Words and Images

Many people had wondered why and how graphic novel can be considered as art or design. What they don’t know is how word and image work together to incorporate the message or the main point of the story to the reader. For example Brian Fies, the author of Mom’s CancerWhatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow, and stress out this idea to give readers the feeling of what the characters are going through as the story progresses.

 

The image below from Fies’ comic Mom’s Cancer gives a demonstration of this idea. Fies’ comic is about his mother’s battle against cancer and the image above demonstrate a stage of what his mother was going through. The words in the panel explain the process and things his mother needs to go through and needs to do. Then in the panel each picture demonstrates a metaphor of how his mother really feels like, it’s to express and exaggerate the idea of the process to give the readers a better idea of how it really feels to be in his mother’s shoes. Although the words and pictures and the words are totally different from one another they both portray the same main idea of how it feels like to battle against cancer.

Efficient Design

Today many companies are producing products that are more efficient and convenient for their customers. An example of one of the products that surprise me was the Flossup took picks. The idea of putting floss and toothpick together had never crossed my mind. The designer of these flossups is really creative to come up with that idea. The problem with floss is that it’s hard to floss the back teeth using your hands to hold on the string of floss. To make it more efficient and convenient floss was installed into the toothpick. So after picking your teeth, you can easily use the toothpick side as a handle to floss your teeth and can even get in hard to reach areas of the teeth. 

The idea of using plastic as the toothpick is a great idea, because wooden toothpicks can break in between teeth and it would take another toothpick to get that piece out. For as plastic, it only twist and bends, also the plastic holds on more to the floss that was installed than wood. If the floss were to be installed into wood, the wood could easily break off and it would be a waste of the floss if you’re not fully done flossing your teeth with it. By using plastic, the floss and plastic toothpick can melt together and make a stronger hold than wood and a string of floss. This idea is very unique and well innovated that now more people prefer Flossups over wooden toothpicks or single string floss holding by hand.

Objects' Form and Content

In the video Objectified by filmmaker Gay Hustwit discuss the basics of designs and the principles of designs. In this film Hustwits interview many designers to get their point of view on designs and how they got the idea to do what they did. Hustwit interviewed Dieter Rams, a former design director in Braun Kronberg Germany, and in the interview Rams stated that only “a few companies that take design seriously.” The example he gives is the apple company. Hustwit also interview Jonathan Ive, senior VP Industrial Design Apple, where he discusses the form and content of how the company comes up with the design for Apple.

"Objectified" - Jonathan Ive talks about Mac design & Unibody MacBook manufacture

 

He explains about how Apple designs what is necessary and has a purpose to why something is there. If it does not have any function then it shouldn’t be there. All the parts in an Apple product have a reason for it to be put there; it was not put there just simply for its appearance. The form of a simple part of a MacBook gone through many different processes to get to its specific component, in which this component contributes to its content and how it works within the computer. They design it so the form that was created can work with the function inside the product, giving the best performances that were expected. Its content were design so it can easily be identify, such as the icons of the applications in an IPod, IPad, ITouch, etc… what makes it more amazing is that they’re all touch screen which makes it more efficient and convenient for the user of the product.

                                                    IPod                                                                             ITouch

                                                      IPhone                                                                            IPad

When Form and Content Interact

In the silent horror film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) directed by Robert Wiene, there is a good sense of form and content. The film starts off with the blue color atmosphere which conveys the feeling of a horror film. In colors, any variations of blue represent the sense of coolness. If an artist wants to portray a cold night in his/her painting, he/she would use the color blue. For as the variation of color from red to yellow portray the sense of warmth. To convey these feelings, the colors were incorporated in the film to bring out the creepy feeling at the beginning where the older man stated that there are ghosts around them. Without the blue coloring the viewer wouldn’t get the sense of coldness or feel the chill of the night. If it’s in pure black and white then the viewer can only rely on the words they see on the screen instead of feeling the cold night of the horror film.

 Cold Night

 Warm Evening 

Not only does the toning of colors contribute to the sense of eeriness but also the setting. If it’s set in a plain smooth setting then it wouldn’t be as scary as a setting where there are bare tree and bushes. This keeps the audience guessing and wondering, where anything can suddenly emerge from the tree or from behind the bushes or can emerge from any angle and any corner of the screen.

The color suddenly changes from blue to yellow after it transition into a new event. This yellow color gives a sense of warmth, letting the viewer see that it is now day time. Along with the music and how the actors are acting, it contributes to the tense atmosphere, giving a sign that something is going to happen.  Also the angle of the walls are diagonal, it emphasis a lot on the diagonal lines. If the buildings or walls are all vertical, the film would be boring and won’t give out the sense of uncanny which this film is suppose to be. The form and content of this film worked well together to convey the theme of horror to the audience with less dialogue and without spoken words.