Adrika Project 2: Curious Compositions

The Process

This project began with a mind map of the word curiosity. I connected many words to the concept of curiosity but ultimately decided on wisdom, innovation, and education. I then made thumbnail sketches using both stable and ambiguous figure ground compositions for those three words. It was quite difficult to just focus on shape and not on lines but sketching it out made me understand it more. I focused more on the silhouette of shapes and the negative space between them in the refined sketches. Using both geometric and organic shapes, I was able to portray the word using just an image.

For wisdom, I drew a three eyed head as the stable figure ground and a close up of an owl’s face for the ambiguous figure ground. The third eye is often used to show you’ve achieved a state of enlightenment so it was a perfect depiction of wisdom. The head is floating to create more of a divide between object and background. The owl is often used as the animal of wisdom in old folktales and fairytales so I used a close up perspective for the ambiguous figure ground. The tangent edges and negative space create ambiguity.

For innovation, I used the image of a gear floating for the stable and an image of a DNA molecule close up as the ambiguous. Gears are used in a majority of machines today and is a symbol of the Industrial Age where innovation boomed. The gear is floating and there’s 70% background to 30% object. The DNA molecule represents all the scientific research done about gene splicing and mutation. The thumbnail has a 50/50 divide between positive and negative space to give it more of an ambiguous figure ground.

For education, the floating book and glasses are used for a stable figure ground. An up close image of the book is used for the ambiguous again using geometric and organic shapes. Overall, this project really helped me to learn how to simplify and still be able to show a lot with a little. I will definitely take this knowledge with me to future designs.