OUGD505 - Studio Brief 1 - Ambient Music - Symbol Development

Symbol Development

Using the imagery these were outlined using a fine-liner with the shapes being simplified to create more refined graphic shapes. It was found that some designs worked more effectively as birds eye views or as side views. 

The frog in particular was difficult to create from the side as the feet were hard to refine the legs without them loosing a sense of the their shape. Breaking the pictures down into their component shapes allowed the designs to become more graphical. These designs however still had elements from the original images that weren't in keeping with the rest of the designs e.g. the legs on insects were at different angles or wings were different shapes etc.

With this in mind it was considered that the designs needed to be further refined to create more shape based imagery which was also symmetrical where necessary particularly for the images that were from a birds eye view perspective.

Some of the designs for each of the elements within the compost heap were scanned into the computer. These were then image traced and placed into a square or circle. It was considered that the designs could then be modified to fit within the shape, however because of the variety of subjects it was difficult to adapt them in this way. However having these printed out mean that these could be used to further refine the imagery.

To create a symmetrical design for the frog it was considered that drawing one half of the frog then copying the design and reflecting it would help to create a fully symmetrical design.

Once the designs were drawn it was found that potentially having different line weights within the design would be a good way of creating contrast within the designs. It was considered that the legs of some of the insects could be further refined to be represented as lines rather than filled shapes to create more geometric designs.

Filling the design rather than outlining them created quite bold designs. When this was done outlining the elements within the design in white allowed the different components within the design to be separated.

Rather than filling the whole design in black it was considered that a mixture of white and black filled areas could highlight areas within the design. However it was considered that there would need to be similar amounts of white space within each of the designs to make them look consistent across the set.

Refining the frog design so that it had the extra curve in its leg meant that it looked more representative of how they fold back rather than looking quite chunky.

The rook design however was still looking like a general bird to this was redrawn in different ways to better capture the shape of the bird and reflect a rook specifically.  

The frogs feet were further refined to be more cylindrical rather than quite pointed which made them more consistent.

The bee design was refined to have a more rounded body and the stripes were made straighter to create a flatter and more consistent looking design.

The rooks were refined to lines in the drawing which simplified them more and made them less bulky. 

Various different shapes were used to reflect the shape of the birds feet. An arc shaped aimed to create a sense of the how the birds feet curve when it lands on a branch. Using a wiggly line aims to better reflect as sense of multiple claws within the feet. A straight line was considered however this was too angular to create a sense of the shape of the birds feet. 

Increasing the line weight of all the designs to 2pt rather than 1pt allows the shapes and lines within the design to better stand out when filled in black. This was done for both black and white outlines within the design to create consistency. 

The arrow to represent reuse was based on a traditional recycling symbol seen at recycling plants. To reflect a similar aesthetic the line weight was made the same and the use of the three quarter circle aimed to create visual similarities between the two. The arrow tip was made more angular to create a more geometric feel to the design. This was then used throughout the rest of the arrows. The second arrow aims to reflect converting and is visualised through the idea of one thing turning into another or moving from one thing to a new thing. Within a compost heap material slowly reduces down so it was considered that normal arrows could be used to represent the pressure within the heap and the downwards force within it.