IDesign: Shapes and Figure/Grounds

When I started design school, my professor said, “believe me, you will never look at space the same way again.” I didn’t believe her much because I felt that for someone who’s forte is not in space planning, I have a pretty good grasp of how areas should be laid out. But, I was determined to be proven wrong.

The task was to get inspired with shapes around you, then arrange them in a specific order. And I totally hit the ground running with that project. I definitely looked for inspiration all over the house and came up with more work than one would normally exert on a project that’s all about cutting shapes.

In this new field for me, I’m quite intimidated because this is definitely not what I have been training for all my life. Well, maybe I have been training for it in my own way but I felt I needed to exert so much effort to keep up. With who or what, I don’t know actually because this program is made for people who are transitioning careers – supposedly, people who do not have design backgrounds. Well, in my class, there’s probably only 2 or 3 of us who come from totally different backgrounds; others are artists, graphic designers, in construction, etc. If keeping up is the word, my notion on everyone else’s abilities and experience, or dedication is most definitely greater than that of the reality. Perhaps as designers, I think more of the type of things my brother and Chef do, and they are my idea of peers in this class. Obviously they are not. But forget that, because I think it’s all in the effort and perseverance. I am sorry but some people really show that they don’t even want to try. Anyway, enough about them.

From all these shapes we developed one specific one by combining them and creating an entirely new shape. But it’s really in pattern development – or more technically figure grounds – where I learned the most about space. Positive and negative. We think so much about positive space such as walls, furniture, etc., but in reality, it is in the negative space that we live in. That was one of my ‘Oh right!’ moments. We think so much of where to put objects but we must not lose sight of the space around them.

In these two figure grounds, it was made with 50/50 white to black, and 75/25 white to black respectively. I am so sure of that ratio because I calculated the area of my shape and the area that I have to fill in. Yes, geeky. Everyone’s reaction was, “YOU WHAT?!” But that’s the only way I know how to do it because I will not settle for “it’s kind of 50/50″ like I guest most people would normally do. According to my professor, my technical nature will give me a different approach in design, which can produce wondrous things.

I absolutely love my 75/25 figure ground. My new found gay friend, Hiroo, who’s not in this class but on another one, said that he could really see this as a wallpaper, definitely something he could use with his flamboyant style! Love it!