I know this is ridiculously hard to see, I’m sorry. This was my extensive brain web to generate concepts using the base words ‘life’ and ‘chocolates’. Those are the two main elements in the quote and there were some pretty interesting ideas that stemmed from this brain web. Eventually, I came up with the idea below.

The concept for the project compared traditional socially-constructed gender labels to other non-traditional gender identities. ‘Life’ is symbolized by the various images representing baby boys and girls. The outdated concept is illustrated on the lid of the chocolate box via a giftwrap pattern complete with a bow. However, once you actually look inside the box, you see other gender identities represented by their flag colors overlaying each piece of chocolate. These identities defy the expectation and labels on the outside of the box. You don’t know what they are just by looking on the outside, each chocolate is different and “you never know what you’re gunna get”.

After talking to Dunkle about it, he thought it’d be weird to overlay the flag colors on the chocolates themselves. Instead, we decided to have pieces outside the box that showed the colors (representing non-traditional gender identities) once you bit into them. He also talked about playing with the size of the pieces and making them bigger than the box. I think the hardest part about the concept change was figuring out how to lay everything out. If I was drawing everything, it would have been easier to draw sections for each color in the bitten chocolates and I could have sketched the angles of each element by hand. However, this was more difficult, for me, to do when I’m working with base images from different points of view and trying to find a tablecloth image that would also fit so the pieces weren’t floating and there was a baseline for the different perspectives I was trying to achieve.

I think designing my pattern was my favorite part of the project. I wanted things a little more spaced out mainly because each item is more than just a basic shape and I didn’t want things to get too congested. As you can probably tell I sized, placed, and positioned each element myself instead of using the Pattern Hero plugin in Figma. It was a little time consuming but I tried to make sure there weren’t repeat elements right next to each other and I was happy with the results. Having some of the shapes go off the page really helps sell things.

I’d just like to say, GIMP sucks. Okay, not 100% true but that program stopped responding and crashed multiple times. When I tried to preemptively save my work at each stage, it would crash then as well. It worked a bit better for the piggy bank lab but for this project I ended up re-starting it five or six times. I wasn’t at school so I couldn’t go to the lab and I had to wait to get someone’s computer to do it on photoshop so for that…GIMP sucks.

For this part of the project I photoshopped out pieces from this box which was fairly simple. The most difficult part of this project was getting the pattern onto the lid. The usual methods weren’t working and I searched a million different explanations and tutorials to try to problem solve but the options weren’t available for me in photoshop. My roommate and I finally figured out a way to get it at least to this point and it wasn’t perfect but after hours of trying to get it to work, I was happy I at least had something to work with. I was I definitely was not anticipating this taking as long as it did. BUT there’s always that one unexpected thing in a project that just takes a long time.

I had a hard time laying in the colors on an all-chocolate piece. I found that darkening with color in certain places to emulate the shadows in the textured insides helped certain pieces. However, the filling really influenced the way the colors would show up and the brushes and techniques I had to use. In a way, I think it may have been easier to overlay the flag colors over the pieces themselves but the overall image probably would have also been less dynamic.

Originally, Dunkle and I thought of maybe using a table cloth or a table as a background but I couldn’t find the right images for what I needed. Some things I could improve would be a better background, a better angling of the chocolate pieces to match the box, and I’d probably try to make more of my pattern show on the box top. After I finally got it on there and adjusted it, I realized I’d probably have to make the pattern bigger in figma? I’m not sure. Free transform was being weird so that didn’t work out as well when I tried one method that way although it did show more of the pattern.

Overall, I really liked the concept I came up with and maybe some day I’ll revisit it and try again. I’m happy I refamiliarized myself with photoshop. I don’t use it regularly enough but I like it much more than GIMP and I’m excited to get back into it again.

I think the desert landscape is probably my favorite out of the four I did. I loved these colors and I’m pretty happy with how everything came together. I had fun creating the shapes for the mountains and I like the purple as a shadow side. I tried to show depth and levels with each element I put into the frame. The closest, shortest mountain is darker overall because it’s partially blocked by the taller mountain closest to the sun. The cactus up front is the closest object to the viewer and it’s farther away from the short mountain so the setting sun still reaches the top.

I think I struggled the most with the position of the sun and picturing how that would affect the colors on all the other objects, and then executing that. Initially, I wanted a sunset desert scene and I once I solidified my colors I started with the mountains. I think this was part of the problem. I started with the mountains to establish where things would be and how I was going to use the space in the frame. Then I moved on to figuring out the coloring and shading without positioning the sun first and instead going off of where I pictured it would be. After I placed the sun I had to change things a bit and I think starting with those colors already there made things harder. I’m not the best at readjusting things that already look nice and changing things around so they look ‘correct’. A lot of times I know that something’s not quite right and I know, in theory, what it should be based on for it to be fixed, but I’m not always sure how to do that and don’t always fully reach that end goal. Overall though, I really really like the piece and I think it’s one of my favorite illustration-type things I’ve done.

