Design Principles - Project 3

19/06/20 - 17/07/20 / Week 8 - Week 14

Ibrahim Fazal Ahmad / 0337423

Design Principles / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylors University / Project 3 /

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For project 3 we need to do a study of a single artist and apply what we've learned in this class to try and understand their pieces. After which we will have to make our own version using their style. I roughly chose 4 artists before I narrowed it down to 1. The 4 being:

Figure 1: Aykut Aydogdu

Figure 1.1: Joanna Krotka

Figure 1.2: Thomas Danthony

Figure 1.3: Tom Haugomat

Out of the 4 artists, I showed all of their artworks to Ms Anis and she advised me to stick with Tom Haugomat because the other 3 artists had a level of similarity to my previous works over the last few weeks and Toms work is very different from what I would normally do. The analysis below is based on the work above by Tom Haugomat.

ANALYSIS:

In this piece by Tom Haugomat I can see that it is a simplistic styled illustration that depicts 8 different people all mostly preoccupied on their electronic devices (mostly phones) other than the top right (probably a TV or computer screen) and the main subject of the picture. Being the mechanic working on the motorcycle in an auto shop. The colour scheme is very cool in tone, even in the brightly lit shop, there is still a cool tone overlaid on the red and orange. The illustration is very 2D in nature and mildly uses the parallax effect in the back left with the buildings. One thing I notice among all of his work is that it is almost always a specific scenery, never portraits. The faces of the people have no details and the shading is also very solid but minimal in his works. His artworks also have no line art at all, it is all flat colour illustrations with no usage of line art as he uses the colours and tones rather than lines to give the objects and subjects in the piece form.

The main design principles I see being used here is harmony, contrast and emphasis. You can clearly see the use of harmony in the colour scheme heavily, with the major usage in deep blues and turquoise. All the colours are also cool in general including the red/orange as previously stated. There is also clear emphasis on the mechanic in this artwork and to a very small degree all the faces of the people. With the people being illuminated by their phones they stand out really well against the deep blue background. Meanwhile the mechanic there is very high contrast between his uniform and hair along with the interior of the store. There is high contrast due to the usage of complementary colours orange/red with blue/green. He also uses lights and shadows as a way of emphasising and contrasting the subjects and the background elements. 

I don't think this artwork is particularly deep in meaning but there’s definitely a recurring theme among the subjects who are preoccupied by what they’re doing. Most of them are on electronic devices, mostly phones while the mechanic is the only one doing something else (fixing the motorcycle). It could be interpreted as everyone is addicted to their screens, but I personally don’t see it like that. I think it is just a peaceful night time scene, most of them are going back home after a long day and waiting for the bus. A common theme among st all of his pieces is that the viewer (you) are always just watching what is going on from a distance like a ghost, nobody in the scene itself is looking directly at the viewer. Oftentimes it is just a small slice of life or story being told in his works. The simple style and minimal usage of colours allows for an easy on the eyes composition that allows us to focus on the story of the work itself while admiring the work. 

PROGRESS:

After doing this analysis, I did some sketching of my own. I noticed all of his works have this simplicity to them, you don't need to over analyse and rack your brain to understand what's going on. It is a short and sweet artwork with a small sense of story. You'd basically understand what's going on almost immediately. So I wanted to convey this simplicity, but add my own sense of a heartfelt story in it. While following the general elements of his work. Which ended up with this:

Figure 1.4: Sketch 1

I will do the rational for this piece after I complete the final piece as this is just a sketch. But the general idea is that in the middle of this waterside market during the rain, this woman decides to shelter cat rather than herself. Just a simple story. I tried to frame them best I could and will add more elements inside the tent and around in general.

Figure 1.5: Line Art

Figure 1.6: Grey scale shading

I did the line art of the piece and then did a colour block using only grey scale to get a general idea of how I want the lighting and shading of the piece to be, I want to focus on the girl and cat mostly so I added the highest level of contrast there with a bright cat on the dark street. Along with her coat and pants being highly contrasted. The background has more nuance to really allow the viewer to focus on the main subject.

Figure 1.7: Tom Haugomats piece

I borrowed the colour scheme roughly from the piece above, using a lot of greenish blues but I will use more yellow for contrast in the piece. 

Figure 1.8: Progress

Figure 1.9: Final piece

ANALYSIS: 

For my design, I was inspired by Tom Haugomat, an illustrator. His works all involve simplicity, storytelling and the ability to draw attention the subjects using contrast. In my work, I thought of a simple story which could be told without words. A rainy day in a parking lot, with a lone cat being protected by a person using their umbrella. I thought it would be more intriguing if she used it and was in the rain herself as a way of showing how she cares for the cat. I used a very high contrast but harmonious colour scheme, involving warm oranges and yellows with cool deep blues and greens. I also gave the composition some depth by putting the orange leaves in the foreground and gave perspective to the structures on the left and right. I also added a few people to make it more meaningful that the girl was protecting this animal. I also gave the highest level of contrast for the main subject, being the only person with yellow on her clothes and a bright yellow umbrella. Overall, I heavily used Tom Haugomats influence on this piece and hope the idea was conveyed well. 

REFLECTION:

This assignment was actually quite similar to what I had to do during my IGCSE Art in 2018. So it wasn't completely new territory in terms of analysing someone elses work and using their style. The experience of this assignment was interesting! It was a style and genre of art that I really have not explored at all, being the simplistic lineless art. I was not familiar with it but I do think I managed to recreate his work rather well. An observation I made was that the successful artists I was finding as reference often times were relatively simple and had their own flare to the work. They have their own style and can replicate it so well and this allows people to recognise that it is their work instantly. A finding I made was that analysing a persons art involves a lot of thinking and you cannot look at only one of their works. You have to look at multiple to see what consistencies they have between their works whether it be colour scheme, art style or line quality. There is always something that really makes an artists art "theirs" and analysing it is very interesting.