Assignment 2 - Making images talk

Making images talk

This exercise is for developing skills in controlling visual message

Exercise:

• Subject: Select an object or activity or location (telephone, running, bus stop, car, cooking etc). Try not to select an existing subject (eg. Toilet or well known sports symbols)
• Create a representative image of the object (you may choose either iconic or indexic representation)
• Distill the image through process of abstraction. (atleast 5 levels of abstraction from realistic to abstract) Indicate at what point in the abstraction process the object looses its specific identity and communicates generic meaning. Select that image and develop it into a symbol.
  
• Print level of abstraction on A3 size paper and final symbol on A4 paper

Well, the crux of this assignment, as explained above, is to create levels of abstraction on a particular item. I have chosen a slice of pizza as the item. And here is the original JPEG file:



With the pizza in mind, I had to create 5 levels of abstraction. From what Mr Reddy described during lecture, the abstraction relies on "stripping" away the details of the item to make it more minimalist in nature. This means that part by part, the picture's details are to be removed, until the stage where it loses its generic meaning (e.g. no longer a slice of pizza) and lastly a symbol.

And hence, this is my answer to the question:



I chose stage 4 as the point where the abstraction loses its identity and generates generic meaning. The triangular shape and its dots may not appear to be a slice of pizza as compared to stage 1. At first sight, a friend whom I showed stage 4 to (without showing the other stages) thought it looked like a slice of cheese with holes in it. Also, I removed the colours from stage 3 to stage 4 because colour, as part of the abstraction, represents a layer on the pizza.

Stage 5 would be the end product of the abstraction - the abstract symbol that represents more than one meaning. It may perhaps signify a pie chart, or a slice of pizza out of the entire pan, or many other interpretations. I personally chose this as the symbol because it has a general meaning to it. Personally, I can picture pizza restaurants with this symbol as their signature icon. The reason why I chose to invert the colours inside out (black in and white out) is because I do not get a better effect than that I get from doing the opposite of black out and white in.

That's all for assignment 2.