SOMEGUY.

The final group project of FVD course was challenging in terms of the theme, guidelines and the short deadline. Still the larger team made it all possible with everyone providing everything they could as efforts and working as one cult.

Partners in crime

The beginning

The brainstorming compared to the earlier project was easier as more brains and more ideas were pouring in. Once the concept is finalized to work with the shapes expressing themselves and the story board is created, we were split into performing and production team for making it easier for discussions and connected execution.

Finding solutions

Considering the previous experience working to produce music, it was interesting to take up the same responsibility and join the production dept also to help with video editing on the elater stage.

First thing the music production team, myself and Aswin put together a concept of how we can relate the pitch to the dimension of the form and beats to the edges of the form.  

While the performing members were busy collecting materials and setting up the background, we were out there to create some music out of non-conventional sources.

An example of such exploration is below like I was finding this metal drum as a right fit as a bass sound giving life to the track.

In search of bass drum

Similarly, to mark few examples, dropped coins in different surfaces for the transition effect and when we were in a need of an illusion sound, the solution was the dosa making sound produced out of kitchen.

Once we managed to develop a custom-made sound library, it was then a time taking process of putting them wisely together to make the shapes emote in the ears

Where the mime idea evolved

Finally we were proud to successfully narrate the emotions and self-expressions of shapes in two parallel point of views

Take away

The research, ideation and execution gave a lot clarity on how we can use the six-week long course practically in the field of design. It also implied the significant difference in each one’s perception through the progress of the course.

Other partners in crime: Arvind A, Madhavi Ghosh, Yadu Yadav

Color and music are existing in two worlds yet are very close to each other, possess similar characteristics and can convey emotions very effectively. The first group project thus was to represent story of color abstractly with the help of music to convey the emotions.

There were number of challenges from coordination among members through digital mediums to quicky understanding new software to aid the production.

It all started with a detailed brainstorming with the team members which ended up quite well, we decided to narrate a straightforward story of a color drop experiencing the interaction with other colors.

Initial ideas formed

Even though the members divided equal responsibilities to work on, everyone was assigned some additional areas to research and concentrate, like mine was to figure out how the music part could be made the best suited.

It was very ambiguous of a start as music production is such an area, I have never thought I would try my hands on, still managed to find a flow. Started with recording all kind different sounds which might be essential to create a balance and harmony in the music, and with the support from other team mates recording or mimicking sounds even, we made our own sound library by the end of second day.

A slight bit of tutorials to work around very basic functionalities like stitching sounds together in FL studio helped to get the things done in the planned timeline itself.

The video, named Blob was produced via tremendous efforts of other teammates to create smooth stop motions of whole story board.

Pure virtual support

After the first screening, they were some quality feedback received on which we have reproduced the same concept in a little bit different technique. The opportunity to do a second version helped us all team members to do extensive research on the possibilities of representing the story of color in different mediums, we even tried light painting as an option, which eventually did not work out.

The light painting idea

Sharing below the final version of  ‘Blob’, which we team members any day is proud and satisfied as a product helped us to streamline our approach to research, ideation and adapt with newer technologies for solving problems effectively.

Gist of Journal

The way additive colors behave different in resulting color when some colors are added or interacted is difficult to represent with pigment color mediums but possible with the use of lights.  The thought of this attempt arrived when trying different mediums for the color musical video experiment and exploring possibilities of light painting for the same.

Following are the few experimental shots managed with the help of DSLR in long exposure mode and phone screen with different color images swiped across the gallery one after another within the time shutter speed duration.

Red, Green and Yellow screens are presented in order under long exposure shot resulting in the addition of the light where ever they overlap.

Similarly Blue and yellow are exposed one after other. 

Green and blue screens exposed one after other.

Shot with Red, blue and yellow .

Exploration activity

The principles of visual design was earlier composed using just line and dots in a very minimal way, but this time the composition isn’t very minimal with inclusion of geometrical elements.  

The idea was to compose a frame in paper with the allowed shapes to represent a word by its meaning of emotion.  Following are such two-composition made in 20 x 20 cm size on an A4 paper.

