Assignment Three: Colour Me

Assignment Three brief:

Choose a colour that has a meaning that you want to explore and celebrate. Think about what the colour you have chosen means both to you and to other people and create something that celebrates that meaning.

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This process started with a mind map and photos taken of items around the house and garden.  All the colours had meaning for me and I realised that I have quite a few favourite colours.

I used Adobe Color CC to see what colour options emerged and I decided to go with orange and teal as that combined two of my favourite colours.

The orange comes from my favourite jacket, made from a glorious Irish Linen. It is one I made myself and always makes me think of my Irish grandmother who along with Mum taught me how to sew and knit. It always makes me feel happy and confident when I wear it and that was the theme I wanted to develop.

Having done a bit of research about colour theory I found the quote attributed to Frank Sinatra, “Orange is the happiest colour.” I decided this would form the loose theme I would work with.

The first idea I developed from a sketch and a physical collage, and included a number of orange things that make me happy. I played with different elements in Photoshop and while I like some of the combinations I didn’t feel it was going in the right direction.

The second idea I decided would be much more minimal and focused on the text and orange as the dominant colour. Initially the teal colour was too central so I moved it over. I liked this idea for its simplicity but was a bit concerned that it hadn’t fully answered the brief.

This took me to developing a further collage in Photoshop, using some of the elements of the physical collage. I wanted it to feel a bit looser than the earlier idea with a variety of textures as well as the designated colour palette. It includes my love of books, nature, and initially I went with a broader quote about happiness from “psychology now.’ I quite liked the layout and decided to add the photograph of me and my brother as children laughing and go back to the Frank Sinatra quote. While this was my preference feedback from family suggested they didn’t ‘get it’ and it was too busy and messy.

So I decided to ask for feedback from the Visual Comms Facebook group and they provided some very helpful feedback. The two preferences were the minimal version the square and the final collage. The minimal version with the squiggle was felt to be too distracting. There were suggestions for the minimal version about changing the typeface for happiness and its colour. I tried this out but the interplay of the colour made it too difficult to read so I changed the colour blocks instead. It is fascinating to see how many permutations there can be with so few elements!

One reflection suggested the flowers in the final collage were also not necessary so I tried a version without. Monica Pritchard picked up on the childhood theme with the photo and rippling pool water. I decided to take this theme further and rather than include things that make me happy generally I focused on my childhood in Australia and included elements that I think of happily – the tree frog on my blind, the Sulphur crested cockatoos that would steal the washing and follow me about, swimming, sunshine and freedom to play in an extraordinary natural environment. At that point I was going to be the next Gerald Durrell!

Final Selection

It was hard to choose a final version as in some ways it felt like I could keep working on them and coming up with yet more ideas. I want to select two rather than one because they are so different in approach.

I suspect that Monica is right that the stripped back version of the collage works best in design terms, although it is the version with the Australian flora and fauna that makes me smile the most.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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