Savina

Composition Game

As I promised in an earlier post here’s a simple game in order to train your eye to see if your composition is right:

  1. First of all you need a piece of cardboard (21 x 15 cm / 8 x 6 inch).
  2. Divide it into 4 equal parts.
  3. Additionally cut out at least 4 different shapes in various sizes and if possible colors.
  4. Try placing them on the cardboard in any order you can think of (you can also change the number) and try to portion the empty space the way I showed you to do.
  5. As a variation you can make many more papers, divide each in 4 different parts, lay the figures down and draw only their outlines. Now you can lift them up and get a better overview of the overall arrangement between empty space and occupied space as the different shapes now appear as one single shape vs. the background.

In my opinion it’s a more fun way to start dealing with the topic and it really can help you get an eye for this sort of things. You should definitely try it out and see for yourself 🙂

Oh, and here’s a quick pic on how my first “compo-game” looked like:

my composition game

in For Prospective Students / Tutorial  by Savina 0 comments

Media and Communication 1

In our first lesson on Media and Communication we tried to find a definition of “media”. The discussion we had was really philosophical at times and we came to the conclusion that the term “media” is indeed very flexible.

I’ll give you a short summary on our findings anyway:

  • a medium is always a communication carrier ( here’s a little memory hook: medium is the middle value like in “small-medium-large”, so media is what stands between you and the communication (information) meaning it’s the bridge bringing the information someone gave to you)
  • The effect of media depends on the experiences and background knowledge one has (Let’s assume you show a documentary on steel factories to a tribe living in the jungle. They’ll probably take it as something one can see in a vision rather than information on steel working processes, since they do not know what steel is but they do know visions.)
  • Since everything communicates in a way we have to define media more precisely. Let’s take a doorknob for example: When you see it you know “Aha. I can open the door when I use this knob.” So basically the doorknob is a communication carrier giving you the information that you can open a door with it. But does that mean it’s a medium? Sure, the designer of the knob communicates with the user through a certain appearance he gave to it. Is it a knob one has to push or pull or turn? And what if it is old and rusty? It tells you exactly this: “I’m an old doorknob.” But see, it cannot give you any other information except about itself.  And that’s where media helps out. Its most basically defined as an object that has the ability to tell you more than just what it is. So if you buy a paper and every page is printed with “I’m a paper. You can buy me, you can read me, you can burn me etc.” than it would have no value as a medium anymore!

All points I gave you are of course still in the rough, since we only tried to find a definition 🙂 More on the topic, next week!

Oh right, we got our long-term homework: Pick a medium you like and give a presentation with a concluding discussion round. Additionally we have to document everything, writing about it on the internet is allowed, too 😉

in Theory  by Savina 0 comments

Good Pen Eraser

Time for my tip of the week!

This week I finally found a relatively decent pen-eraser. I’ve already had 3 other ones, and they were no no-names, believe me! I made a picture so you can see what I’m talking about:

comparing 4 different erasers

Well as you can see, the inconspicuous Japanese pen-eraser really did a nice job in comparison to the rest. And it isn’t all too expensive either. It costs about 1,70 Euros! Really, it cannot get any cheaper!

This is of course my opinion, and I’m not getting paid for advertisement or something. Just my recommendation 😉

in Tips and More  by Savina 0 comments

Typography 1

Today I had my first typography lesson.

Basically we were showen different exam works, which were alltogether different, ranging from children’s books to animation and games.

Then the professor gave us two helpful links “every design/art student should visit on a daly basis”. But see for yourself: Fontblog and Slanted. As far as I can see there are no English versions available.

And finally we got our first 2 homeworks.

  1. Pick a favorite letter or number, find at least 25 versions in your everyday life and take photos. Organize the images on your computer, sort them in different categories and print them out. (3 weeks time)
  2. Write your name with an exceptional font the professor can remember 🙂 (1 week time)

Well that’s that. More from typography next week!

in Typograhy  by Savina 0 comments

Design Foundation Course – Prominent Designers One Should Know

The Design Foundation Course is the first of six basic courses one must complete in the first semester. It’s covering some of the very basics every artist needs to know and gives the opportunity to try out different design methods.