The attempt here is to compose ‘past’. The elements are arranged in a way to represent a backward motion as if it’s a set of thoughts to past and what appears suddenly are packets of memories of different sizes and few are even faded as it gets older.

The follow up to this, the whole composition is observed through a smaller 8 x 8 cm square to study the underlying principles of visual design present within the bigger composition. Identified frames and respective predominant principles are marked accordingly.

It’s evident through the practice that the principles just like observed in Gestalt can’t stand alone in a composition, there can be predominant and other principles according to the subjective perception.  

The word ‘friendship’ is composed here with the help of basic geometric elements. It justifies the word in a way that the circles are individual entities through which the space around them, i.e., their personal space is being shared with conscious control. It also tries to represent the color shades being added up as the friendship shares common interests or qualities or mix of individual identities.

Like how the previous composition is broken down with the 8x8 cm frame to look close for principles of visual design, the result of similar search in this composition is added here. As it was evident, the compositions is a combination of different Visual Design principles.

It was challenging to try hands on abstract compositions with limited recourses, but at last it pays off as much better understanding on the elements and principles of visual design.  

BTS Note:

Have opted to use colored papers for making of the 20x20 composition precise to the planned thumbnail size. Sharing few steps involved below.

Exploration activity

Principles of visual designs are namely six, Pattern, Rhythm, Point of Interest, Balance. Scale and Proportion and Unity and Diversity.  Here is a study of these principles through representing them as a composition inside a square with the use of no color and minimal elements. This exercise helped to understand deeper about the principles and the method of finding the possible arrangements through trial and error with feedbacks made the experience even interesting.

The principles are tried to represent as dynamic as possible and also looked around in nature for inspirations as the natural processes are dynamic and consist dramatic beauty.

Following are such three composition made in 20 x 20 cm size on an A4 paper.

The composition above is for ‘Balance’, as balance as a principle could be varying from visual balance to symmetric or asymmetric balance, this particular one tends to mark visual balance.

Principle Rhythm is composed here, the stages of movements of two independent objects which is in a dynamically changing pattern creates the rhythm.

The Point of interest principle is observed when some element of the composition are attracting more attention of the elements together leading viewer’s eyes in a particular direction. Here when there is a dissimilarity in one of the objects, naturally that object and thus the reason causing the dissimilarity are highlighted as point of interest.  

Few ideation works are shared below which were initially sent for reviews and helped to refine the composition to what presented above.

Gist of Journal

Colors are strong representation of emotions in any composition. It was a thought to explore if a painting conveys certain emotion even if it is unconventional use of the colors or combination.

Here the first painting is of an evening scene, represented in mostly Red, Orange and blue and intersection of them producing other colors.

The emotion tried to depict is the Girl’s connection to the place and nature. She being very immersive to the scene In front of her, being one with the nature. The trees and other natural objects are also composed in the bright shade of sun to represent the nature’s side of the composition whereas the girl herself and the immediate surrounding is in blue to state that they stand opposite to the idea of other elements. The idea is viewer can either perceive the uncommon color of nature and the surrounding as illusion as a whole, or another aspect of the painting is to depict the sun set time, where the girl representing the moon, rising while watching the sun set.  

Exploration

The presence of harmony, balance, and rhythm are very strong in music, art, and in food.  May it be the favorite music of your taste or food in that sense can have a particular harmony which can be represented through colors by a talented artist. Even though the result might be subjective to some extent, it can evoke similar feelings in the views as well.  

There is a melodious song falls into Carnatic category ‘Pavanarachezhuthunnu..’ from the Malayalam movie ‘Vietnam Colony’. It features misty winter morning mood, just after the sunrise when the life is restarting afresh. Here is a slight attempt to depict my feelings when lost to this song on a positive morning. The specialty of the song which I personally felt is, it isn’t positive out of the box, rather includes a bit of sorrow of a repeated routine life and some uncertainty.  

As the music got its layers well defined, food is equally layered of taste, composition of elements thus the visual appeal and smell with very subjective emotions. When I had to attempt representing my experience with food with color, I immediately choose to attempt with two of the favorite gooseberry pickle. The spices, sour after taste of gooseberries and the slight sweetness in mouth if drank water right after it are the emotions I could relate. 

