Connotative Imagemaking 2

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From the course by California Institute of the Arts

Fundamentals of Graphic Design

4482 ratings

California Institute of the Arts

Fundamentals of Graphic Design

4482 ratings

Course 1 of 5 in the Specialization Graphic Design

Graphic Design is all around us! Words and pictures—the building blocks of graphic design—are the elements that carry the majority of the content in both the digital world and the printed world. As graphic design becomes more visible and prevalent in our lives, graphic design as a practice becomes more important in our culture. Through visual examples, this course will teach you the fundamental principles of graphic design: imagemaking, typography, composition, working with color and shape... foundational skills that are common in all areas of graphic design practice. I don't just want you to watch a video of someone talking about design, I want you to MAKE design! If you want to be a designer you have to be a maker and a communicator, so this course will offer you lots of opportunities to get your hands dirty with exercises and with more practical projects. At the end of this course you will have learned how to explore and investigate visual representation through a range of image-making techniques; understand basic principles of working with shape, color and pattern; been exposed to the language and skills of typography; and understand and have applied the principles of composition and visual contrast. If you complete the course, along with its optional (but highly recommended) briefs, you will have a core set of graphic design skills that you can apply to your own projects, or to more deeply investigate a specialized area of graphic design. To succeed in this course you will need access to a computer. You can complete this course without one but it will be tougher. Access to, and a beginner's level knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite programs, such as Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign will help you, especially if you want to complete the optional briefs.

From the lesson

Week 1: Fundamentals of Imagemaking

This week we are going to look at how images function in terms of conveying denotative and connotative messages, I'll show you a range of analog and digital imagemaking techniques and discuss how they work. In the first peer review assignment you'll create your own series of images, experimenting with formal techniques. Later, you'll have the opportunity to rework those images to enhance their ability to communicate an idea through connotation in an optional assignment: give it a try, it'll help you develop your communication skills as well as your formal skills!

Connotative Imagemaking 15:05

Connotative Imagemaking 24:29

Meet the Instructors

Michael Worthington
Faculty, Program in Graphic Design
School of Art

Let's take a look at some other ways that connotation can work.

Here, for instance, we've got a maggot coming out of an apple, but

it's almost antithetical to the way that the apple is drawn.

It looks very happy and even the maggot itself looks to be smiling.

So here it's really interesting that the connotation,

the suggestion that the apple is rotten can actually be in direct contradiction to

the denotative form which is suggesting a happy apple, a healthy apple.

In this image, we've added some lines and we've tilted the angle of the apple

to make it look as though the apple is falling.

Now this might just represent an apple falling from a tree.

And that could still be a fairly denoted image.

And in terms of connotation it might also suggest a reference to Sir Issac Newton,

and the apple falling from the tree that made him think of the theory of gravity.

Or this image where the snake is made out of apples might actually again

suggest sin.

But on the other hand, we can see here a level of ambiguity.

Perhaps that's not a snake at all, perhaps it's just a hungry caterpillar.

So again, the references can really be up to the reader.

So, sometimes there can be a level of ambiguity in connotation.

And not everybody is always gonna read the same image in the same way.

So part of your job as a designer, is to try and

control the messages that you're making.

To try and think about how they're going to be read by an audience.

So here for instance with this apple that has a letter grade next to it,

that might suggest grading or teaching or classroom.

So the phrase that might come to mind could be, an apple for teacher.

Now that might rely on somebody knowing that phrase or understanding that phrase,

but there are other images where the connotation can be universal.

For instance, it's quite hard to look at this image and

not think of the tech giant.

You don't think of a real apple at all.

You don't think of the fruit.

You think of the tech company.

Controlling connotation is really about controlling meaning.

And again, obviously, that's very important for

designers in terms of how they communicate to their audience.

So for this image for example, if you understand or

know a little bit about art history or about Magritte's paintings.

It's very hard to look at this and not think about that Magritte painting and

not understand that it's a reference to surrealism.

Even though it's not an exact copy of the painting, it contains the same elements.

So your brain is basically connecting those elements back to this other artwork,

this other reference.

So it becomes more than just here's an apple wearing a bowler hat.

It becomes oh, here's a Magritte-esque surreal apple.

So the way that connotation works, is that it references something else.

It signifies something else.

And that thing that it signifies,

it suggests isn't always the same as what the thing is itself.

The apple can suggest more than just an apple.

And quite often, connotation is tied to how we use language.

So here, for instance, we can see image and text working together, and

if we read this we can read it as apple of my eye.

But if we take away the text and put the apple where the pupil should be,

we can still read that image as apple of my eye.

We still think about that phrase even though there is no language there to

suggest that at all.

And these connotations,

these visual metaphors, they can almost be like a Rebus or a puzzle sometimes.

So they take a little they take a little work to understand.

And this is because connotation is inherently more complex and denotation.

It relies on other things.

It relies on a cultural context and it relies off and

on a body of knowledge of the viewer.

So whereas, denotation works for

everybody, connotation requires a level of visual literacy, or

a level of contextual understanding that makes it much more complex.

It's actually asking a lot more of the viewer, but the upside to this is it

gives the designer way more tools to create more complicated messages.

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