The very first homework I got is to look up a list of prominent designers and get familiar with their achievements and style. And here’s the list:

  • Max Bill
  • Otl Aicher
  • Ruedi Baur
  • Stefan Sagmeister
  • Alfredo Häberli
  • Konstantin Grcic

Some of them have a really interesting career. Otl Aicher was one of the early Corporate Design pioneers and Stefan Sagmeister designed CD covers for the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith. You should definitely check them out and expand your knowledge on design and art.

Additionally students were allowed to name any other designer they know and include him/her in the list. So basically the ones given just form the backbone.

in Design Foundation / University/College  by Savina 0 comments

Preparations for Qualification Test-Composition

The more knowledge you have about art the better your chances are to pass the qualifications. Sounds logical, doesn’t it? It’s not necessary to read tons of books about art history and visit museums every day, but there are some VERY basic things you ought to know.

One of which is composition. Many beginners don’t really pay attention to it and prefer concentrating on sole figure or object drawing. That’s a big mistake! The first thing an artist has to consider when planning his work is the composition of his idea on the format. Only after that does the actual sketching begin. In order to find out which composition works best for your image you should scribble quite a lot and try out different things.

I’ve prepared some very useful information for the readers who’ve never dealt with the topic. There are three basic steps you should follow when preparing the composition:

  1. Divide your format in 4 equal parts.
  2. Place the objects (imagine them or scribble first) and try to keep the empty space equal on the left and right side.
  3. Push objects to the left if right object is bigger and the other way round.

Here are some images which will help you understand what I’m trying to say:

This is the easiest and fundamental knowledge on composition, but it should be enough for the qualification test. Next time I’ll introduce to you a small game in order to train what you just learned and get familiar with it really quickly.

Please do not forget that it couldn’t hurt to know more on any of the preparation topics! I’m giving you the information you really should know in order to raise your success chances 🙂

in For Prospective Students / Tutorial / University/College  by Savina 0 comments

Collect your artwork

Actually I wanted to upload my own portfolio, but unfortunately I have to wait for a  while until I get a decent camera…I tried out the one I have but the results are unacceptable! So I decided to start a new category 🙂 “Tip of the Week”

It’s really about small but really helpful hints you can apply to your (art) working habits. The information contained in this category is meant for a mixed audience, meaning some tips will be for beginners and some other for more advanced artists. So check it out every time!

And the first tip is: “Collect all your sketches and note the date you draw them on.”

Probably most of you are already doing this and if you’re not START NOW! You can use old sketches and drawings for comparison. That’s the best way to keep record of you actual progress and it is a very powerful motivator, believe me! At the moment I’m working on the human anatomy, so I’m drawing constantly. At times I feel like I’m not getting better at all, I feel like I’ll never be able to draw humans like Bridgeman or Bammes…That’s when I look through some older images, a few months old ones in particular. Every time I end up really surprised. The progress is so evident and that gives me a huge motivation boost! You should try it out, too!

Another reason for keeping your old sketches isn’t that obvious but you can keep it in your mind for the sake of positive attitude: One day you’ll be famous and then you can sell your old drawings for major cash 😀 It’s something real good artists tend to do at times…

Keep going!

in Tips and More  by Savina 0 comments

10 Dinge, die bei Eignungsprüfungen vermieden werden sollten (German)

Es gibt vieles was man im Laufe der Eignungsprüfungen vermeiden sollte! Vor Allem die Mappe birgt viele Gefahren…Versucht folgendes auf jeden Fall zu beachten:

