Class 8 - Elocutio and Dispositio

Today in class we began to look into Elocutio and Dispositio.

I shall explain them below

ELOCUTIO - a selection of expressions used to visually translate linguistic sentences.








The Expressions

• Metonymy consists of substitution of one element for another which holds a relationship. 

 Cause by Effect
- Envy can equal a scratched car

Instrument by author
- Arman (Artist) = painting using objects to sell Absolut Vodka

Instrument by user
- We are all witness - Nike       in which runners = the athlete or in which MJ is represented by the white glove.

Product by Producer
- Soda = Logo (Marketing of brands uses this - well placed brands)

Object by place of origin
- Green Tea = China

• Synechdoche - a form of metonymy in which the whole is represented by its most significant parts.      Material / Conceptual 

Whole by its parts
- Jazz = String Instrument / Instrument = Material Synechdoche (central part with circle) / Art = paint brushes -----> For a Arts and Jazz Poster in which a circular tub of paint is overlain with long skinny brushes and both sit on top a wooden curved table.

(People like visually attractive posters that are not boring or threatening)

- Vodka = Bottle / Geneva = Swiss Watches / Watch = Machinery (Material Synechdoche) - Who is this add for? - The wealthy high class business man who knows the calibre of a Swiss watch, and understands the high quality workings. Where will it be placed? - An in flight magazine, or other high end magazine

- Executive = Shirt fragment / American = Flag / Flag = white shirt with blue tie and red stains - Add for the movie American Psycho

• Metaphor - using expression with a different meaning or in a different context than usual / It is a symbolic representative of the main idea that waits to be communicated using two images which have no real relationship 

- Water basin capacity = Sponge  capacity = To sell the sponge

- Tampon capacity = dam capacity = to sell the tampon

- Laundry as sea life = to sell the Aquatis washer

Mix of Metonymy - object by place of origin AND Metaphor of the matador
- Man holding cork screw with same look and attitude of a matador - to sell Spanish wine

• Hyperbole - used to make a part of an object more evident by taking it to an extreme 

- Dog digging into cement - Add for Pedigree - For strong dogs
- DHL sticker on Elephant skin - No size limits
- Motorola phone - exaggerated reaction from the competition in an advertisement

• Personification - Treating the object as an animal or human

- Pop Culture- Bottle turned Marylin - Absolut Vodka
- Heiniken - fresher world - ice reaching for the cold beer
- Mascots like Disney characters to sell things like cereals

• Oxymoron - using the contrary (opposite) elements 

- Add in which human meshed body is half woman (legs in high heels) and male athlete about to run - power is nothing without control - Apple

• Antiphrasis - Uses text or legend contrary to what it represents in the image - Irony 

- True spirit of Olympics - Torch and Tanks - Amnesty International
- Well at least he drives a Prius
- United Colors of Benetton - Older adds (Inter-racial topics, provoking images) - Electric Chair (death penalty) - Too many concerns and arguments - The Director then left and opened renowned design school - FABRICA

DISPOSITIO

Ordering / Composing / Arranging
Graphic Design has built its own resources to order and place the formal elements

• Typography
• Composition 
• Color 
• Photo vs. Illustration 
• Vertical vs. Horizontal 
• Symettry 
• Size 
• Pattern 
• Texture 
• Shadow and Light 
• Tint and Shade 
• Perspective 

- 1 cat or 3 or a bunch?
- Light colors or mid or mixed or dark?
- Near or Far perspective

COMPOSITION
- 3 things - First Second Third - Picture Text Slogan
Placement
- Tony Kushner - Design for Dissent
-- Make the poster impressive - Calls to attention
-- Smart - push with what you can
-- No preaching - find smarter or more interesting ways than boring offensive too literal things
-- Communicate the message clearly
--Get people interested to find out more
--Use posters for their strengths, not too cram as much info onto a space as possible.

I need to check out
- Positive Poster
- 50 by 70

Inspiration for my plate

I will have the references up for these images over the next few days, along with descriptions about them. :)

These first few images are all works dating from the Fatimid period of Islam.

Other Inspiration and research for my plate

These few images are a bunch of really nifty or beautiful plates that I just had to include as inspiration!

The Other Plate

So it's midnight and I have spent a good part of the day creating one other plate design. I wanted to see if I could create a plate design based on intricate and old pattern work from the Fatimid period of Islam. I wanted to create an opulent plate for a company like Hermes; an older high end company that was international and would appreciate an old world geometric plate design. The Fatimid period of Islam took place between 900 and 1100 AD, and was renowned for both its floral and geometric pattern work, intricacies, and revival of luster use in ceramics. As such the plate I have designed is a more modern version of art of this period, and uses the same floral and geometric pattern work, along with modern technologies of high end plate creation in the blending of this opulent past with a revival of the present.

