A FREAKIN’ SQUARE!
Been dealin’ a lot with squares lately. The Black Square Problem has me feeling like the young up-and-coming detective with a grudge in the newest smash murder-mystery novel where I struggle to piece clue after clue together in order to make it just in time to stop Miss Scarlet from beating my partner to death with a candlestick in the ballroom. Actually what all that drama translates out to being is one frustrated 23 year-old (muah) sitting in her living room fiddling with squares in order to come up with six specific designs. I did it and it was about as bloody involved as solving an actual murder would probably be; I most likely made myself a victim of over thinking yet again. But any chance squares had of being my favorite shape is gone now, and you know what… the squares are rather cross about it.
I see them everywhere! They’ve even invaded my dreams now. I’m about to call up Leo DiCaprio for some dream-defense. Luckily I do have a trusty, un-candlestick-beaten partner that aids me through and through:
Art Chief! Defender of the… well, currently the defender of the dining room table. He’s travel size for my convenience. He’s a little bundle of inspiration and he goes with me everywhere, especially where there is art to be made, keeping me focused, scrutinizing me with silence.
And now that we’ve arrived at the point, it’s on to the art:
1. ORDER:
I left a white border around it on purpose, foolishly forgetting that my blog background is, ahem, white. Prooobably best to just click on this one, audience, to get the intended effect.
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2. INCREASE:
Again, no black border or anything. I enjoyed the rounded, almost infinite effect the image gives against the white.
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3. BOLD:
I, admittedly, struggled with this concept… I had an original design that I wanted to utilize; however, I couldn’t get it to express the message of boldness in the proper way, so like my 9th grade English teacher once told me, sometimes you just have to give up on an idea; you can’t force it to fit if it just doesn’t fit, the concept might just get lost. Like half of my socks. Anyway, so this was pulled right out of my as— hat… my magical hat.
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4. CONGESTED:
Alright, alright, I hear your nagging through the tiny computer speakers. This design is cliché, to put it kindly. I like it. When I thought congested I ended up imagining (don’t judge me) that what if a congested square was finally able to expel the congested nastiness from its square nose? Yeah, I’m basically telling you this looks like square snot on a page. But it all came full… square… and sort of just tied in together. Your honor, I rest my case.
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5. PLAYFUL:
I long debated with Art Chief whether or not we should keep or leave out the extra squares around the initial design. But without them the negative space felt too dominant, so we thought giving it a friend to play with might help tone it down.
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6. TENSION:
I had originally gone for a Tetris-like design because, c’mon, who hasn’t been in a tense spot playing that mind-numbing game? I instead went with something simple and actually kinda-sorta objective. Hats off to all you brave folks out there in the audience who stared at these squares and saw an actual picture much, much cooler than mine.
Art Chief and I would like to personally thank the program Paint for being there when Photoshop could not. Anyone read Russian? Long story…