Composition Part 2: Hierarchies!

Amazing stories have a purpose. There is a reason for telling them. Someone shouldn't describe to their doctor why the Xbox One X is a vastly superior to the Nintendo Switch after she asks how you broke your arm. What would be the purpose of that? You want people to care about what you have to say. You want your audience to appreciate the story you have to tell be it spoken or visual.

A key part of telling a great story is picking what is important. You need to select a hierarchy. A hierarchy is an order of what you want to focus on and what your audience should pay attention to. In order to tell a great visual story you need to prioritize the key details or else your image becomes a confusing mess.

Hierarchies help your audience understand what you are trying to say. If you clearly establish a hierarchy then your audience can focus. So a prioritized order of ideas can make even complex ideas simple to understand.

The cool thing about being an artists is the power we can have to captivate our audience. We can even use certain techniques to make them look where we want! How cool is that? The average person looks at an image for less than 4 seconds and determines if they like it or not. Anytime you have a person looking  beyond that you are winning as a communicator and artist.

There are several tricks that we use to help us prioritize. The journalistic questions are questions we ask everyday to understand what is going on. For example, when Sally broke up Stephen we want to know: who they are, what was the reason they broke up, where were they when they broke up, when did they break up, why did they break up now, and how did it all go down? Every news story establishes the answers to these questions very quickly so the audience will understand what is going on. This is called creating context.

Establishing context makes your audience care. It's why your pet "Fluffy" is more than just a dog to you. You have a history or a connection to Fluffy. The answers to the journalistic questions give us a connections to explaining why you are connected to Fluffy. Your audience needs connections so they will care about it. 

Ok so we know we need to answer the journalistic questions in order to create context. Part of determining the answers to the:  who, what, when, where, why, and how is establishing the actor or actors, stage, and action. What this does is simplify how to be establish context very quickly. 

The actor in the above Howard Pyle's painting Marooned is a pirate. The stage is an abandoned beach, and the action is being marooned. The pirate is who is in the picture. What is happening is our pirate friend is being marooned, and when is during dusk. The where appears to be a beach. The body language of the pirate gives a clue to the why the pirate was left there, and the how is the revealed by there not being a pirate ship there anymore. 

We clearly know what is going on because these questions are answered. Therefore, we have the context to understand what is going on the picture. It effectively communicates. Since art is communication, this is good art.

Composition

Think of composition like a map. A beautiful glorious map that allows the viewer to have a sense of direction of what you are trying to communicate.

Above is a definition of composition. You want to think of it as how you lay objects and ideas on your page for your audience.

Composing an image can be a confusing struggle for the artist. Where you place things and how you emphasize them has meaning. While your audience will always drawn on their own experiences to interpret your ideas, you really want them to get what you are trying to say. 

The map above while wondrous is a confusing mess. There is no order, or emphasis of importance.

Viewers that are confused will not spend time on you work. They won't like it. So this week we will explore how to create an image. We will learn how to map our ideas so that we clearly communicate to our audience and they can appreciate what we are trying to say.

Crazy whale monster loves this!

Final Logo Due October 5th

Final Logo is due Thursday October 5th.

No exceptions... failure to turn in will result in being fired.

Scan and Let's paint!

1. 
   
   
2. Type Scan into the "Type here to search"
3. 
4. Windows opens the Windows Fax and Scan window.

1. Windows Fax and Scan.
2. 
   
3. Click the Scan button in the Navigation pane, then click the New Scan button on the toolbar.
   The New Scan dialog box for your scanner opens.
4. 
   
   
5. Use the settings on the right to describe your scan.
   By letting the computer know what you’re scanning, its color profile, and the type of file you plan to create, you enable Windows Fax and Scan to create the highest quality scan.
6. 
   

1. 1. Always make sure you have 300 DPI.... 
2. DPI stands for Dots per inch
3. 2. Always click off the scan image as separate documents button

1. Click the Preview button to see what your document will look like.
   Make any last minute changes.
2. If you’re happy with the preview, click the Scan button.
   Windows scans the document and presents you with an image of your document.
3. Click the Save As button and complete the necessary information.
   Enter the filename, the type of graphics file you want saved, and then click the Save button.

Inktober

Thesaurus is your friend!

You need to define your words that you selected and then use a thesaurus.

Find all the similar words that mean something like the words you have selected.

The reason we do this is because our brains work like internet browsers. Our brains search for pictures that associate with each word we find. This forces us to be instantly creative because each word acts as a different visual clue to a final solution.

The job is to take the best ideas to finalize a concept.

You Got a Business!

First, We need to find a logo that already appeals to you. I want you to redraw that logo and describe why exactly that logo works for you. It will be due after September 20th.

Next we will start designing a logo for your job.

Start thinking about ideas, but nothing solid at this stage. You are going to learn ideas that will assist you with the creative process.