Chapter 5-8

Chapter 5: Problem Seeking and Problem Solving 

• The Design Process
• What do we want?
• What existing designs are similar to the design we want?
• What are the differences between the existing designs and our new designs?
• How can we combine the best ideas from past inventions with our new ideas?

• Study Nature 
• Visit a Museum
• Transform a common project
• Characteristics of a good problem – Regardless or its source, the problem at hand most fully engage either the artist or the designer.
• Significant – Identifying and prioritizing your major goals can help you determine a tasks significance 
• Socially Responsible – Consider each projects environmental and economic implications
• Comprehensible – Ask questions if the assignment is unclear
• Open to Experimentation
• Make it authentic
• Using Convergent Thinking – Involves the pursuit of a predetermined goal, usually in a linear progression and through a highly focused problem-solving technique. 
• Define the problem
• Do research
• Determine your objective
• Devise a strategy
• Executethe strategy
• Evaluatethe results 
• Brainstorming
• Explore Connections 
• Visual Research – thumbnail sketches, model making 
• Keep an open mind 

Chapter 6: Cultivating Creativity 

• Curiosity – researching unfamiliar topics and exploring unusual systems
• Wide range of interests
• Attentiveness – Realizing that every experience is valuable, creative people pay more attention to minor details
• Connection seeking 
• Conviction – creative people embrace change and actively peruse an alternative path.  
• Complexity – Use intuition
• Set Goals (Positive loop)
• Goal setting
• Goal achievement
• Satisfaction and pride
• Increased self-confidence 
• Time management – Working smarted with your time is usually more effective 
• Set the Stage – choose when and where to work to significantly increase your output. 
• Prioritize – note which tasks are the most urgent and which tasks are most important
• See the big picture – Use a monthly calendar to record major projects and obligations 
• Work Sequentially – Tackle activities in a specific sequence 
• Use parts to create the whole – the whole project is overwhelming, don’t look at it as a whole, look at it in parts 
• Make the most of class time
• When in doubt, crank it out 
• Work together 
• Habits of mind – Flexibility, analytical thinking, capacity for synthesis, responsible risk taking, 
• Habits of work – Self-reliance, organized persistence, daily practice, appropriate speed, incremental excellence, direct engagement 

Chapter 7: Developing Critical Thinking

• Form, Subject, Content 

      – Form – the physical manifestation of an idea or emotion

       –  Subject – most apparent when it clearly represents a person, object, event, or a setting. 

       – Content – Underlying theme

– Objective and subjective critiques

– Objective criticism – to access how well a work of art or design uses the elements and principals or design 

– Subjective Criticism – to describe the personal impact of an image, the natural implications of an idea, or the cultural ramifications of an action.  

– Critique Strategies

            – Description – Descriptive critique – can help see details and heighten our understanding of the design. 

            – Cause and effect – Cause and effect critique (formal analysis) 

            – Compare and contrast – identify similarities and differences between two images

– Developing a lot term project

            – Week One – determine essential concept, explore polarities, move from general to specific, move from personal to universal

            – week Two – Develop Alternatives, edit out nonessentials, amplify essentials 

– Turn up the heat – push your projects potential 

– Transformation – size of relationship between artist and viewer, work three dimensionally, change materials 

– Reorganize 

– Develop a self-assignment 

Chapter 8: Constructing Meaning  

• Shared Language – basis on which we build communication 
• Iconography – the study of such symbolic visual systems 
• Audience – targeted and rated for specific audiences, so many forms of visual communication are designed for specific viewers
• Immediacy – when the bridge between the image and the audience is explicit, communication can occur almost instantaneously 
• Stereotypes – a fixed generalization based on a preconception
• Cliché – on overused expression or a predictable treatment of an idea. 
• Surprise – a shift in a stereotype or cliché upsets or expectations and challenges our assumptions
• Purpose and intent – any number of approaches to visual communication can be effective. We choose style, iconography, and composition best suited our purpose
• Degrees of Representation 
  • Nonobjective (or) nonrepresentational shapes, such as circles, rectangles, and squares are pure forms
  • Pure forms – shapes that we create without direct reference to reality
  • Representational shapes – specific matter that is strongly based on direct observation 
  • Abstract shapes – derived from visual reality but are distilled and transformed, reducing their resemblance to the original source
• Degrees of Definition
  • Definition – degree to which we distinguish one visual component from another
  • High definition – creates strong contrast between shapes and tends to increase clarity and immediacy of communication
  • Low definition – shapes, including soft edged shapes, gradations, and transparencies.
• Context and connections 
  • Analogy – creates a general connection between unrelated objects or idea
  • Simile – creates the connection using the word “like” or “as” 
  • Metaphor
• Aesthetics – cultural values 
  • Anesthetic – used to include insensitivity or unconsciousness
• Modern and postmodern 
  • Postmodernism – art movement from 1975 – 2005 
  • Modernism – encompasses a wide range of individual movements