Composition

Composition derives from the Latin compositus, which means well - arranged. In terms of Digital Media, is all about the placement or arrangement of visual elements, the putting together of objects that have been arranged using conscious thought. You want your web pages to command attention. In Digital Media the term composition usually refers to to page layout.

There are many elements that go in to the composition of a web page, some elements apply more than others, but for example, Line is a very important element as it contributes to the organisation of the page dividing it into compartments. There are also many elements within the organisation sides of things as well, for example the shape and proportion of elements, orientation of elements, colour and perspective etc. All these merge together to create the feel of unity.

There is a massive emphasis on the importance of web site layout, because they are judged by their layout, if your layout is slovenly and not very appealing, visitors may not be in to much of a rush to return. They must be pleasing to the eye in other words ascetically pleasing, one way in which to achieve this is to keep it simple. Do not create complex navigational links using complex scripts or images as they may not be viewable in all the different browsers. Try to minimize the use of big images that are going to take ages to load, stick to using smaller icons that will instantly attract the users eye.

Another must when thinking about composition is the text, in particular the size, use a standard size, 11 or 12, so users can read your content with ease. Select a professional looking font, for example Verdana, Arial, Helvetica or San Serif, these are all very popular. Avoid using fancy fonts like Comic Sans.

A very important area to consider is colour, use web friendly colours, a good way in which to decipher whether the colours you have picked are suitable, ask friends and other web users for their opinions, this way you will get a clear idea of if you are heading in the correct direction.

Your web page dimensions you should always think about, keep track of them. The most successful web sites out there seem to limit their width and height, this is so that the important webpage content lies within the top 600x600 viewable area without scrolling. Make sure you provide a navigational link to the next page and link back from the second page.

Design For the Web

Our new assignment title, Digital Media Design Theory Website, we will research, design and build a website on an aspect of digital media design theory that will be useful in our course. Our target audience for our website is other design students. We were each given a topic to choose from that we would like to do our website on, I chose Composition. I decided to choose this as I feel that it is essential to know all there is to know about this area of design in order to create a professional looking site, as many elements are needed and used. I first did some research in this area so I could start with strong foundations.

My thoughts

Overall I thought that this project was a success, I enjoyed using the different programmes, I especially liked working in InDesign, I thought that this provided me with lots of useful skills. I feel that all aspects of my project went well and I am happy with my end result.

chosen picture for postcards

I have created four postcards, all from Francis Picabia's collection, I chose to use his Udnie, Dances at the Spring, Edtaonisl and New York. All these artworks complimented each other and have made a little collection of postcards on their own.

I created the leaflet in In Design, annd tried to use a similar colour pallet to my poster so everything would tie in. When I printed it it was fairly straight forward, I printed one side and once I had worked out what way to put it back through again to print on the back, it all worked out. Below is one of my posters front and back.

essay booklet

My essay booklet, I first wrote it out in text edit and made any corrections in there. I next created 4 x templates in In Design, I needed four documents even though I was only using two pieces of paper because there were four sides. I had created a paper version mock up first and page numbered it, so I could see where and which order the pages went in. Now I just need to place my text in the allocated spot and flow it across to all the other pages. With the blank pages I placed some Dada artwork to make it more interesting. I had a little trouble when it came to printing it out as it keept coming put upside down, but I soon got to grips with it.

leaflet

I began by setting out my Leaflet template in In Design, I downloaded a template of the Adobe website, I chose an A4 template. Before I started to design it in In Design I looked at various random leaflets to see how they were folded, set out and the general overall functionality of them. I first made a paper version, so I knew how I was going to fold it and where each page was going to go. This would not only help me when coming to do it in In Design but it also would help me to visualize what I was going to put on each side. Printing would be a challenge and a bit of trial and error as I would have the same piece of paper through the printer twice, so it printed on both sides.

I started with the front of my leaflet, introducing the subject of the leaflet with some illustration. I needed to choose a colour for the background of the leaflet, my first choice was to pick a shade of blue, as this would compliment the Dada artwork, as blue is a commonly used colour. I was not sure which colour to have my writing in, however I left it in black to begin with just to see how I got along with it. As I started to develop the front etc, I brought in a couple of other colours, pink, yellow and a darker blue, I decided to bring these colours in as I have used similar ones in my poster and thought it would all tie in together if I did so.

I decided that I was going to include a time line of the Dada events, and lay it out across two pages, I was not sure to keep it solely to just text of to include some pictures to illustrate. I would also like to elaborate on some key dates from the time line that were important during the Dada movement. Also I am going to include a brief introduction about the history/origins of the Dada movement. Below is both sides of my finished leaflet.

Poster

My Poster must convey the style that I have chosen to interpret, this to include colours, style, type, composition etc. In order to create this I have chosen to use Francis Picabia as my inspiration, in order to achieve this I have chosen one of his famous paintings called Udnie, which he produced in 1913. I really like the selection of colours that have been used they are all cool colours, greys, blues, whites and greens. The crowded space of curved lines and shapes create a sense of depth with in the paintings. Trying to interpret this in my own way, I will find to be a challenge but very fulfilling, I will use a similar colour palet and use a variety of lines and shapes, along with gradients to create the variation in each colour.

When creating this poster I found that Picabia uses lots of layers, he lays shape upon shape on top of each other. I found this to be a challenge as the layered shapes are some how all linked in some way. Also the colours he has used are not all solid colours, I found this to be very hard to recreate on the computer. I create a colour pallet that used similar colours, I created a swatch to enable to me to reuse the same colours.

I started by doing lots of random shapes as a background, then began to layer, I have tried to recreate one similar to his Udnie, but of my own creation. It took me many attempts and reworking in order to create the atmosphere that Picabia manages to create in his art work. In the Udnie, the centre is rather full and got lots going on, however less so in the outskirts. Below is my first attempt: I did not finish it as I was just not feeling it, thought it lacked the crowded centre and some of the shapes were to big, so from the experience that I had from doing this one I started to recreate another version, this time aiming to make it more crowded in the middle.

After I had created the above, I tried again, this time I wanted to be more random with my positioning of my objects, but all so wanted to achieve some flow, like picabia's Udnie, I also looked at some of his other art works that were of a similar configuration to the Udnie, for example his 'Dances at the spring' (1912), 'Procession in Saville' (1912), 'New York' (1913) and mostly ' Edtanist' (1913).

I concentrated on the shapes that he uses and how he has put them together, I found this to be quite a challenge because it was hard to make it work without making it look to orderly. Below is my second version. I have changed the text and its colour on the right poster, as I was not too sure on my first choice of text.

I did some type research, I found out that Dadaists thrived in making their type style unconventional, they did this by frequently mixing different fonts, using unorthodox punctuation, printing both horizontally and vertically, also they used many random text symbols on the text. A French Avant Guard poet described the Dada revolution with graphic design as 'each page must explode, either by deep and weight seriousness - the whirlwind, the vertigo, the new, the eternal - by the cursing joke, by the enthusiasm for the principles, or by the manner of being printed'. This is truse of the typographic style as it broke many traditions and there were many interpretations of this unconventional Dada typography, below are a couple of examples. I began looking for a font that would be of the Dada style, I found on on Defont website called DaDa Antiquerist, I thought that this was of similar style because of the unconventional way that the letters do not line up straight.