William Ball's Blog: SCAD Student/Artist/Animator

Our latest assignment is to take an existing map, completely destroy it (using any means nonetheless), and then take the remains and create something totally new out of it.

My map choice was a map that came as a bonus item in a video game I own. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It had a map of the entire continent that the game took place in, and on nice map quality paper no less.

I ended up ripping mine apart, marking it up with ink and red markers, and ended gluing the tatters onto some illustration board, in order to create a damaged map collage texture. My idea was to take the whole “slaying monsters and dragons” aspect of the game, and incorporate into the map design. So I designed a monster and put the little guy over the destroyed map. This gives it a very foreboding, dangerous feel. I wanted the viewer to feel like they would be intimidated and not visit the map’s location. In fact, i even put a “warning” on there.

The final product was printed out on 11×17 board, so it was be easy to view and be durable. Overall, it was fun and I do enjoyed tearing up things. I also feel comfortable with cut paper, so the project was a good fit for me.

This project was an interesting one. For one, it’s primarily photography-based, instead of hand-made art. We were assigned to look for letters of the alphabet and numbers 1-9 based in our environment. We could not take photos of letters/numbers that were actual numbers or letters. Rather, we had to find things that resembled them or gave the viewer an impression of these things. All of my photography was done outdoors, so I looked for things in downtown Savannah. That’s my theme, I suppose one could say.

Today’s assignment is a rather interesting one. We explored different design ideas/themes using only flat, black squares. The themes explored are: Order, Increase, Bold, Congested, Playful, and Tension. The pictures are in that order:

Thanks, guys! I’ll be sure to take a look at everyone’s work as well, and comment.

– William Ball

Sorry for the late update, but I’m glad I was able to get this project uploaded for you fine folks to see!

Our most recent project in Ms. Waldvogel’s class was to create a shape and put in on an isolated grid. What we had to do first was to draw up thumbnails (about 75 or so) of different shapes that had other shapes “excluded” from them. There are examples in the below images. (Thumbnails below…!)

Next we, had to choose the one motif (shape) we liked the most, and then experiment with placement and orientation, and then make them into cut paper pieces. We had to arrange all of those pieces into a 10×10 square. I choose to have a grid or 1×1 inch squares, just to make the design more interesting and versatile. There are five different variations below.

Then we chose out favorite design (my favorite is #4 right up here), and then created three “inking plans”, with which to create our final inked grid. The three inking plans are below.

I chose the third inking plan (see above) as my favorite of the three, and then transferred the final design onto illustration board.

Above is my final piece. Overall, I’m very pleased with it, and so was the class. There are some minor niggling issues though, like the vertical line that only exists on the right half of the design, but not the left. It leads to the piece being slightly “off” symmetrically. And as always, I suck with india ink, so the craftsmanship could be a little cleaner. But… it is what it is, and that’s ok with me. I hope you all will leave comments and input. It all means a lot to me, and I look forward to viewing your work as well!

– William Ball

Good times, everyone. Good times… so Assignment #1 is finished at long last (though it has been fun and challenging!) I narrowed my previous thumbnails down to 4 finalized designs. Here they are (see images below)!

Feel free to share your comments and I’ll be sure to check out everyone’s blog posts as well!

Next Step: Redesigning the weakest of our 4 designs. So, I felt that my first design (consisting of only vertical and horizontal line) was rather weak. There wasn’t enough differentiation of line thickness, no does it lead your eyes to any interesting paths. I feel rather confident in my redesign, I successfully divided the new design into two interesting visuals.

Again, please leave any comments/suggestions for me. I look forward to checking out everyone’s redesigns! Later, gators…

Hello, Ms. Waldvogel and my fellow SCAD colleagues!  This week I have been working my assignment for Ms. Waldvogel’s Design I class. Here’s the first stage: thumbnails! 100 total, 25 for each description in the course. Images are posted below.

Let me know what you think! Feel free to leave a comment or email. Thanks.

– William Ball