Composition & Design

[Anonymous No.4942766]

Where do you even begin to learn composition and design? It seems like everyone is just going off of random unrelated rules:
>rule of thirds
>golden ratio
>Big Medium Small
>Warm and Cool
>Contrast!
>Color Schemes / Gamut Masks
>Circle Triangle Square

What is the unifying theory? For drawing, we have perspective and form. Everything stems from that, including anatomy, gesture, rendering, etc. But what about composition and design? What makes something look good or bad?

Even a popular book like Framed Ink seems like a collection of a bag of tricks. He lists of things like "forest vs trees", "Order vs Chaos", but it all seems so random and helter skelter.

[Anonymous No.4942799]

>>4942766
5 golden rules
https://youtu.be/ZsY9HO08_MQ

[Anonymous No.4942811]

>>4942799
your accent gives me nostalgia.

[Anonymous No.4943246]

>>4942799
why does he look like the botoxbros from that one meme

[Anonymous No.4943394]

this question is like asking someone how they are a person

[Anonymous No.4943399]

>>4943246
>botoxbros

They try to be like me. :D

[Anonymous No.4944420]

>>4943394
How? Arent there objectively good and bad designs?

[Anonymous No.4944813]

What do you gusy think of the book: Composition, by Arthur Wesley Dow?

[Anonymous No.4946306]

>>4942766
here OP. This should be useful. Composition apart from design is a big part of cinematography and photography. look into those more as well.

>>4944420
Depending on the context and theme of a piece, yes. But where one design works for one concept it may be awful for another so it's still fundamentally subjective.

[Anonymous No.4946328]

>>4942766
>>4946306
and for the record op. composition and design is a very abstract method of thinking which is why it isn't taught very well and most beginners can't even wrap their head around it. it requires a sense for conveying mood and a general psychology for art itself which takes time and can only be developed as an individual.

I say always start your piece by thinking of the themes. then base your composition choices around them to give it mood and convey the idea how you see fit. use the principles in the picture to think about how to do it most effectively. it takes real brain work but this is the actual art part of art. /ic/ doesn't know how to teach this because it isn't objective and can't be properly criticized without some form of personal opinions playing a role. which is contrary to the anonymous ideal of the site. make no mistake though this shit is really important to learn so I hope it's useful for you.

[Anonymous No.4946342]

>>4946328
In this sense I guess you could argue that theme is the unifying theory for a composition. since your composition choices should be based around them.

[Anonymous No.4946394]

>>4942766

i really like the op pic

[Anonymous No.4946578]

>>4946306
>>4946328
>>4946342
Thank you very much. I’ll study cinematography and shot language more. And as for design, yeah I’m thinking it’s just really subjective, like it’s all about building your visual library with things you love, and eventually your art will just automatically feel rich. That’s why I hear people say that getting better at drawing will make you better at design

[Anonymous No.4948884]

>>4946328
>by thinking of the themes.
can you expand on this some more? i dont really understand what you mean.

[Anonymous No.4948889]

>>4942766
>rule of thirds
>golden ratio
>Big Medium Small
>Warm and Cool
>Contrast!
>Color Schemes / Gamut Masks
>Circle Triangle Square
This- you clown- learn theory
Its not fucking drawing boxes or loomis heads
Composition i design just should look appealing to an eye- thats literally it

[Anonymous No.4949515]

>>4948889
But what theory is real or not? Composition, as taught today, is a garbage bag of miscellaneous tips and tricks.

[Anonymous No.4950725]

>>4949515
Yes, and? Did you want to learn it or not? Are you surprised art requires creativity?

[Anonymous No.4950789]

>>4950725
I don't think you really know what composition is.

[Anonymous No.4950794]

>>4949515
>But what theory is real or not?
All is real retard
>miscellaneous tips and tricks
Yes

[Anonymous No.4950817]

>>4950794
>rule of thirds
>Golden Mean
Really??? It doesn't bother you how arbitrary these things are?

[Anonymous No.4950988]

>>4950817
Why is it shocking that something that's completely subjective at its core also has arbitrary as fuck theories regarding its composition?

[Anonymous No.4951020]

>>4950988
>>4950534

[Anonymous No.4951360]

>>4951020
Kindly go fuck yourself.

[Anonymous No.4951376]

You really just pick it up naturally, you know what looks good after seeing many things that look good.

[Anonymous No.4952476]

>>4942766
the idea is that you take all of these tools like Vilppu says and use them when you need them. The tools you use when you want to create a dark and moody atmosphere is different from the tools you would use for a happy, nostalgic scene. You learn the tools and fuck with them on purpose to fulfill your goal.

This is where you get the artsy talk like
> I wanted the audience to pick up on the notion that the main character is being cornered, so I filmed the shot so that the long verticals of the fence in the foreground overlap them in the scene, representing him being behind the bars of a jail cell.

> The character's state of mind is chaotic in this scene so we tilted the camera, and put a lot of converging lines behind him to symbolize him falling deep into the abyss

[Anonymous No.4952489]

>>4952476
Yeah, I watched some courses on storyboarding and cinematography and that field of composition seems pretty solid and well understood in general. I guess I just feel really dumb about designing aesthetic things in general, like designing vehicles, characters, environments, etc.

>>4951376
yeah. true.

[Anonymous No.4952751]

>>4952489
For designing appealing things the best thing to do is watch sinix's video on big medium small. It's a very common concept but theres many layers to it that many wont find due to just sticking to the surface level. Sure, have big medium small shapes in your design. But it can be applied to color distribution, proportion, angles, values, edges, etc. The best exercise I've done is taking a random picture, a face or house or bike or whatever and pushing and pulling features around sort of like a caricature. Make it look like the object but also have appeal, through contrast, or in other words, avoiding 50:50 relationship. Look at artists like polyminthe for good shapes.

[Anonymous No.4952799]

>>4952751
thank you, I'll go watch that video. I've heard of "big, medium, small shapes" before, and it seems to kinda play into the whole idea of harmony vs Contrasts, Focal Points, and Unity & Variety. I'll go study these things