AP 15 minutes of your time for a critical message!
In the 2D Design Portfolio, the design qualities of the work are
considered foremost.
Active engagement with the elements and principles of design is
assessed.
The Readers ask themselves:
1. Is understanding of the principles of
design evident in this work?
2. Are the principles used intelligently and sensitively
to contribute to its meaning?
3. Were the elements created and used in purposeful
and imaginative ways?
4. How and what does the interaction of the elements and
principles of design contribute to the quality of the work?
These words were copied from the AP website regarding the reading of
portfolios at AP Board:
The principles of design (unity/variety, balance, emphasis, contrast,
rhythm, repetition, proportion/scale, figure/ground relationships),
articulated through the visual elements (line, shape, color, value,
texture, space), help guide artists in making decisions about how to
organize the elements on a picture plane in order to communicate
content.
Effective design is possible whether one uses representational or
abstract approaches to art.
For this portfolio, students are asked to demonstrate mastery of 2-D
design through any two-dimensional medium or process, including, but
not limited to, graphic design, digital imaging, photography, collage,
fabric design, weaving, illustration, painting, and printmaking.
Breadth:
Rationale from the AP Syllabus regarding Breadth:
The student’s work in this section should demonstrate
understanding of the principles of design, including
unity/variety, balance, emphasis, contrast, rhythm,
repetition, proportion/scale, and figure/ground
relationship.
Successful works of art require the integration of the
elements and principles of design; students must
therefore be actively engaged with these concepts while
thoughtfully composing their art.
The work in this section should show evidence of
conceptual, perceptual, expressive, and technical range.
Breadth Continued:
These works as a group should demonstrate the student’s
visual organization skills.
As a whole, the student’s work in this section should
demonstrate exploration, inventiveness, and the
expressive manipulation of the elements and principles
of design, as well as knowledge of compositional
organization.
The best demonstrations of breadth clearly show
experimentation and a range of conceptual approaches
to the work.
What are some breadth examples:
• Work that employs line, shape, or color to create
unity or variety in a composition
• Work that demonstrates symmetry/asymmetry,
balance, or anomaly
• Work that explores figure/ground relationships
• Development of a modular or repeat pattern to
create rhythm—(can be done on Adobe easily)
• Color organization using primary, secondary, tertiary,
analogous, or other color
relationships for emphasis or contrast in a composition
• Work that investigates or exaggerates proportion and
or scale
What is figure ground?
• Everything that is not figure is ground.
• As our attention shifts, the ground also shifts so that an object can go from
figure to ground, and then back. (see PowerPoint on Wiki regarding FG)
Ground is sometimes thought of as background or negative space.
• Figure-ground refers to the relationship between an object and its surround.
• Great website to understand Gestalt Principles:
facweb.cs.depaul.edu/.../gestalt_principles.htm
How do these artists bring
emphasis to their focal points?
Were they able to unify the many
elements? If so, how?
http://www.susanadameart.com/
Nice negative space and lots of movement with the petals—diagonal
line formed by the body creates tension—work is unified by color scheme.
The pattern in the lady’s face is a nice use of
the elements, and creates a unique surface.
Variety galore, but how is it unified?
Emphasis—is it effective? Even if you
don’t like it, could this divided work
give you an idea for altering one of
your less successful works to create
emphasis?
Here is what the readers said about submissions in 2010:
2-D Design Quality
Submissions for the 2-D Design Portfolio included some very inventive work, perhaps
because there is such a range of media allowed. The Quality section remained very strong
this year. There were excellent examples of design-based photography and digital work.
(which means they will grade this years photographs on a stricter scale.
2-D Design Concentration
Readers felt that the Concentration section remained problematic. Helping students define
what a concentration is, as opposed to selecting work that seems to “go together,” is key.
2-D Design Breadth
Like last year, students often did not engage with a sufficient range of design issues.
Readers noted that the quality of the Breadth section was good, but often students did not
really display breadth in design issues.
Instead they sometimes showed many different works, or works in a variety of media. Active
engagement with a broad range of design issues is one of the main requirements of this
section of the portfolio.