Similarly, I attempted to represent the sour-sweet yet hot Ginger-Pickle!

Exploration

Gestalt Psychology is a wider thought defining human behavior and thoughts. It starts to make sense to look back at objects and give a thought the way we perceived them.  The concept of whole has an identity of its own.

 For example, the tile of paintings in my wall definitely would not make same sense if they were arranged in asymmetric order or if they were of different hue all together. The element of similarity followed by the proximity and symmetry principles of Gestalt giving a new identity to the group. Very similar is the case for leaves in pair formation. 

The keys of electronic piano are perceived as two groups, the black and white. The similarity in color, position and shape helps this grouping possible and easy.

The similarity not just works in intentional designs, it also plays a part in most common scenarios too. In the photograph above, the glasses on a tray is arranged in no particular order, still we mostly tend to identify them as 3 groups of glasses based on their shape and amount of light they reflecting.

The case with this plastic container, they were designed to be similar and the photograph is symmetrically placing them across frame, still the colors also creates an internal grouping.

The Gestalt continuation principle is often an interesting part of daily life observation and perceptions. How we know the bar behind the curtain is continuous even though the curtain hides major parts of it without questioning could be one of the examples.

So is the case with the window grills, they seem continuing through the frames horizontally in the photograph. Similarity and symmetry also play roles in this case.

The scope of improvement in the quality of line and the shape was evident in the earlier review and hence kept alive drawing exercises on lines, isometry, human postures and perspectives. Glimpse of them are adding here and plan is to constantly update to look for visible progress.

If a color is an emotion, the tint and shade must be denoting the intensity of it. So the combination of tints or shades of a hue can have all together a new experience as compared to a composition with the original value of the color.  

Here are some attempts to practice and explore the interaction between different tints of a color.

Gist of Journal

As a kid I walked up and down to school till 7th grade, and the memory lane is rich for those 7 years where I explored nature as our village being a proper village that time. Me who preferred to walk alone, enjoying the time talking to plants and trees on the way, the alien silver papers that come out from fresh cigarette packets were very noticeable between green grass and mud-road. There were times I remember the curiosity made me pick couple of neat ones and take it home as if the shiny silver thing is some precious possession.

How the emotions are connected with our perception is very evident that even being a non-smoker, a silver color can immediately bring the cigarette foil memories and I can almost smell the tobacco, which was the part discouraged me collecting more such papers back in the days.  

PS: Including photo of the exact silver paper below , the one made me curious as a kid. *smoking kills*

Gist of Journal

Malabar, the south western coast of Indian Peninsula is always related to color red by anyone who know the depth and length of the place.  

Red and its shades are unavoidable part of the traditional practices like  Theyyam. Even though there is no such written evidence on how red became the essential color of all such divine practices my guess is it could be both visual aspects and the practical aspect that it is the easiest color to be produced with missing turmeric with slaked lime (chunnambu).  

Talking about the visual aspect, the artforms like Theyyam are performed mostly in the night under fire torches (Theepantham), no other color would have justified the communication of strong emotions to the devotees other than bright red that appears even brighter under warm light sources.

Thinking further on that line, when trying to connect the red color usage with the type of emotion that the Theyya Kolams convey, back story of Theyyams are pure representation of suppressed minority in most of the cases and their revenge to take back the pride or bring the justice. 

How it is closely connected to the lower caste community and how it was a medium to unite them against the issues they face due to cast hierarchies, it makes much more sense why stronger emotions like anger is base for most forms and as a result the devotion also have kind of underlying respectful-obedient nature to it.

So if red representing sacred places, possessions and art forms is where it all started to associate red as color of Malabar, it is also the communism giving it a touch of red. Kannur, being a place where many left leaders were born and witnessed many revolutions it again makes the association to the red stronger in a political sense.

Exploration

Color of object or scene, may it be the background, foreground or the object’s color itself, it produces some meaning together which are perceived differently when one of the components varies. The following is an attempt to vary colors from existing images and study what difference it introduces to the emotion or perception.

