The Key Elements of Design: CRAP

The outline given through this week's lesson is no different from the ideology of color theory, the perspectives of foreground and background, and the creative use of space as taught in an academic art setting. Good design conveys information clearly and purposefully.

Contrast is what defines the foreground from the background. High contrast results in sharper imagery, while low contrast can be fuzzy and difficult to perceive as there is less definition seperating the background and foreground. oure White on black and pure black on white are the epitome of high contrast because no two "colors" could get further away from eachother on the gradation scale.
          
           Believe it or not, color doesn't always produce contrast since some colors are exactly the same gradation. Place one scale of bright reds that gradiate down to a dark red next to another scale of bright blues that gradiate down to a dark blue, put them in greyscale, and they become exactly the same color of grey! The color gradation is shown below next to their respective greyscales.

Repitition of organization is another method to make sure the information is being clearly conveyed to the reader. If all of a sudden, my oranizational paragraphs become sporatic, it may place stress on the reader and compromise my original intention to instruct. Repitition produces strong design because it can provide consistency and clarity. Andy Warhol used this idea of repetition to define popular culture and its relativity to mass production.

Andy Warhol, 1962, Marylin Prints, screen printing

Alignment should also be clear to the viewer. Words are usually read left to right, while imagery is viewed beginning at the left in a clockwise manner. Knowing this will help us as designers create works that cater to these tendencies so that meaning is easily discovered without too much effort. Foreground and background are additional routes used to appeal to more visual methods. If foreground and background are easily distinguished, perspective can be mastered and the viewer can have a sense of where they are in relation to the piece. If objects in the foreground appear closer and in the background appear further, there is no confusion from the viewer. Artists like Julian Beever can skew perspective, making them appear clearer in one angle, but greatly skewed at another.

Proximity ensures appropriate associations. The text that is to be read together need to be close together, but not too tight as to make it difficult to read or clumsy-looking. Like the body can control our breathing without our concentration, design also needs to be intuitive.

21st Century Skills

What are artists of the 21st century doing to ensure their work becomes well known? The availability of technology means that even the most traditional artwork must become familiar with its innovations and learn to incorporate it into their skill set so that a much wider audience will become available to them. The framework described by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills can be applied to not only our new generation of students, but also to the artists that are just beginning to see technology infiltrate all facets of their work environment; because when they do, all new kinds of media and creative methods to show their artwork will open up.

Digital art is becoming a respected field of the art industry. Graphic Designers, some of the most profitable of artists, are very experienced with Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash. Video artists must know editing and audio software, along with knowing how to handle a video camera. All kinds of artists today typically have their own webpages, so many choose to become well rehearsed in Dreamweaver. Above all, the idea you should gain from this is that in successful contemporary art, the artist has become a jack of all trades when it comes to incorporating all kinds of media into their work, especially technology and software.

The essential skills pointed out in the guidelines of the Partnership for the 21st Century skills include: critical thinking, problem solving, communication, and collaboration. Successful modern artists encompass all these. Their work always transcends mere aesthetics and face-value imagery; so one might call them critical thinkers. They comment on contemporary issues and often try to design solutions through creative means, thus they are also problem solvers. Their artwork easily communicates to the audience in a specific, purposeful, and highly meaningful manner. And, finally, they often try to work in other medias, and in doing so, enlist the aid of their fellow artists; so they are collaborators.

We are molding the next generation of artists in a profound way the more we expose them to the importance and manipulation of technology. Today's artists are the students that need to be taught the ideology of programs such as the Partnership for the 21st Century.


The following is are two excerpts from a documentary television show called Art:21 on PBS that highlights innovative art being produced in the advanced, technological societies of the 21st century.

Paul McCarthy - Multimedia Intallation Artist


Cao Fei - Video Installation Artist