me is that it shows this moment will never come back and the distance in this design represents the distance between me and them in real life too because I am the only one who is in oversea and not able to meet whenever I want.

---

FEEDBACK

Week 9: Ms. Jinchi said that I should think about the feeling that that place gives me. If I think about the feeling of that place, it will help me to express better. 

Week 10: Ms. Jinchi said the mood of the sea and sky and moon is well depicted but the part in which friends and me being together needs to be developed because if someone sees the shadow parts without any explanation, they may not think that's shadow, so she suggested to make the shadows look more human shapes or use silhouettes and she also said think about how to arrange the silhouettes 

---

REFLECTIONS

Personaliy, I enjoyed this project. What I learned thoughout this project was it is important to think about the feelings that place has and that place gives you to showcase the sense of place and to put strong meaning in your artwork. I didn't really struggle with this project because the place I chose was so memorial thing for me and it was easy to thing about the feelings. I am satisfied with my final outcome, I could put all feelings and meaning I wanted to display.