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February 22, 2015

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Shapes in Photos

Since I am looking at art that uses shapes to manipulate the overall feel of the image, I thought it would be worth looking at examples of shapes within images and the effect they have. I found the following set of images, which are really interesting because the way they are edited create an effect that makes the viewer feel that the shapes are the most important piece of content in the image, even though in the previous posts the shapes are added to cause interest in the main image they have been added too!

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alistairkb

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February 8, 2015

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Y1 Creative Futures, YEAR 1

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Shapes in Print & Web Design

Shapes are very prominent within web and print design. They work so well because they occur in nature, in our every day lives all around us, making them easy to manipulate to create interesting visuals.

Circles are one of the most common shapes in nature from the extraordinarily large like the cosmos and the planets right down to the inside of a flower and a blood cell. The earliest use of the circle is the wheel which revolutionised their current methods of transport. You can see an earlier post I have written about apple’s design influences where I speculated circles taking over design here (https://wordpress.com/post/75268733/185/). Since the web basically copies the styles and techniques used in print to present it’s information, I thought the best way to start would be to look at the origins of these shapes in print design. I have found endless amounts of examples of circles within print and you can see some great examples of these here;

There are also plenty examples of using circles in web design too, these are here;

Webey and Keauna are specially great because they combine the circles with hexagons, squares and hipster triangles, things that I am yet to cover but make up a lot of current web trends. Webber is also different because instead of scrolling down you scroll horizontally.

Squares are less common in nature are much more of a man made thing for building things of function and purpose, because squares have flat edges you find them in things that need to stand up, things tables and beds. This doesn’t stop it from being used in design even more than circles, mainly because they are much easier and simpler to create and design around, you can see some excellent examples of squares in print.

This is a creative example of a mixture of lines and squares combined;

This has again been transported into web design and you can see few examples of this here;

Next up are triangles, these are commonly seen in geometric graphics and hipster triangles but I will be doing an entirely different post on those, I am going to again look str triangles in print;

Here are some wonderful examples of triangles within web design;

Finally, I want to look at the use of hexagons within print and web design, you can see these here;

and finally, the examples of hexagons in web design.

Something I have learnt from my research is that shapes can be us to draw attention to or away from something. To cause an interest in a certain area or to frame some important text, never the less it causes some interesting design and this is something I will definitely use in my brochure design.

References;
http://www.hellowman.nl/tactile-translations
http://sarahchampion.typepad.com/thirtysomething/
http://www.downgraf.com/inspiration/15-creative-brochure-design-inspiration/
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/kloportfolios/8514693768/)
http://www.kahuna-webstudio.fr/
http://targetnuclearweapons.org.au/#/petition
http://webey.eu/contacts
http://www.alteregolabflor.it/
http://www.natashastefanenko.it/EN/site/index.php
http://domoa.tumblr.com/
https://www.behance.net/gallery/17054107/Fabrication
http://graphicriver.net/item/indie-flyer-poster-6/4030962?ref=vandelaydesign&ref=vandelaydesign&clickthrough_id=117752380&redirect_back=true
http://holistichealthnaturally.com/26-house-plants-that-detox-the-air-in-your-home-naturally/
http://lite.ly/
http://www.themesawards.com/website-designs-for-inspiration/
https://www.behance.net/gallery/16547981/Schoeffel-Website-App
https://www.behance.net/gallery/YELLOW-FRAME/6591959
https://onepagelove.com/barnyard
https://www.behance.net/gallery/15923651/Abstract-Architecture-Brochure
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/99792889/worth-limited-edition-art-print-mid?utm_source=Pinterest&utm_medium=PageTools&utm_campaign=Share
http://www.designswan.com/archives/21-beautiful-and-creative-brochure-designs.html
http://www.awwwards.com/swissted-the-rock-posters-of-mike-joyce.html
http://www.lesproduitsdelepicerie.org/comete12-13.html
http://huaban.com/pins/35722337/
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/7a/6a/2b/7a6a2b290d322941dec668d07739c115.jpg)
https://dribbble.com/shots/447378-Portfolio-Design/attachments/27683
https://www.behance.net/gallery/Natura-Todo-Dia/5189017
https://www.behance.net/gallery/SONICOMED-WEB-DESIGN/5919805
http://designspiration.net/image/3261669370328/
https://www.behance.net/gallery/Scenes-in-Waveforms/4894267
http://randpophelvetica.tumblr.com/post/90546468603/a-new-poster-redesign-in-swiss-helvetica-style
http://designspiration.net/image/1729859328613/
http://graphicriver.net/item/modern-hexo-trifold/5811088?ref=damiamio
http://designersgotoheaven.com/post/330572261/futurism-an-odyssey-in-continuity-by-simon-c
https://dribbble.com/shots/1452793-Apidura-Initial-Concepts/attachments/215027
http://speckyboy.com/2013/05/02/50-sites-with-pastelwashed-out-color-schemes/
http://gorohov.name/

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alistairkb

Posted on

October 15, 2014

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Y1 Interactive & Interface Design, Y1 User Centered Design, YEAR 1

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Apple Design Influences

How has Apple effected web design over the years, and will continue to do so.