I really wanted to step out of the box with the cityscape. It was hard for me to get started and keep it more simple even after I had an idea of what I wanted it to look like. Looking at it after, it reminds me a bit of cartoons in a way. – the use of simpler, flatter shapes to portray background buildings and show depth with color. I didn’t want to do traditional straight panels of windows, so instead I used different shapes and colors for a funky representation of windows. Overall, I’m happy I got to try something different that strayed from my usual inclinations.

The space scene was the first one I did. When thinking of my outer space scene, I immediately thought of movies and pictures where and image or color is reflected in an astronaut’s helmet. Since we needed to use gradients, I knew I wanted to do something with the sun or a planet having an effect on the helmet. We were reminded not to get too ‘illustrate-y’ so I kept this one simple and used simple shapes for the astronaut. I also used a dark gradient that blended with the background more so instead of creating a back to the helmet, I used the contrast of colors.

Originally, I just had a bigger helmet without a body in the corner of the frame. I liked how it was starting to look but I thought that was too simple. So I wanted to build a basic body and play with the sun’s effect on the suit. On the body, I brought a second shadow forward to account for the shadow from the backpack and also matched the gradient line on the backpack as well for the effect of the sun. To make this one better, maybe I could’ve done something different with the stars? I’m not exactly sure what to do, but I wasn’t happy with them.

The aquatic landscape ended up being the hardest one for me to complete. I wanted to approach the aquatic theme in a different way. I was kind of tired of seeing fish and underwater stuff. So I thought about doing a swampy area with a alligator head sticking out of the water and ended up settling on the idea of a peak into a watering hole scene. I was happy with my hippo head and the overall shape of my tree but I didn’t know where to go with the water’s edge from there. And staying within the color constraints while trying to think of what to put there was difficult.

This is probably the one I’m the least happy with. I found it really difficult to stay in the color requirements and make all the elements look right. By the time I’d gotten to this frame, I wasn’t overly confident with the linear gradients and all the different tools we were using, but I thought I had a better understanding of things. Applying the gradient tools to an object is never the same. It seems so simple and yet I repeatedly found that I must not have fully grasped it because I couldn’t achieve the results I wanted – even if I’d successfully manipulated the tool for something else. I messed around with this frame ALOT. I tried playing with the fill behind the gradient layer on objects, I tried adding a ripple effect to the water,

The main things to improve on would be fixing the colors and gradients on my tree and doing something different with the water’s edge. I didn’t want to expand the water all the way out, but maybe I could have and added a frog or another hippo or some other things to the water. I don’t feel like the piece has a lot of movement and I struggled with how to fix that and execute it well.

For my nursery rhyme I chose ‘Little Miss Muffet’. The frames are broken up by section: ‘Little Miss Muffet, sat on her tuffet, eating her curds and whey, there came a great spider, who sat down beside her, and frightened Miss Muffet away’.

When I started to create the second set in figma, I realized I wanted to create clear contrast between the two sets. The representational set is more dramatic and fills in the majority of the frame with large imagery and stark contrasting color. The first set has more individual elements in each frame and is more playful.

I aimed to keep the rule of thirds in mind when I laid out each frame. I’m used to thinking of tuffets as those little round chairs, which I depict in the representational set. Apparently, a tuffet also means a small hill! This was likely what was meant in the lyrics of the nursery rhyme. I decided to incorporate both meanings. I think that second frame was the first one I drew. If I was to go back and tweak these again, I think I’d find a better way to space out the cookie-looking pieces a bit.

I feel like most of these are self explanatory. The first image is her collar with a string of pearls (it reminded me of RBG when I was done RIP<3). The second to last image is supposed to represent the spider dropping down from a string of web.

With regards to the last frame in the set, I wanted it to stand out from the others. I used white negative space to indicate distance from the spider that is almost out of frame. I also wanted there to be a bit of alarm. To me, the black-filled spaces are dramatic but more relaxing, whereas the white spaces create a sense of urgency in this set.

Initially, I experimented with some running icons for the last frame. I knew I wanted it to be different from the others and I think this particular amalgamation creates an even deeper sense of urgency. However, I think it left too much space blank and it didn’t really fit with the set at all. Also I didn’t think Dunkle would like it one bit lol

I’d say the hardest part about this project was doing one of each Gestalt principle. I had so many ideas but I had to keep the principles in mind and check which ones I had done already. Also making sure your image follows a principle correctly. As a whole, I’m happy with how the majority of things came out for this project. It’s an interesting project and one that makes you think and work within the given limits. The Gestalt principles along with the things we learned about framing and the rule of thirds can definitely be used in future projects and artwork in general. They describe a lot of things that are pleasing to the eye and break down why that’s the case.