PNS - Letter Forms Overview

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Positive/Negative Space – Letter Forms

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Understanding the basics of strong design will improve your drawings immensely. Viewers read an artwork by the shapes before naming the objects. This exercise will improve your ability to create a strong composition.

Module Lessons Preview

In this module, we will study the following topics:

Overview on Developing a Balanced Design: What makes good design? How do artist use Gestalt principles to create a balanced design?

Monograms and Letterforms: How can you create a balanced and effective design starting with your initials?

Module Key Terms

Elements

Line - path of a point moving through space

Shape - 2D area defined in some way

Form - object having 3 dimensions

Color - reflected light

Value - darkness or lightness of an object

Texture - how something feels or looks as if it feels

Space - the area around, between, above, below or within objects

Principles

Rhythm - movement by repetition of elements or objects

Movement - create the look or feeling of action, guide the viewer’s eye

Pattern - decorative surface design

Balance - equalizing visual elements

Proportion - concern with size relationships with one part to another

Variety - different and contrasting elements

Emphasis - part of a work dominant over another

Harmony - creates unity by stressing separate but related parts

Gestalt Theory in Art - Gestalt theory, a theory about perception, holds that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. It describes our ability to: Recognize patterns and make associations; group objects that are close together into a larger unit; relate and group objects of similar shape.

Similarity – a group or grouping that looks like a single unit because the shapes are the same or similar in some way

Proximity – the items are put close together to that people see them as a group

Closure - when an image is present and it is not complete, but the persons perception completes the image

Continuity or Continuation – when your eye and brain are moved through an image to another object.

Symmetry - that the viewer should not be given the impression that something is out of balance, or missing, or wrong

Figure and Ground - which happens when you use shading or size to change the brain’s perception. Silhouettes and complex relationships are an example of how our brains create order in chaos.

Concepts in Design

Distill - process of considering all images and icons which might represent and identify

Figure Ground Ambiguity - background in one part of composition transforms into the foreground

Formalize Visual Consistency - bringing all parts of an image into visual agreement

Ligatures - an integrated sequence of letters/ adjacent letterforms that can be shared and naturally woven together

Simplify - ridding a design of extraneous information leaving a quick read

Notan- Japanese origin/ the balance of light and dark

General Terms

Crop - cutting out part of an image

Font - an assembly of all the characters of one typeface. A unique family of letter designs.

Letterforms - design made by the unique characteristics that give it personality

Quick Read - something that is easily recognized at a glance

Rough Layout - earliest plan for a design which may include thumbnails

Sans Serif - letter form without a tail

Serif - lines or tails at the end of letters

Thumbnail - small rough sketches visualizing an idea or concept

Weight (of typefaces) - the boldness of a typeface

Zoom - in simplifying a design by focusing on a small part

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IMAGES CREATED BY GAVS OR OPENSOURCE