History

Apple has always been big on white space, using it to bring attention to the images and the text, while this is relatively simple design, it can be seen across many websites with similar design to apple’s website. It uses subtle gradients to add depth to otherwise boring content, great text and content that match, icons used across the site, a grid system to keep everything in line, user friendly navigation and use of javascript to avoid long loading times. This can be seen in Apples website along with a lot of other websites that have been influenced by their design structure.

Apples website:

in comparison to

Mac Rabbit:

Versions:

Pixelmator:

Removing Skeuomorphism

Skeuomorphism is the term given the visual style that represents physical objects. The reason for using the visual style to begin with, was that when people first started using computers, they didn’t fully understand how to use them, so designers made icons to represent the original object. This is why mail icon is a envelope, music icon contains a musical note ect. Now that computers have gone ‘mainstream’ and we all understand them much better, we can remove a lot of this unneeded clutter such as textures, reflections and shadows that allowed things to represent their physical counterparts. This was changing content to so that instead of using texture and realistic imagery to represent certain design aspects, they moved to flatter mimalist design. Here are a few examples from when apple removed skeuomorphism from their mobile operation system;

The Icons were all changed to be much simpler, vibrant and nicer to look at, with the removal of physical objects and textures. The same can be said for the design with the apps.

Examples of flat web design

http://foodpornindex.com Is a website that tracks the hashtags of certain foods, healthy and unhealthy. It then shows it in an info graph designed with flat colours.

http://www.franzsans.de Is also shows another good use of flat design to show off the design of the font so you buy it, It works particularly well and I was tempted to buy the font.

Future

I believe that circle user interfaces will be inspired by Apple’s new watch. Circles appear in our natural world, just look at the moon, wheels and fruit. They create emphasis and focus our attention, giving us a defined centre. Apple have recently re-imagined user experience for the smaller screen of the watch but could have potentially created another web trend. Heres a picture of the new operating system.

Using circles in web design isn’t really a trend that has taken off over the years but there are still a couple of websites that use them in their design. Not just using circles in the design but in the user interface will create a completely different experience, something that hasn’t been created on rectangular shaped screens. While it doesn’t take up every area of the space, it will allow for a new type of white space by naturally giving the page more room to breath.

The operating system runs on a fluid icon system where you flick the screen to navigate into areas that aren’t currently visible, a crown on the side allows the user zoom in/out to their preference. If you click on an icon, an animation zoom into the icon until it is fullscreen then transforms into the app. This could be the next step in web design, as previously spoken about in my blog, pageless designs are becoming much more popular and seem to be more logical and less crowded than current designs. Interactivity to create a more immersive experience for the user would work well with pageless designs, I have researched websites that currently use circles in their user interface to create an interactive, pageless design.

A particularly interesting website I came across was (http://www.circle-ent.com) complete with animations and flat colours this website screams simplicity. Circle is a “idea lab”, a company that works on web experiences for ‘fun and brands’, it targets its market perfectly by showing off their digital skill with a fun, friendly user interface. This website seems to have already mastered Apple’s technique of simplicity through white space, the use of flat colours.

Another great example of a user experience that uses circles was (http://vlog.it) which uses a lot of slick animation from arriving to the site, to the introduction of the wheel of vlogs. It was “named as finalist for the 15th SXSW Interactive Awards in the Motion Graphics category” and “won the Awwwards Site of the Day”. Not quite as simple as the previous, it still uses flat colours and white space. Shadows from one circle to the next give the wheel a sense of depth, which makes the century circle stand out even more. It is perfect for its audience, people who want to watch video blogs the site which on a single visit contains about 40 links to videos which all open within the same window with an animation, will show recycle a total of 396 videos. It means users don’t have to leave the page, they click on all videos until they have watched them all then just refresh for another set. It takes for a great user experience, takes on great design concepts.

A website that doesn’t use circles as its user interface, but just adds to the simplicity of the pageless design is this one created for the iPhone game “Hundreds” (http://playhundreds.com). It uses white space really well to give focus to the content of the page, and again uses flat colours. There are clutters of different sized circles together and animations create an experience that attracts the user to pay more attention. As you scroll down the page, you follow a grey circle which is shown above and below other images which creates depth within the page.