It is widely known that warmer colors are often appetizing than cooler colors, especially red. The image of delicious paneer being cooked is altered to blue to understand the change in the same appetizing appeal of the image. It is commonly observed that blue is the least appetizing color of its category. Taking very open stand to the blue colored food, the chances are that it will be associated to experimental food items hence may be evoking slight curiosity.

Nature in its own way is familiar to human, so is the colors from nature. Even the light change of colors in nature can potentially represent weather change or tropical regions like how generally summer is warmer and winter is cooler in ambient color of nature. The image of cow here is modified adding elements of red, which if compared evoking different emotions. If normally it is just a cow with a curious look the addition of red introduces a layer of vengeance or furiousness.

Same goes for the photograph here, the natural light gives emotions like hope, positivity and the green addition modifies these emotions to mystery where the absence of colors brings silence.  

Some metals are personal statements. Gold, silver etc. are hence not just colors but closely associated with the value of the metal itself. Here is a photograph of a metal watch, which is of course not gold but being golden in color it sends out emotions like wisdom and courage and acts as a personal statement. When recolored it to blue shade, it completely stands opposite to what a golden-watch is commonly symbolized for. It is now a low-key, function-oriented funky gadget yet the metal evokes some vintage feel.  

Color perceptions on the man-made conventions are plenty around the world. Like ‘Taxis are yellow’ to’ tyres are black’ got its own reasons to have the respective colors assigned. Here is some warning lights from my car, which are designed in red, to give the sense of importance. As we hold the collective knowledge of red symbols as something to pay attention these warning lights are very difficult to be neglected. The same lights are tweaked to display same information in green in the following image, which takes away the ‘important warning’ context and is emoting ‘everything is good to go’ to eyes.  

Gist of Journal

Uniforms in school must be introduced to maintain certain socioeconomic balance and for identification of students as a part of the institution. It also meant to act as a cost saving idea and facilitate less peer pressure especially in kids.

But generally, the emotion associated with it could also contain the qualities you were expected to have as a student or even deep personal experiences. Like the color combinations of uniforms we tend to wear for that long of period tends to evoke some emotions like politeness, punctuality, being tidy, routine life etc. .

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Experimenting with rare light sources, these scenarios can be rare in everyday life.

When the maroon towel is photographed under the white LED light source, it appears almost similar color to what it looks in day light. The following photograph is under same settings, but the LED light source is green, as a result the towel appears as brown or closer to black.

A white medical tape is placed closer to a LED screen emitting white, yellow, red and blue respectively. The white part of the tape appears similar color to the light source where the blue branding on the tape is observed appearing in almost black color under the red light and to green under the yellow light in the photographs.

A very similar set up is repeated under the same LED screen, this time with the addition of a yellow ball. The ball appears in pure green under yellow light and a very darker shade of yellow under blue light.  

The drawing board clip is placed under sunlight and photographed with two different backgrounds. On the brown-orange surface the clip is appearing to be of a combination of dark violet and black. When the surface is white, the clip is seen in blue color.

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It is proven that color we see can be perceived differently depending on many factors. The background and the source of light being the easiest among them to modify and experiment the changes in the color to study the visible differences in the color of object/skin/surface in different light sources and backgrounds.  

The photographs below include those taken under day light during afternoon, in white, greenery and textured backgrounds and some photographs are during night with florescent tube light, LED bulb and incandescent light sources with varying backgrounds like white wall and textured curtains.

All the photographs are taken in the same white balance settings of camera, and the visible difference is majorly on the cloth color. However, if examined closely there is visible difference in the skin tone depending on the light source.

For the photos under day light, the skin tone was similar, but the cloth’s color was observed being influenced by the background. The LED and florescent sources did create similar images, still the LED source is cooler when compared closely.  

The incandescent bulb, the warmest source of light I could find, completely disturbed the perception of the colors of white wall, cloths and skin tone.

Even though there are different shades in nature, most prominently observed are of brown and green. Here is an attempt to observe the shades of two different type of leaves as they age, they are displaying gradual shades of their respective natural colors.

Fallen leaves from jackfruit tree of different days probably, observed are undergone natural aging which turns its color towards darker brown and gradually to black before it decompose.