  1. Behandelt ein vorgegebenes Thema nie wortwörtlich! Wenn das Thema beispielsweise “Kätzchen” lautet, zeichnet keinesfalls süße kleine Kätzchen, die auf ein flauschiges Kissen kabbeln. Sucht stattdessen alle möglichen Assoziationen zum Wort. Was ist typisch für Katzen, was verbinden verschiedene Kulturen mit Katzen, kann das Wort als Metapher genutzt werden, was wäre das Gegenteil zu Katzen und ihre Eigenschaften, kommen Wortspiele und typographisch interessante Umsetzungen in Frage? Ich rate dazu eine riesige Mindmap anzufertigen und alles was einem einfällt sofort aufzuschreiben. Habt keine Angst vom eigentlichen Thema abzuschweifen, solange eine Verbindung zurückverfolgt werden kann, sollte es keine Probleme geben.
  2. Verschwendet nicht zu viel Zeit damit nach dem perfekten (Unter-)Thema zu suchen, wenn keines vorgegeben ist! Findet etwas worüber ihr viel Hintergrundwissen habt (oder finden könnt) und was euch begeistert. Ein kleiner Test kann da helfen: Schreibt so viele Ideen wie möglich zu einem selbst ausgewählten Thema innerhalb von 5-10 Minuten. Wenn ihr nicht mehr als 1-2 Einfälle überhaupt haben solltet, erforscht lieber zunächst ein anderes Gebiet.
  3. Gebt euch nicht mit dem aller ersten Einfall zufrieden! Sogar wenn ihr meint ihr habt DIE Idee überhaupt. Untersucht das Ganze aus vielen verschiedenen Blickpunkten und lasst andere Leute Teil an eure Gedanken haben. Wie nehmen sie eure Werke war? Was ist ihre Interpretation?
  4. Benutzt wenn möglich nicht immer nur die gleichen Materialien, Techniken und Formate! Zeigt den Professoren, dass ihr bereit seid Neues auszuprobieren und zu lernen.
  5. Setzt nicht auf Quantität, sondern Qualität! Falls ihr ein Bilderminimum erfüllen müsste ist es dennoch ratsam ein paar Werke weniger abzugeben, die sind dafür aber qualitativ hochwertig. Eure Mappe muss aus der Masse hervorstechen.
  6. Versucht nicht eure Mappe exakt an den euch bekanntenVorlieben der Professoren anzupassen!  Vielleicht habt ihr eine Mappenberatung besucht und der leitende Professor hatte klar seine Präferenzen geäußert. Bedenkt aber, dass jeder Professor seine ganz eigenen Kriterien hat und ihr könnt nicht wissen wer eure Mappe benoten wird (nie nur eine einzelne Person).
  7. Vergesst nicht ab und zu Pausen zu machen! Versucht zwischendurch auch mal Abstand von den Arbeiten zu gewinnen und macht was völlig anderes. Geht spazieren, macht Sport, spielt Videospiele oder liest ein Buch. So wird eure Kreativität wieder gestärkt und ihr werdet das bisher Geleistete mit ganz neuen Augen betrachten.
  8. Vergesst nicht eure unmittelbare Umgebung mit einzubauen! So werden die Professoren sehen, dass ihr euch mit der realen Welt beschäftigt. Das Schlimmste (in den Augen der Profs) was ihr machen könnt ist es von Fotos abzuzeichnen. Das kann nicht oft genug gesagt werden. Natürlich dürft ihr Referenzen benutzen. Ihr solltet jedoch versuchen das Objekt zu verstehen und auf eure Bedürfnisse anpassen und nicht andersherum.
  9. Kopiert KEINESFALLS fremde Werke! Das ist ein sehr wichtiger Punkt! Ganz besonders während Internetrecherchen solltet ihr aufpassen. Es ist schon mal vorgekommen, dass Bilder gegoogelt und abgegeben wurden, die eigentlich ein Student an der Hochschule selbst erschaffen hatte. Ihr könnt euch vorstellen welche Folgen das ganze hatte…
  10. Und der letzte aber trotzdem sehr wichtige Punkt ist: Vergesst nicht Spaß an der Sache zu haben 🙂
in Deutsch / University/College  by Savina 0 comments