The plate design took a while to create, especially with the boarder work around the plate. The creation of the design required the use of clipping masks, brush creations, pattern creations, filters, the wand, pen tool and paths, etc. I was pretty happy with the out come, finally :)

Class 007 The Plate

Well.... I have decided that I really don't want to go into heavy poster material so I'll keep it light and go with a nice message that does have to do with life :)

What - The Slogan - Step out, Walk out, Run out, Dance out, Wheel out... Discover the world

Why - Because who isn't guilty of hiding from or forgetting the world playing games, being on the internet, watching telly, or working?

How will it work - Well the poster and image will be happy, thus not guilt tripping people for what they might not being doing. Inspiring people with fun images about discovering the world outside.

For Who - Aimed at - All ages really - but focusing on those between the ages of 10 and 40 - and age when people tend to become really busy.

When - Most necessary in the winter months when we (especially here in North America) tend to vegetate more and hide from harsher conditions

Where - this poster could be located in areas people are or feel forced to go to, like school, or major centers of work, they could also be located in high car traffic areas for those who take the car to and from these locations to home. Like wise they could be located at prominent train or bus stops.


Ok Plate now
I created a series of 4 plates for the company known as curousite a funky online boutique store specializing in unusual gifts. The set of plates is modeled of the art movement know as Dada.

Dada was both an art (anti-art) and literary movement, aimed at creating "non art" that went against traditional art forms pre World War one. The movement began in Switzerland, and spread from there, while incensing viewers with its nonsensical often rather obscene or silly pieces, including Marcel Duchamp's infamous "Fountain" piece. This piece was a urinal turned upside down and called a fountain.

What I have done is to create a series of plates within a tray, based on a single persons one bedroom apartment and typical signage used today in North America and Europe. The tray is 11 inches by 11 inches and holds four smaller plates within it, which can be divided in whichever way the user wants. Thus the plates gain a few perspectives, or the plates can make no sense at all with their smaller irregular sizes.

The tray and plates could be sold as a set, or separately. Perhaps the user has a two bedroom apartment or a four bedroom house, or simply just likes sleeping :)

The 1 Bedroom

Class 6 - More Masking

Ok so for this class we played with more masking and masking with paths and text.

So in regards to masking, when one creates a mask after having created a closed path with the pen tool, one can then add to or subtract from that mask by using the pen tool to create more paths and masks, followed by the black paint bucket onto the mask side, or erasing from it.

With text, one can marquee part of the text, and black the area with the black paint bucket to remove clipping from occurring in that area. Text must be white.

Below are images of what we created in class

We blurred the background image, after creating a copy of it. We created the text of runner and clipped the second background image (not blurred) into it. We made sure the runner text was white, and then added a mask to the text. We put a marquee around all letters except the final R. We then on the mask side of the text filled the marquee with the black paint bucket thus eliminating clipping from occurring in that area. 

I created this image again using the same techniques as mentioned above, except that I only blacked out half of the word sweets, and then lowered the opacity of the mask, hence the darkness of the letters on the one side. I also added embossing to the text, and a little plastic wrap filter to the lollys. 

I like cats, but this is kinda cheesy I agree. I was tired, so created a sleepy image of a bunch of cat images clipped into the text of sleepy. I have added a drop shadow on the text as well as rendered half opacity clouds on the blurred background image.

In class we created with the pen tool paths around the glasses. We then turned these into paths and put them over top a sun beach scene. We then created a path around the table and blacked it out on the clipping side of the wine glass to include the table in the image.

Class 5 - Poster and Plate Design 101

Intellectio

• What is your topic 
• When, Where, Why, For WHOM
• References and Sources 

Inventio

• Key arguments 
• What do I want to say 
• What do I want to tell 
• 30 second pitch - One phrase 

Poster Design - Honestly torn between everything - how to narrow - what is most important to me?

