Art is so intertwined with everything that I do and will be doing as a student of visual media. The lines become blurred when it comes down to art and design, and it is important for me as a designer/creative thinker/coder to know the principals behind art in order to better create for clients in the future. What better way to do this than to learn from past artists who have shaped the art world we live in today? Being aware of both artists and artistic movements is important for so many different reasons. The first being art inspiration. Inspiration for anything that I create visually comes from a variety of different sources…nature, my own experiences, objects around me, but most of all from the artwork I see from other artists that have created before me. Regardless of medium, I am inspired by other works of art. Whenever I go to a gallery or find something that inspires me, I take a photo of it with my phone or jot down a note to remind myself later about what I saw and how I can use the idea or ideas to better create myself. Artistic movements are just as important to be aware of because they teach us the design principles and characteristics that place a piece in a particular category. It teaches me as the student to not just look at art for what it is on the surface (although some art is meant to be interpreted just on the surface), but to really dive into composition, what inspired the artist, and what was he/she trying to convey through this particular use of paint placement, wood, or any other medium. I can see patterns by looking at different artists and can learn from how they use color, medium, shape, space, etc. I can learn from what I like and what I don’t like, and choose to use or not to use those same qualities in my own work. This causes me to stop and think about why I am placing something where I am when creating something visual.
Regardless of the intent of the artist, all art makes us feel something, it makes us have some type of emotional reaction towards viewing or interacting with the work of art. This is what I need to think about with almost everthing that I create for visual communication – how will this make the observer feel? And in the case of website design, the end user is very important. I know that not all works of art are created with a viewer in mind, but since we display most works of art – painting, sculpture, interactive art, etc in a gallery or elsewhere for viewers to see, then it is important to know the types of reactions that people get from viewing say a Jackson Pollack piece verus a Joel Shapiro piece.
It is very important for me to be aware of professionals in my area, in fact it might be the key to becoming better myself. We learn from others, can critique their use of aesthetics, take parts their works and reinterpret them to inspire a creation that is something completely new and different. I have always thought of coding as a type of art for logical thinkers – when asked to create a website, it is up to me as the designer to envision what I want it to look like and carry it through with the tools I have at hand – in this case with html, css, images, and maybe some Javascript. The art is how I choose to arrange those elements on the page and form a composition that is unique. This arrangement creates meaning that is interpreted by how the viewer interacts with the site.
I begin acquiring this type of knowledge through Internet searches, by visiting galleries, and going to design firms. A website that I really enjoy visiting is www.googleartproject.com, I can look up my favorite artists, find new ones, and pretend like I am in a museum actually seeing the paintings for myself, zooming in to see the brush strokes on the canvas. There are a lot of online magazines that help to inspire me, teach me new concepts, which motivates me to further explore a topic. Sites like Fast Company, Google searches for designers/artists/cool new websites, and even Twitter and Facebook are great tools for finding professional or events to attend and learn more in person and interact with people.
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