OUGD405 Studio Brief 1 - Idea Generation

OUGD405 Studio Brief 1 - Idea Generation

From my understanding of the brief, I started out with creating a mind map of different themes, then looking into which shapes could relate to a design that relates to the theme. As this brief is very broad, I found it hard thinking of different ideas that could be translated into an eye catching backing for a photo frame. When I looked into photo frames on the internet and to my knowledge, the majority of backings are photographs of people and families, often in monochrome. As photo frames primary purpose is to hold and display a valuable memory, this is very suitable. However, as this is more a design brief, my initial thoughts are to create more of a design that will be aesthetically pleasing and complement the frame. 

These examples below I have found on the internet are examples of this, and also really use the concept of shapes to drive the design, which relates to the brief as we also have to construct a design based around a  shape. The first image uses the idea of shapes alone, whereas the second to be, is based around architecture but at is simplest form. The third is naturalistic, minimal design which I think is really pleasing to the eye, especially from the use of colours. Therefore I think the use of colour and patterns is something I should really take into account to help boost the design. The second image however out of the three is my favourite, as I really love the minimal approach, I think the use of negative space within this is is just as effective as the use of line and shape. In addition, as this is something that is not often seen within photo frames, it makes it more catching to the audience as the bold, strong, clear lines and shapes will stand out against the typical monochrome photographs. Therefore, I think something with this idea in mind would be really interesting, therefore I may try out all three techniques to see what I produce.

I created initial designs to start to think about with ideas would look good. From my mind map, I thought of looking at stain glass windows as an initial design, which I could explore different shapes to create an image such as a sun as shown below. I also then decided to look at nature as a theme, and use stencils of leaves to create a pattern which I believe looks quite effective. Another idea which I quite liked was a social awareness idea about endangered animals, which I could then add texture to.