Graphics

The graphic design principle that makes “Faith” an example of multiplicity is Color.

“Color can convey a mood, describe reality, or codify information.  Words like ‘gloomy,’ ‘drab,’ and ‘glittering’ each bring to mind a general climate of colors, a palette of relationships.  Designers use color to make some things stand out (warning signs) and to make other things disappear (camouflage).  Color serves to differentiate and connect, to highlight and hide,” (71).

Each time a new layer of verse is introduced, it appears in a different color.  That is how it makes the piece cumulative: sometimes words from a previous verse will change to the new color and it becomes part of the new verse.  Each word is read when it appears in the new color, so it makes the words that need to be read stand out and brings them to the reader’s attention.  The final result is a complex poem with multiple layers of colors, some words having changed colors over the course of the poem.

Graphics

The graphic design principle that “TwelveBlue” utilizes to effectively convey quickness is Hierarchy.  As Lupton and Phillips explain,

“Hierarchy is also conveyed visually, through variations in scale, value, color, spacing, placement, and other signals.  Expressing order is a central task of the graphic designer.  Visual hierarchy controls the delivery and impact of a message. Without hierarchy, graphic communication is dull and difficult to navigate,” (Lupton 115).

In “TwelveBlue,” the reader begins the story by clicking on a certain point on the image at the left of the screen.  That image is different points of the story shown by layers of color bands.  The layers are set up in a sort of hierarchy; one wonders if the reader is more apt to click on one of the points closest to the top layer, and how the story is different depending on where you start in the hierarchy.

Graphics

The graphic design principle that best conveys a sense of lightness is Transparency.  As Lupton and Phillips explain in Graphic Design The New Basics,

“Transparency also can serve to built complexity by allowing layers to mix and merge together.  Transparency can be used thematically to combine or contrast ideas, linking levels of content.  When used in a conscious and deliberate way, transparency contributes to the meaning and visual intrigue of a work of design,” (Lupton 147).

These transparent layers of clothing look weightless, airy, and light. The transparency allows you to see so much more of the outfit.

The aesthetic experience with my piece of E-Lit is created through the use of transparency.  The different surfaces of the block have different levels of transparency, allowing the back layers of the block to be seen well through closer layers.  When a work has a sense of transparency, and there is a sense that you can look through different layers, the reader or viewer is able to drift lightly into the work and become more connected to it.  It is the transparency of the block that conveys a sense of lightness and weightlessness of the work.