Art Gallery/Art Museum Experience

During a recent stay in Chicago I had the opportunity to visit the Averill and Bernard Leviton A+D Gallery located at 619 S. Wabash Avenue. This gallery is a part of the Art + Design Department at Columbia College Chicago. The gallery's mission is to present professional exhibitions and educational programming that encompasses the broadest possible definition of visual art and design. The exhibition that I observed was on the perception and reception of the 3-dimensional as it relates to both conventional practices and new technologies. The approximate square footage for exhibitions in the gallery is 1500. There are several methods for displaying work, movable walls, pedestals and immovable wall hangings. Track lighting is utilized as the primary form of lighting in the gallery, this type of lighting is a very vivid, dominant lighting. In the front entrance there is a large window for natural lighting, the floors are painted cement and the walls are a warm gray to enhance the focus are the art that is displayed.

Impaired Vision Experience

Visual impairment can have a significant impact on the person's quality of life. As a designer my responsibility is to have an understanding of people whose background, education and culture may be different from my own. Gaining insight into a user's emotions, aspirations and fears can provide inspiration to create a more balanced functional design. To achieve a greater awareness and sensitivity to a client who is visually impaired I participated in a vision disability ability workshop. The workshop definitely heightened my awareness of how people with differing physical abilities experience the built environment. In groups of two we were given a route to walk while wearing a pair of sunglasses that were obstructed. The minute I put the sunglasses on I had a great sense of fear, I immediately took my partners arm for fear of running into something or falling down stairs. A few things I noticed on my route were the contrasting colors helped in determining where I was, upon reaching the elevator I could not see the panel of buttons because of the glare of light and color on the wall. Another not so easy task was walking down stairs, if there is not contrast it is very difficult to determine depth, but going up stairs seemed much easier, I think this may have been due to a shadow at the base of each tread. This time of the year the weather can play a significant role in the mobility of someone that is visually impaired. Not only is the glare from the snow and puddles but the wear of the paint markings that are normally visible for guidance is worn off making it extremely difficult. Rather than aiming to design for the ideal user, I am going to try to focus on using a universal design approach.

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

A good design begins with a good design concept. The inspiration object I chose for my design concept is a clock that is mounted at The Northern Pacific Railroad Depot, the clock is the framework for all my design decisions. Using a visual language of form, color and line departing from the reality of the image of the clock I created 50 abstract parti sketches. From those 50 parti sketches I narrowed it down to four sketches and from those four it was narrowed down to one. The reason for my choice was that I felt this parti sketch has the same elements and principles the clock has. The parti sketch was then manipulated digitally to create a pattern and color scheme that is used for a textile pattern that I had created through Spoonflower.

The next step in the concept development process is to choose a 2-dimensional partis sketch and extract this drawing into a 3-dimensional model that illustrates my concept.

CONCEPT STATEMENT A clock marks the passing of moments though the course of time. It represents a circular and sweeping motion that mirrors the lines of design. This flowing movement is stopped at each intersection giving a moment of pause to reflect. The clock reveals circular lines and stark differences in color between the pale white face and the dark black hands. These contrasts bring harmony through the tick tock movements of the hands and the centrality of the circular motion, resulting in a harmonious balance of all elements. The concept model portrays the movement and harmony through its light and dark contrasts as well as the balanced and flowing lines. The contrast and balance represented in the model mirrors that of the face of the clock, with each sweeping turn representing that of the hands marking time. The clock has a focal point in the center of its face, just as the model has a represented focal point.