Principles of Art reviewed:
1. REPETITION can be accomplished in a number of ways: by repeating a shape, line or colors in your work. Consider
playing with one of your pieces on Photoshop: repeat one of your images in different colors (like Warhol),
reverse it and have the images face each other or repeat them in a series, etc.--whatever seems most
appropriate for the work.
2. EMPHASIS through color, line or placement to bring the viewer's focus to the subject (which could be a shape,
object or subject)-try cropping a photo in such a dramatic way as to thrust the viewer's eye to the focal point-perhaps everything is black and white except the focal point, or it is a contrasting or complementary color,
etc. You might change the scale of the focal point to bring emphasis to it; the list is endless.
3. UNITY/VARIETY: find a work that demonstrates unity/variety (this could be a photo, drawing or collage) -can the
work employ a variety of elements but be unified? How would you unify a work with a lot of texture, line, color,
value, shape, etc?
4. CONTRAST-pure black and white offers contrast, as do complementary colors. Charcoal pieces are usually a great
example of contrast too.
5. RHYTHM-do you have an example of rhythm ? A good photo that creates a nice rhythm through a series of
carefully placed objects can serve this purpose . If you are confused, look at examples on AP website.
6. PROPORTION/SCALE An example would be a tiny bug on a big leaf. To exaggerate proportion/scale, you can use
any media, including a montage or collage that exaggerates proportion. What if you created a montage using
magazine pictures with little people sitting on silverware, pieces of fruit, or any other surreal composition? I
have examples if you need them.
7. FIGURE/GROUND consider Escher and other famous figure/ground artists. Google figure ground relationships in art
8. BALANCE: For this, you could use a formal balance design, asymetrical balance, radial balance...make sure that all
of your pieces do not display the same type of balance. Show some variety in your breadth.
Your Assignment for Breadth:
1. Using the form on the next slide (or the one on
the Wiki), list all 12 of your breadth pieces.
2. Indicate what principle of art is used in each
piece. Make SURE you have an example of all 8
principles in your breadth. This might require
tweaking some of your old work on Adobe
Photoshop or another such program.
3. Record the physical size (measurements) of each
piece; you will be required to do this when
submitting to AP Board.
4. Photograph each piece, save it to the proper size
(780 x 530 pixels) and save images in your class
folder on the X drive.
List each breadth piece below:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
l
Principle of Design it represents:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
What do you think these scored in the breadth portion? What is your rational for the score?
Can you back your score up using the AP Rubric?
Figure Ground and Contrast
Pattern and variety
Which way is your favorite? Flipping took less
than 30 seconds and is worth a try.
original
What do you think about this figure/ground? Did Rachel add
another component with repetition?
Original image
Let’s try several ideas:
• What would this score?
• There is something weak
about the shoulder in the
background? Could there
be a plagiarism issue?
(this is an image copied
from a magazine by
previous AP student).
• Next slide, please.
Could you change the meaning with color? Diffused anger?
Do we have a little repetition now? This took me less than 10 minutes.
Or add filters and
change completely?
Evokes feeling of
EVIL…
Would either of the
new ones score
higher? If so, why?
What happened to Amanda’s composition? What color scheme does it
employ? What would a thick black border do for this? What would you
suggest? Do you see the dove coming down in between the heads?
One lonely head…
• What could you do with
this if you wanted to
develop a piece for your
breadth portion?
• Certainly it has nice
negative spaces…
• Next slide please.
Perfect ads for depression medication; import into
Photoshop and design with font
Student had photos from trip; what if
she took the best of these pictures and
make an poster for a Safari Trip?
These are nice examples of contrast—would you add anything
or change the composition to reflect stronger design?
A little cheezy but you get the idea…
Blue eyes for emphasis and red font for focal zone
So, where do we go from here?
• Reduction print with altered
color—what are the
possibilities?
• Napkin design? Add a
border of coffee beans and
java printed in many
different languages around
the edges of the design?
• Be creative with your old
work and see what you can
do with it.
http://www.marcomodi.it/gallery/
Works with scale and else?
• This is mostly
geometric, so what
does the tree do—
serve as variety? Does
it bring emphasis to
the mauve colored
structure on the
horizon line? Do all
lines lead to the focal
point?
• You be the judge.
A good link if you like collages:
http://www.collageart.org/links/
Once again…
When is your breadth due?
What will you be required to turn in at the end
of the exam period in December?