Color Palette

I am inspired by warm tones - sage and dark greens, warm browns, dark blues with light pink, pastel yellow and blue overtones. I relate to architecture and space when choosing colors. That is what I am mostly thinking of lately in terms of color. The feeling of an actual space and texture. In a lot of these photos, the colors feed into the feeling of the space, along with the content and arrangement of the physical elements. They evoke a sense of calm and order that is not oppressive, but affirming to me. You can see the faded pink in Brooklyn’s brownstones. I also like the darkened copper drain pipes on a weathered cathedral.

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Here are some photos of my own that relate my color palette. Some are from the North Georgia mountains a few years ago. Others are from the Nashville Fairgrounds.

Leaves of the Mountain Laurel - my favorite tree. North Georgia, 2016.

North Georgia, 2016.

North Georgia, 2016.

The infamous Drake Hotel in Nashville, 2016.

The infamous Drake Hotel in Nashville, 2016.

This lovely gentleman let me take his picture. Nashville Fairgrounds, 2016.

In my room. Nashville, 2016.

In picking my palette, I couldn’t really get the brown and red right because it’s more of a temperature. The yellow is more light itself. The green and blue are all texture, how the light hits off the plants, and how the blue is feathered by the clouds.

I used this color palette on a p5 sketch I did for ICM. It’s entitled Donut Maker. You can see it cycle through deep green, sky blue, pale yellow, and pink and brown as the colors fade back into the background. The fact that some of the elements are somewhat opaque helps with the deepening of the colors, as opposed to the pastels being too simple.

You can see a fullscreen version here and the code here

Here is a gif of the sketch made with Giphy.

Here are a few of the creations that I came up with using a Processing sketch I wrote this summer. The code works off of a glitch in Processing, as you can see the circles are made with stroke weight and size, being drawn over lines that are constantly moving about the screen.

I used a few resources from the web to experiment with different combinations, although I had a tough time getting the colors to translate to a Processing sketch or web colors. I used the webpage Colormind.io to find some colors, although much of the translation was lost once I took a screenshot of them or tried to convert them to RGB for use in a p5 sketch.

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Boarding Pass

There is a certain element of clunkiness to a the original boarding pass that I kind of liked. The robotic print makes it feel official to me. I chose to use more objects from the Noun Project to reduce the words on the screen, but I felt at first I perhaps did too much at first and was concerned that people wouldn’t be able to make the connections. Also, I thought some of the elements were redundant.

Redesigned boarding pass.

Redesigned boarding pass.

Original Boarding Pass.

Original Boarding Pass.

A digital boarding pass.

A digital boarding pass.

Signage Assignment

When I first got to ITP, I was inundated with new information. One of the more frustrating in the early days was navigating my commute through Brooklyn and Manhattan to get to my first classes. I was usually running late and once I finally reached ITP, out of breath, I found that the search was not over. No, I would have to encircle the whole of the floor to find my classroom for that period. This was the place where it all was supposed to make sense… Argh!!

One problem with the signs is visibility; you have to come within a 5 feet of them to read what the sign says. I would want the signs to be visible from much further away.

There are also up to three separate signs indicating the room number, of which there are two number systems in place - presumably one from NYU and one from ITP - with the addition of a descriptive reference, i.e. Classroom, Meeting Room A, Conference Room, etc. Oh, and if that’s not enough… there’s a QR code to boot! [facepalm]

So I propose that we get rid of the ITP reference names and nicknames altogether. The room numbers are the most useful for people who are unfamiliar with the floor who need to find their way as quickly as possible. Nicknames and references will be learned over time anyhow, so why try to put these on people at the outset? For this reason, I would use the number system originally overlaid by NYU, which has three numbers in a 4XX pattern, the 4 being for the 4th floor. Users may have found these numbers elsewhere on the NYU website. When people come from outside the ITP family, they may have been directed to a room number from a different NYU source.

Below is a side by side comparison with the old sign(s) and my proposed sign. I especially like the new proposal because it’s visible from afar which lets one find their way more efficiently.