• Change takes time and perseverance - Transformation
• Discover your world :) - go out and PLAY
• 1 in 3 women will be raped in her lifetime :(
• Food Costs ;)
• Cheap Protein - Fast Food or Lentils 
• Cheap Vegetables - French Fries and K or Boiled Broccoli 
• Cheap Fruit - Juice or what ever is in season 
• Cheap carbs - Kellogs or Oats 
• Its about CHOICE 
• Willpower is a choice :) 
• Internet porn - violence and relationships :(

 Ok I will begin to research and think about these things in the mean time and on a happier note
the plate design

Ideas

• Art Deco or Art Nouveau (think Erte and Mucha) for Anthropologie or Kate Spade
• Islamic art of the Fatimid Period (think Alhambra and Taj Mahal) for Tiffanie's or Hermes
• Pop Art (think Warhol) or Surrealism (think Arp or Miro) for Agatha Ruiz de La Prada 
• Dada (think Magritte and Duchamp) for the MOMA or HunkyDory Home uk 

I am thinking more along designing one plate for Tiffanie's or Kate Spade, and a series of plates either for HunkyDoryHome uk or Agatha Ruiz de La Prada

Today we learned about Clipping Masks and Creating your own brush in Photoshop
 Fun!! - Yes I learned something again!!
 So clipping masks - Between two layers, and placing the layer on top that you want to fit into the layer below, in the layers window place your cursor over the area between two layers while holding down the option key; you should see the hand turn to a mini ven diagram and click - Yay!!
PS -you must make sure that the layer being clipped into (the one below) is on a checkered background - meaning part is invisible, or it wont really work. 

Also creating brush pre sets - To create your own brush - make a brush using a pencil or brush, then find Edit at the top menu bar, and then clicking on it go down until you come to "define brush preset".
Click and name the brush and then save it and use it! :)

Plate with clipped random brush strokes and dots. I have also added a gradient to the brush layer.

Large rose images taken from the internet and clipped into the plate.

Plate with white overlay onto which a pattern of graph paper is over top. Brush preset created of squiggle and replicated. 

Two brush presets created and put on plate in rotating pattern via transforms. 

Brush preset created along with imposed clipped image into plate, and text.

Class 4 - Visual Rhetoric

The project we will now be working on in this class is one of a plate design. Yes like a dinner plate design. We must base the design on an art movement, and we do have a choice of picking what company we design for. So for example I could design a very intricate dinner plate for Villeroy and Boch who specialize in more of the fancy wedding dinner plates, or I could design a funky or minimalist plate for Ikea or a whimsical one for Anthropologie (Sigh... I love this store)

Anyhow, What is Visual Rhetoric?

Visual Rhetoric is a 4 part design process being taught to us by our professor. 
It consists of:

1. Intellectio
2. Inventio
3. Dispositio
4. Elocutio 

We shall be using this process to create a poster for some sort of social justice.

First of all what is process?

1. Taking something through a routine set of procedures to convert them from one form to another
2. Creating a solution to a problem
3. Improving or remedying a condition
4. A particular course of action intended to achieve a result

Today we were told about the first two parts of the design process know as Visual Rhetoric - Intellectio and Inventio. Below I shall describe them.

1. Intellectio

• Design is an argumentative field 
• Design is 
• Persuasion and Communication
• A process of reception and understanding 
• Meant for an intended audience 
• Analytical discourse to understand main ideas about a topic 
• Helps to clarify 

• Communication 
• Shallow or Deep? 
• If we tell someone not to do it, invariably they will go out and do it
• Fear shuts people down
• 2 or more opposite viewpoints 
• Graphic design is a discourse practice based on agreements 
• Topics that raise emotion

• Marketing 
• The client and the designer both have a persuasive intent 
• The job is to maintain or modify a belief
• MAC is about the cool factor and quality design 
• Each add only focuses on one argument at a time - Narrow it down
• PC is about appealing to everyone like Mc Donalds

• Education 
• To teach people about something - sex, drugs, peer pressure, happiness, chocolate :)
• Or orient people within a particular space - where the bathroom is, how to fly safely :) 
• Webdesign - orientation in a virtual space - how to navigate it 
• Old newspapers 

 What is your intent 
To build arguments the designer must know how opponent (S) think
What are the main arguments and the counter arguments?
There are always two viewpoints 
No empty arguments - do your research and debate 


What is the context 

• How 
• What (topic) 
• When 
• Why 
• Where 
• For who

Narrow down 

Think about time and resources

2. Inventio 

• Create discourse 
• Conception of discourse 
• Find general arguments and persuasive resources
• Discourse is created and built from what was found in Intellectio 
• Find and NARROW - the clearer the better 
• Creative and productive process - practical process - only uses contents that are good for its cause 

Bold in Argument

• Inventio is the process of creation but uses common places that have a people in mind 
• FOR WHO - culture, language, education, careers, gender, age 
• 30 seconds - 1 phrase 
• Logo 3 nouns 
• What is the objective 
• What message do you want to communicate 
• How do you want to say it 

• Keep an open mind 
• Expand 
• The good, the bad, the awful 
• All ideas count 
• Mind map