The Art of Perception & The Perception of Art
A while ago, when my toddler was still a young baby, I was having lunch with some former students of mine. Somewhere in the background, a baby started crying. To the 20-something designers, they found it distracting and annoying. Personally, I didn’t even notice it, as the father of a six month old baby. I realized that my brain had quickly altered its perception based on my personal experience. We were all hearing the same thing, and yet perceiving something totally different. To me, this is the essence of perception: the effect of experience and individuality on what a person realizes from their senses.
For those struggling with the skill to create and recognize artistic aesthetic, I find that it is often this lack of artistic perception that is holding them back. I think many fortunate souls are born with an enhanced sense of this vision, which is half of the equation: individuality. On the flipside of this, it is experience that is key to altering perception.
When listening to music, a musician, depending on experience and training, hears things like key, mode, counterpoint, arrangement, tension, resolution and more. Art has a similar palette that mimics music, such as order, interval, tension, space, light, color and much more. To be an artist and designer means to combine your individuality and develop your experience to find tune your perception of what you create, as well as what you see. Just like the music student that practices every day, and listens to a broad range of music, the designer must exercise their artistic muscle every single day, by creating, watching, and exploring.This is why artists should watch something new every day. Keep a wide range of books, websites and (yes, put on your shoes and socks) museums on their to-do list.
Here’s just a few places to get great daily inspiration:
What do we consider? Consider the excellent language of aesthetics as dictated by Paul Rand in his 1996 interview.
If you missed it, it is:
…order, unity, variety, contrast, symmetry, asymmetry, rhythm, harmony, dissonance, rhyme, interval, regularity, coherence, tension, balance, proportion, scale, weight, texture, line, mass, space, shape, light, shade, and color.In addition to the language of art, motion designers have, quite literally, an added dimension to what we do: story, development, progression, motion, time, perspective. How do we use this incredible language effectively?
This is what you should be thinking about every day as a motion designer and artist.
read this. yes, you.
Harry, thanks for being one of the people to help me on my way of creating (whether you knew it or not) by providing a few tips and tricks and being a great example for those just starting out. I remember taking my first motion graphics course and being excited, but it wasn’t until I stumbled across your work and teaching that I started to really understand what could be done.
