Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Critique of Van Jumper (plus some Matt Jacobs)

1. My pairings are tied together in their relational comparison to each other.  By making the blacks ultra-contrasted in my pieces of the Nelson I brought them together in a unifying way.  One of my compositions of Southmoreland Park has a weak connection between the line study and the photo because the elements are not touching.  Bringing them together could fix this.

2. My images are highly contrasted to give them interest.  Pieces of the collage that are small loss some detail and they can be confusing to understand.  Fixing the out lines of the pieces with large amount of white would help.

3. The line studies are well crafted for the sketches but for the posters they could be improved by vectorizing the projector and Konica studies.

4. The type needs to be integrated more in some of the studies.  Placing the type in place of pieces of the line studies could fix their apparent disconnection from the posters.

5. Using scale, framing, orientation, and alignment I instilled dynamic qualities into the sketches.  Throughout my pieces the use of orientation and scale is heavily relied on to create interest.   Using continuation I tired to tie the photos and and line studies together.  Moving compositions up in the page would create stronger pieces since some of them are cut almost in half, which has a static effect.

6. My sketches of the Nelson and the Southmoreland wall display qualities of the neighborhoods.  With the Nelson the contrast of the line studies and the photo shows the contrast of the old Nelson building and the modern building.  The wall of Southmoreland Park sketches show the feeling of containment felt while sitting in the park. The sketches that dealt with cracks in the dirt lost their connection with the Southmoreland Park because they show no special qualities of this specific park.  This is because the pictures of the ground hold very little differentiating information.

My critique of Matt Jacobs posters:

1. I found strong relations within his pieces. The Midtown posters have great shape relation that ties the two elements together.  The posters of Downtown could have more relating qualities.  The windows have line studies within themselves that could be compared to a line study that is complex with smaller white lines.

2. The photographs that he used are shot with nice detail and from the perfect perspectives.  The only photos that are not as strong are of the Bloch building.  The photos appear to be vectors because the Bloch building is smooth and has no detail.

3. The line studies employ crisp, smooth vectors.

4. The "N" used in some of the Nelson posters intersects with the line studies.  This was done purposefully but appears to be an accident. The typeface is a good fit for the Nelson, since it is modern yet elegant.  Playing around with the placement of the text would cause it to become more cohesive with the posters.

5. Matt uses both large scale and small scale.  In pieces where only small scale was used they appear to be static.  His use of framing is spot on except in one poster where the shapes appear to be too large.  This would be easily fixed by scaling down the shapes away from the edges. His alignment and orientation is heavily geometric with strong verticals and horizontals.

6. Matt conveys the feelings of his neighborhoods quite well.  His posters of the Bloch building hold a modern clean feeling. Downtown is shown in undulating towers that are reminiscent of skyscrapers. Midtown is a neighborhood of different people and things coming together in a cohesive union.  The posters Matt made are cohesive yet are made of elements that noticeably different.

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