Tone and Color

 

How Tone is operating:
Dondis defines tone as the "intensity of darkness or lightness of anything seen" (Dondis 47), and in the bed sham pictured above, tone plays the main role in creating a lively and intense visual. The bed sham is made up of varying reds, ranging from more delicate, salmon-pinks to muddy reds and burgundy. Tone is a useful tool to emulate nature and create dimension, both of which are seen as active elements in this particular design. The scaled, snake-like pattern suggested by the varying red tones with a large pink line cutting through asymmetrically creates visual drama and appeal.

How Tone is interacting with Texture:
The snake-like pattern that is created by those pinks and deep reds together is amplified by the use of texture. If you were to observe this bed sham more closely, you would not only notice that it is rich with various tones, but that it is also ribbed. The cross-hatched stitching on the pillow case and sham is another suggestive design element that is inspired by organic snake-skin. Tone and Texture are deliberately combined to create a bed shame that captures beautiful elements in nature to exist in a functional bedroom setting.

How Color is operating:
Dondis compares the differences of tone and color in a visual message when he writes, "tone is related to question of survival and is therefore essential to the human organism, color has stronger affinity to the emotions" (Dondis 50). The author describes color as being more expressive and symbolic; he includes a poem that implies the color red is a powerful symbol since it is the Communist International banner color and the color that Pope Innocent IV gave to his cardinals. Red also happens to be the main color of this bed sham. Personally, it creates a feeling of warmth and desert heat. In this bed sham, the combination of the color red, texture, and tone feels as though it was stripped from the red clay-rocks spread throughout the infamous Arizona to Colorado deserts. In that heated earth, it captured the land's color and dry heat and even the snakes that live within those rocks. The bed sham uses red to communicate desert warmth.

How Color is operating with Dot:
The warm desert feel that the color red communicates in this bed sham is amplified by the dots that make up the tonal patterns. Because the red tones are dispersed in a dot like texture, the sham visually appears softer, not straight-edged. As discussed earlier, the use both tone and texture to suggest an organic, snake-skin pattern adds dimension and drama. Furthermore, that snake-skin pattern is made up of muddled pink and red colors that are elusive. The dots in this bed sham allow the human eye to perceive the snake-skin pattern, yet also feel its muddy, desert-like texture.

Source: http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=29300811&parentid=A_DEC_BEDDING

Elements of Design via A Primer of Visual Literacy by Donis A. Dondis

LINE

This first element of design I have chosen to explore is 'Line,' which Dondis defines as a "dot in motion." Line is a key component in all design, and it is the strategically used in the design of this Italian Campaign Canopy Bed I have chosen as my example:

The bed frame above is made up of lines that create shapes, rhythm, and also provide the structure of the bed frame. Dondis describes line as having the perfect perplexity in that it can be wild and directional, yet also "tight and technical, serving as the primary element in diagrammatic plans" (Dondis 43). Conclusively, it is the perfect tool to communicate visual ideas. This bed frame with its sturdy, straight legs that become swooping arches and then meet at a circle, hosts all of the advantages of line while also capitalizing on its simplicity and usefulness.

DIRECTION

The next element of design that I've explored is direction. The boots that I've used are not only my example, but also my most recent purchase and the design I've been analyzing recently.

The swooping lines that can be seen in the curved edges of the leather to the direction of the boot's toe are a successful use of directional design. Dondis describes direction as "the human organism's relationship to the environment but also to stability in all visual manners" (Dondis 46). The boots above are made of curved directional forces that are a powerful element of design because they provide a sense of stability, being that "diagonal direction has particular reference in the idea of stability" (Dondis 46). The diagonal lines in these boots allow them to feel wearable for a human foot. The slanted lines create a parallel between the diagonals that lead from the toe on both the top and bottom of the shoe. These curved, directional lines create both the structure and visual appeal of the boot.

TEXTURE

Texture is enormously advantageous in design, especially in fabrics and textiles for interiors such as the 'Ophelia Duvet' below:

This duvet has the look and feel of shredded paper that has been assembled into a delicate, tangible fabric. Designers, Shachin and Babi Ahluwalia were inspired by their native Indian homeland for this particular design. The piece is handwoven from soft, cotton jersey and loosely organized to mirror organic textures. Dondis describes the shredded cotton perfectly when he writes, "where there is actual texture, the tactile and optical qualities coexist, not like tone and color which are unified in their comparable and even value, but separately and uniquely, affording individual sensation to the eye and the hand" (Dondis 55). The colors of the fabric are a consistently cream, however, there is a large amount of direction and variety within the fabric and it is only because of its three-dimensional texture.

Visual Thinking

In McKim's "Images in Actions" chapter, he goes in-depth to describe the various methods to solve visual puzzles. These include pattern seeking, pattern categorization, rotation, inverse drawing and so on and so forth. After a couple of decades of research, Psychologist L.L. Thurston discovered over eight traits that contribute to visual thinking versus one. These contribute to our understanding of sorting visual data. The test materials that McKim includes within the chapter are to explore "the mental operations that do the active work of visual thinking." (McKim 14).

Below are two visual tests that my roommate and I took via Puzzles.com:

The visual challenge above forces the participant to match the two colored circle-groups that are equal in area. The 'from another viewpoint' visual operation is necessary to determine how much of the circle is, or isn't there and furthermore, establish the circle's area. The correct answer was green and blue; my roommate was clever enough to determine the circle's space by labeling them as 1/2 or 3/4. If a circle had two overlapping circles cutting into it, such as in the blue, it would be equal to two other circles in the green that had one overlapping each. The viewer is forced to morph the shapes and determine the space of each circle by skewing his viewpoint. 

This visual puzzle is a completely different challenge compared to the last exercise. The participant had to follow the lines within and around the shape with the least strokes as possible. So, without lifting his pencil from the page, my roommate counted his strokes as he drew the above shape. A combination of orthographic imagination and inverse drawing is necessary because the viewer must understand all of the different lines and shapes within and around the circle in order to manipulate many different ways to draw it quickly. Orthographic imagination includes cross-cutting through a shape and manipulating the viewpoints of an object to understand it's appearance from several different views. Although the image is not a solid object, it still must be dissected and understood wholly to understand the lines that make up the image. My test-subject roommate observed the object for a good three minutes before he took his pencil to the page a drew his attempt. This is because he was mentally following different lines and  counting the strokes, to understand where to begin to the loop toward completion.

Top-Down Visual Processing

Do you see it?

Wait for your top-down visual processing to kick in! Your eye is moving right now to discern between the shapes of branches, leaves and OH! is that an eye?

Here is a larger view of the picture. Now it is more obvious that camouflaged within the brush and branches is a deer.  This image is a perfect example of a visual query as it boasts a generally consistent color and texture scheme. Collectively and from afar, the photo looks like a series of linear patterns-- mainly branches. As the viewer moves their eye around to analyze the details of those lines, they will begin to discern between the shadows on the deer's face and the actual branches. Furthermore, the shape of the deer's eye is the most obvious visual cue that something breaks up the line-pattern. Once the viewer notices the black eye and nose, the visual has essentially been solved and makes sense as a whole. Instead of simply looking at something neutral and broken up with pattern, the viewer's cognitive perception has learned that beneath the bush is a deer, and is now able to separate the two.