Figure & Ground

Well,
I've finished up my latest graphic design projects for TMP II. We are dealing with figure ground relationships. The first was a personal statement piece. The second was a piece exploring repetition in figure ground relations.

I really quite enjoyed these projects and really love this class, it's my favorite of the semester by far. I'm thinking I may change my concentration to study graphic design. Graphic designers have such a hand in everything we visual interact with. From your toothpaste tube in the morning to the Coke can at lunch is visualy designed by a graphic designer. I like that immediacy of the work, it is everywhere. It may be viewed as art, or it may be viewed as marketing, but it fascinates me.

Anyways, these are the the two pieces. First is the personal statement. Click for the images for the larger versions.

I am extremely happy with how this image came out. Done in Adobe Photoshop and printed 8.5" by 11", it's a statement of my bike racing attitude. Or what I'd like it to be. It means to attack to win the race. In the race this picture is from, I actually did drop a gear and drop the hammer on my competitors. I was gone for a bit, but could not hold my gap and was brought back. I guess it should say after "i'm GONE", "I'll try it again when you catch me in a couple of miles". But that just doesn't hold the same ring and finality of "i'm GONE".
I really like how my body stands out so drastically from the back ground (black) and foreground (white) because of the vivid nature of the colors against such muted ground. My classmates suggested that this could easily be seen in a magazine add for a company like Gatorade. Wouldn't that be cool! They pretty much have fanned my graphic design flames for me. It's nice to feel talented.

The second image, shown here, is the repetition piece. I designed this piece thinking that it would go in a campus tour booklet for Michigan. The booklet would highlight special areas around campus like the Diag, The Union, the Lawquad, The Bell Tower, State Theater and so on. Each section wold have a title page of sorts with following information, maps and such about each location. I designed the title page of the Lawquad. Using a photo I had of one of the arched walkways in the Lawquad, I cropped it down and used several filters to achieve a photocopy look. The I accidentally dyed it purple somehow and liked it and stuck with it for the type. The arches are arranged to give many vanishing points in the grid of the photo.
I am very happy with this piece and am considering actually making the book that it would be part of for a personal study. It's an interesting concept for me and would look great in a portfolio.

Thanks for looking!