Keyword: Juxtaposition
INTRO
When entering a drink shop, we can notice colourful posters and attractive advertisements first, then we see cabinets full of various bottles of drinks and mixing tools on its top. Looking up and down, we feel surrounded by marble floors, decorative plants, artificial flowers, and metal seats for waiting. How are they selected and organized? Not only in a large space but also when we open a book, we see orderly displays and arrangements of big fonts, small texts, images and blanks.
We can say it is an outcome of design, but it seems too general. In the eyes of experiencers and observers, those different materials and elements are incompatible and incongruous because of their differences, but the fact is not so. Juxtaposition, as a key word, becomes an important factor connecting all objects and their information.
Juxtaposition is to place two relatively independent things, such as tangible objects, materials, intangible styles and thoughts together for consideration. They hold both comparability and extensiveness. It generates a new order when the original, single elements are reorganized. Compared with mixed unification, juxtaposition still keeps each different part independent while creating inner links between them.
The issue of juxtaposition for better expression is constantly arising whether in the alignment of buildings in an urban area or in the arrangement of adjacent characters in a text. We can set a few approaches for scattering and exercises to cultivate the ability of thinking about juxtaposition. Collage, Exquisite Corpse and AI Painting may be employed in the practice to enhance creativity.
Collage is first to crop the existing images and then to reorganize and build new scenes. It can create entirely new links between the old images. The regrouping of old images constantly breaks the limitations and broadens the possibility of creativities.
Discussion of collage work
Exquisite Corpse is a tiny surrealist game. It crops a human-shaped body into several pieces and hands them to different persons who are to paint but have no idea of what others are painting. It always creates an unexpected result when it is unveiled, which is a chance to find the direction for creation.
Results of Exquisite Corpse
AI painting can generate pictures with prompted key words or a natural language. It displays the image by entirely unrelated descriptive words, like astronaut cats dancing in the outer space, beyond reality but reasonable. The juxtaposition of language brings the juxtaposition of image contents. AI painting tremendously expands the universe of thought.
This picture is generated by Dall·E 2 from three descriptions: “cat astronauts dancing in the space” “vegetable superman playing jazz under the sea” and “a realistic photo of bears traced by pencil driving a train”.
Juxtaposition is a way we cognize the world and see things. Different choices of juxtaposition reflect the different styles of design, thus, making our world so diversified.
Source of Images
Classroom practice of Principles in Practice 02, 2021 cohort of Visual Communication Design
Teaching Team
Mark Bellingham Caleb Fahey Farah A.Hadi
LIN Zequan LIN Xinru ZHANG Ziling
Reference
Ambrose, G. Harris, P. (2005) Basics Design Layout. Singapore: AVA Publishing
Open AI. Dall·E 2.
At https://openai.com/product/dall-e-2
(Accessed 05/08/2023)
