Representational

This is a representational photo of my dogs (and someone's leg). It reports the details of that instant where my dogs were in my room with me hanging out in the sunlight. Along with being able to see the sloppiness and mess in my room, I could present this to someone to show what my dogs looked like. I could also just reminisce and remember the times I've had with both of them. The details are what makes the representation important and as you can see I had two different kinds of dogs (a Pomeranian and a Dachshund). Where there is less detail e.g. part of someone's leg, I couldn't tell you whom it belonged to - not that you cared to know.

Symbolic

This is the symbol seen almost on every block that means essentially nothing. It is the Starbucks symbol. It is absolutely minimal on visual detail making use of negative space to convey its message of "here's one of us!" This symbol means something to everyone, coffee drinker and not coffee drinker, as a place for drinking coffee (and doing laptop work). As a symbol, it's meaning is a learned attribute as the image within, a queen mermaid-ish thing, has nothing to do with coffee. The fact that you see these everywhere on coffee cups or on plenty of street corners, helps develop the associated meaning of coffee from Starbucks.

Abstract

This is an abstracted image of a face. The "face" we see here is seen in reduction of details of a face into blobs of different colors. Seeing this image as a thumbnail before the full image, gave the immediate response of recognizing a face perhaps through minimizing the size further subtracts from detail. The minimal representational detail that exists are the outline of the head and body that are not the face in black scribble and the areas where one expects eyes to be in blue and lips a pink color. This face is not a specific face but an abstracted face for all faces. At first I thought it was a female face, but looking up close all I can say is that its a face.

Week 13 Blog: Visual Techniques

Depth, Distortion, Transparency, Symmetry, Subtlety

Fragmentation, Activeness, Opacity, Variation, Depth

The two designs I have are of the BMW GINA Concept Car and the Wii News Channel Interface. Where the two designs differed in techniques used, there was transparency used in the tail brake lights that emanate through the skin of the BMW GINA Concept and many overlapping parts of names of areas and the articles gave the Wii News Channel a usage of opacity. A mixture of distortion and subtlety is exemplified by the BMW GINA Concept in its skin's "wrinkles" as you realize, "Hey, a car's not supposed to wrinkle!" Whereas a mix of Fragmentation, Activeness, and Depth play on the interactivity suggested by its multiple icons of articles, motion implied by the pointed finger, and the dimension created by a stack of articles and shape of the globe. What the two designs share are depth, denoted by the BMW's curves, lines and capturing of different shades of light on different angles of the car.


Images from: http://gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2007/01/wiinews23wm.jpg
http://www.goodlife.com.ng/uploads/Sanni-Azeez_41_BMW-GINA-20.jpg
http://www.fahad.com/pics/bmw_gina_concept_car.jpg

Contrast in Design

Here we have a menu interface from a game called Age of Pirates 2. There is contrast in this interface in the fact that there is a menu in the middle of the screen over a detailed look of the theme of pirates and ruined ships at sea. The words "Load Game" are notably brighter than the others perhaps denoting that it is selected at the moment. The symbolic icon of the game stands out as an item completely separate from the background as is with the words and lettering of the menu. With the menu slightly more to the left than center, there is a bit of sharpening going on allowing users to see more of what the game has to offer in terms of its graphics or theme to the right as well as choosing what selection is desired. Also, in the background, we can see skies that are quite clear and blue higher up although lower and in the distance you see a darkening, attributing to the theme of entering into a pirate's world. Although it was unexpected to see such clear skies, it has a good feel to it probably because it sets a mood.

image from: http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y116/oleman/Puzzel6.jpg

Shown is an image of an option menu interface for a game called Fireteam. This is an example of an interface that uses little contrast and where it does use contrast, it fails to use it in a way that serves a good purpose in design. This interface has contrast in color between the brown boxy features and the blue background however it lacks contrast in shape and has just a few textures in juxtaposition of each other. Each of tProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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box shaped features are exactly alike differing only in the text within them. In addition, the font sizes of "SOUND" and "REMAP KEYS" are significantly greater in size than the others causing a point of focus that seems unnecessary. I actually was expecting to see options within the boxes but realized later that this is the options menu, this was likely at fault to the texture of the word option matching that of the blue background.

image from: http://www.silverthornedesign.com/images/FTI_03.jpg

Movement and Motion in Environment Design

Shown above is the game Fable 2. Much of the environment is made to be acted on in order to perhaps jump over a fence for example. This would normally occur as you come within a certain distance of reach of course. The human perception of motion allows us to realize that a distance is closing as we move toward it with the use of flow of movement. The use of this movement along with depth perception come hand in hand with a human's perspective of space. Just as you wouldn't try jumping over a fence that was too far, naturally this aspect is used in the game Fable 2.

http://scathingaccuracy.com/pageFiles/review/images/fable%202/fable-2.jpg

Shown in this image is the simulated reality, PS3 Home. The environment is made to show users which directions and locations are accessible. Seen in a distance, a light tan circular area is a location we can see a gathering of users. On the right, we see another users running toward the current user's perspective through the use of a stairway. These are just some of the ways to make users realize and make use of the depth to the environment that the Home creators made to imply areas to move toward. While not shown in this image, the user who access the device shown has the option to look around the device which I find to be a very good use of motion just as though you would turn your head in attention to something else.

http://media.obsessable.com/media/2008/12/12/29-basiccontrols2.jpg

Depth/Dimension/Space

Here is an example of Google Earth's street view on the Golden Gate Bridge. As it is a 2D representation of 3D, we can make out certain elements within dimension to create a depth perception. Use of overlap of a speed limit sign in front of a line of cables show depth acting in space. The parallel lines of the sides of the bridge converge into a vanishing point. And the eyes are deceived as thought they were peering into a distance although all there really is a horizon where all lines tend to meet at the vanishing point. The lines of cables get smaller showing scale to create more depth to allow us to perceive space. These make use of relative height and size. They create a certain texture gradient as well.

http://earth.google.com/intl/en_uk/userguide/v5/images/street_view.jpg