as i grow weary and verbose:

a page-by-page overview of some formal design principles, and a reflecting kind of blog.

innocence: i used scale to show the difference between the world/setting and the two tiny characters, playing hide and seek inside it. it is also an asymmetrical composition, hinting that the setting is much bigger than just what's on the page. compound shapes are formed by the dots where they intersect to create something of a landscape.

puberty: i again used scale in hopes of showing the physical growth of the body during the upheaval of puberty. this composition is based off one asymmetrical compound shape. hopefully it is representative of the explosion of changes in the body, and the leveling off/droop is indicative of how mentally and physically taxing it can be to grow up.

mistakes: i used alignment in this composition by organizing the dots along a grid. scale is used, yet again, in an attempt at perspective. compound shapes are formed by the double-dots, which are also examples of the repetition i was trying to use to depict a sort of unsettling double-vision.

separation: proximity was crucial to this composition in that it had to be clear that one character was leaving and its family was remaining, together, where they were. i also utilized framing in cutting off part of the exiting dot to show its departure.

homecoming: once more, a big scale shift between the traveling character and the idea of home. the size of the home-circle is enhanced by the framing of the composition cutting most of it, leaving only a corner. ideally the exaggerated size of home and diminutive returning dot should get at a kind of humility.

union: finally an almost symmetrical composition. it is balanced, but offset. i hope that positive/negative comes clearly across on this page, because even though the black dots are, physically speaking, positive, they represent the negative space between the two interlocking white pieces. repetition and correspondence occur in the interlocking "teeth," establishing which is positive space and which is negative. there is also a compound shape built of circles, and layering was necessary to ensure that the negative space was entirely filled with darkness.

amalgam: another basically symmetrical composition. there is correspondence between all the small dots not necessarily due to their imagery but simply because they're so much smaller than the two large source-dots. thus, scale appears here as well.

attachment: asymmetric framing and scale were important in this page because they help to show the size of the idea of mother or father in relation to a child, and the ever-increasing "preciousness" of family.

lastly, relinquishment: this composition utilizes a compound shape (created out of two smaller compound shapes linked in layers and correspondence) to build the idea of a nest. proximity is crucial in the same way it was in separation, and scale emphasizes how fragile the new traveler is. the asymmetry should heighten the sense of distance between the nest and the individual striking out.

dot compositions are a good way to make absolutely certain you understand a concept by testing to see if you are able to communicate it through the most basic, abstract arrangements of a single shape. using imagery is so very much a double-edged sword in that it can bring into very vibrant clarity exactly what it is that your composition is alluding to, but at the same time, can hijack your composition into being about something else entirely without you even noticing. nevermind if your imagery is simply redundant and takes all the fun out of figuring a composition out.

i think as a cohesive artifact, my book turned out much more unified than i was worried it might turn out to be. pleasant surprises! i just wish so very much that i'd had a few more days to work on the actual construction of the object. having had several weeks of process and preparation, the two days between our final discussions/approvals/critiques and our due dates seemed a little anti-climactic and less than conducive to the kind of work i would have liked to have produced. i'm not so satisfied with my craft, but as occasionally happens in the real world, priorities come into play as to whether it would be most beneficial to have a completed artifact with less than stellar craft, or beautiful craft on a few pages without ever completing the project. obviously i realize that the correct answer would have been to achieve both one way or another and i hope that i can reach a point in my design career whereat that becomes an easier solution than it currently is.

the biggest thing i would do differently, aside from taking the time to get really clean, pristine craft, is narrow my scope, and try harder to understand what is really being asked of me. upon hearing the word "narrative" during the brainstorming process, i latched upon literally the idea of it being necessary for a narrative to run through the book. much much too late to change anything, it dawned on me that all we were really required to have is a clear topic, something around which we could think of a set of items or ideas that maybe don't so much tell a story as simply explain or describe or build upon that topic. not that i know, necessarily, what i would have done otherwise, but i do think that perhaps my scope was a bit too wide. nevertheless i wrangled it! and i would like to think that i have done a bit better than simply going down with a sinking ship.