Going further, I would also change the online floor map to be simpler with less colors and substitute symbols where possible. I would again eliminate the colloquialisms and keep the information as simple as possible. There is also a mobile-friendly landscape layout. I would also propose some guide post signs with arrows with a multiple of rooms to be put on the wall at strategic locations, such as the corners and beginnings of hallways.

Below is the old floor map and then my new one with both orientations.

Old floor map: too cluttered, too many colors.

Old floor map: too cluttered, too many colors.

 
New floor map with symbols and clear color schemes.

New floor map with symbols and clear color schemes.

 
New floor map in portrait orientation for mobile.

New floor map in portrait orientation for mobile.

The other sign I found was of my favorite stores - One Of A Find vintage in Brooklyn. I believe we will revisit logo design later in the semester, but this has always bugged the hell out of me. As soon as I showed it to a classmate, they were like “Lola Find??” Whoever designed this logo broke a pretty basic design “rule” by using a different font for each letter in the name as well as adding a number!

The designer was most likely trying to communicate the uniqueness of the store’s wares, but the result is manic and very confusing.

The name of the store is a problem in itself. I love a good pun as much as the next joker, but the alliteration in the F and V sounds in “of” and “find” is really quite awkward to say. Alas, if the name is to stay the same, the logo should be redesigned, keeping the concerns of the client in mine. We’ll see what I can do with it later in the semester.

Design Grid Project

Vinyl album covers have always resonated with me because of their size, more so than say CD or cassette tape artwork. The size is engaging but still consumable, although at perhaps the a maximal size, and there is something pleasing taking place as film is blown up to this larger 12.375” format.

Upon a recommendation from a friend, I took a trip to Academy Records on W 18th St. I was there to check out album covers. I found a number of inspiring overs and began to pick some favorites. The series below has a very European cleanliness and modern retro appeal. There is a very scientific feel to the design which speaks to the nature of the music - synthesizer-based tunes which did require a quite a scientific mind to operate, especially in the early days of synthesis.

The records that I was drawn to the most though had a certain balance in common that wasn’t a straight 1:1 symmetry, but in thirds - 1:2:3 or 2:3:4 ratio. I have long been fascinated in sacred geometry and how the golden ratio might play into relationships, whether it be visual shapes or musical intervals. As an aside, I looked at some musical intervals for reference. The musical interval that I found to correspond to the feeling of beauty I saw in these ratios was a Major 6th or M6, which has a ratio of 1:1.66 repeating. The Minor 6th (m6) interval is closer in number to the golden ratio, but this interval had a darker, negative quality that didn’t correspond to the beauty in the aesthetic I was seeing. Moreover, the Major 6th has tension while still being considered “Major” - uplifting, grounded yet searching, not at rest, but not tired either. All that to say, these musical and geometric correlations are not concrete, but more something I am searching for.

The image I found the most striking imagery and balance was the cover for the “All Kind Music” album by a NYC band named Georgia (a unintended coincidence, since I have strong ties to the state). Unfortunately, as can sometimes be the case, the music did not compel me in the same way as the album art. I usually go for music that is organic, melodic and perhaps sentimental, with some exceptions made for the like of Jay Reatard, The Darkness, Outkast, or Daft Punk. Nonetheless, the imagery here was striking and illustrated this balance that I found pleasing.

Below we see the augmented symmetry of the grid - offset in thirds while still maintaining a perceived balance. One way this is achieved is balancing the larger spaces with less action.

The colors I found myself most drawn to at this moment are a mixture of pastel pink and green or aqua blue. The muted tones give a pleasing warmth and glow, without being overwhelming and drawing an understated attention to themselves.

More examples below. The type face or font (what’s the difference?) on the picture immediately beneath is that faux typewriter style which I don’t care for, although it does fit this artwork well enough. There are some more examples below of layout that I was drawn to.

Two font styles were used here: Rotis Serif Italic on the left and an unidentified font on the right which has an interesting mixture of sans serif and serif text, as exhibited in the “m” and “d” letters, used to good effect.