This week, I had to find things in my environment that represent different aspects of design.

Unity

The Principles of Design by Joshua David McClurg-Genevese:

The concept of unity describes the relationship between the individual parts and the whole of a composition.

Items in close proximity to or aligned with one another tend to be grouped in a similar way.

I originally took this picture for color, but I felt differently after I looked at it on the computer. I think it fits with the principle of unity more. The individual pieces make up the entire image of a rainbow. The colors seem to be connected even though there are spaces between each paint chip. I think this wall is pretty awesome–especially since I get to see it everyday.

Function

Based on the Google document we were all working on, function is about how well a design can convey an object’s meaning or potential use.

I picked a door chain on my apartment door. I figured this was a simple example of design done well. There are no weird or extraneous parts. There’s a female and a male part. The chain goes into the hole. There is no other way for it to function. It’s that simple.

Balance

Back to Mr. McClurg-Genevese:

Balance is an equilibrium that results from looking at images and judging them against our ideas of physical structure. It is the arrangement of the objects in a given design as it relates to their visual weight within a composition.

Symmetrical balance occurs when the weight of a composition is evenly distributed around a central vertical or horizontal axis.

I chose this picture of a business on my street. The house is so balanced, I’m almost troubled by it. The windows on top balance the windows and door on the bottom. Also, the windows are balanced by being in sets of three.

I wish I would have gotten a picture of the house straight on to show the symmetry of it in that way, but hopefully people see what I see. There used to be a bush on the right but after the tornado, it’s just the one now!

Symbols

I check these once a month in every apartment of my building. Yet, I still don’t know what these symbols mean. This is what I would call a bad example. I’m sure there is some common sense that is supposed to be applied here, but I’m still not sure if these are things I shouldn’t be using the extinguisher on or should be.

Though I will say that I at least know what the symbols are. There is a trash can on fire, there are some logs on fire, there is a gas can with fire in the background and there is an electrical cord on the far right. That’s about all I get from these symbols, though.