Design Principles / Project 2: Sense of Place

10/012/2021 - 10/26/2021 (Week 9 - Week 10)

Seojeong Kim / 0350085

Design Principles

Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylor’s University

Project 2: Sense of Place

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Lecture 7: Sense of Place

Introduction:

Sense of place is a positive feeling perception of a place, place attachment, is an emotional bond found between a person and the environment.

A designer's role is to solve problems with effective visual communication. 

Steps to Improve your Observation:

Know your subject

Slow down and look outward

Try something new

Improve your concentration by cutting out distractions

Challenge yourself to a mental workout

Test your observation by playing a memory game

Record and consider your observation

Stay inquisitive

Remember what to do after this is:

- Think about a place that created a lasting memory in you.

- Document the observations. photographs, diary, talking to relevant people, etc.

- Create a mind-map.

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Introduction

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Visual Research

- A sense of place is an extension of a building type, and it is the designer's job to identify and develop what the demographic needs to occupy that building. 

Representing a place is a very interesting thing. It takes a visual element or the feeling that the place gives to people. Places can give people a sense of comfort or security (home, my room, etc.), or they can give people a sense of fear or coolness (haunted house, home alone in the mountains, etc.). 

There are many mediums of how sense of place can be expressed. Photography,  collage, illustration, scale model, etc.

In order to express a place well, I think the feeling, color, and angle of the place are the most important factors. If you use these elements well, you will be able to express the place you want to express beautifully.

- I first looked for 'room' designs that people had made. In fact, they thought that the first place they would think of was their room. 

- Then, I looked for collages of places. Because I thought I would make my work into a collage. Searching for these things, I thought, I should make a mind map. It seemed that if I made a mind map, I could clearly know what I wanted.

Mind Map:

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Idea Exploration

- Based on my reference, I decided to express the 'Four Seasons Hotel Florence Italy' I went to. I chose this because I can see all the park views outside, and I can't forget the place and time when the sparrows fly into my window when I open the huge window.

- At 11 am, when I woke up from my exhausted sleep, I opened the window to see the sunlight. I was greeted by the park outside, the people busy preparing for life, and the lush forest, and then two sparrows landed on my window.

- The smell, the mood, the sound and the scene at that time in my life. All of this will never be forgotten. I felt as if I was the main character in a fairy tale.

Sketches:

- In my sketching process, I want this to come out as close to my thoughts as possible. A cozy white bed, blanket and pillow. The harmony of the building, the garden, and the mountain that I saw when I opened the door. Cherry blossoms fluttering and sparrows flapping in front of my eyes.

Process:

- I digitized what I drew by hand.

- After that, I found the images I would use and used the tool to cut and assemble them. I laid out them according to the sketch I drew, and although I will change it later, I first applied the background color.

- And finished my collage to be inserted into the window. Five background photos I saw were mixed and completed into one image. Connect the matching colors for a natural look, and if not, I slowly erased the inappropriate lines with the Blurred Eraser tool.

- Then, I looked for an image of a bed, duvet and pillow together, but couldn't find it, so I cut out the images separately and blended them together. 

- And I wanted to express the lighting of the dormitory where I was, but in fact, there were not that many light bulbs. However, I used a lot of light bulbs to make this piece look a little richer.

- Also, I inserted the cherry blossom trees that I had seen, and wanted to express how the cherry blossom petals that I saw and felt really ecstatic.

- After all the image layout was done, I inserted the wallpaper back into the background. The wallpaper was white and shadow, but I changed the color by overlaying a light pink background.

- Finally, I adjusted the filters, lighting, and contrast of my finished work to give it a little more pinkish tint.

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My Final Process For JPG:

My Final Process For GIF

Final Outcome With PDF

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Reflection

- This project gave me a lot of experience. Also, this was a very fun and interesting project. It was very exciting to apply After Effects to my work, and it was fun to learn it. But I'm still very lacking in After Effects skills, and if I could handle it better, this would have been more enjoyable and better.

- I spent a lot of time coming up with various ideas. In this project, the biggest difficulty for me was figuring out what ideas to use and how to express them. Then when I came up with the idea, I thought it would be great to try to present it as a collage. And I thought the collage and After Effects go really well together.

- And the way I described the places I did on this project was very interesting, and the way I described the places I liked the most in my memory made me feel like I was back there again. Describing a place was a new experience for me, and perhaps I enjoyed this project very much. It was very enjoyable because I could once again feel the feeling of the work I made, the cherry blossoms in Italy.