Photgraphy helps people to see...

Week 7: This week we were supposed to be in Berlin on a design culture trip. Seeing all that Berlin has to offer a student designer looking to expand their horizons. A few people did still travel in light of the worsening state of the world, however I did not. There was a few reasons for this that I am not going to get into.

For those that did travel their blogs this week will undoubtedly be about the things they saw and did while they were in Berlin, they might even include some pictures they took to show you what they saw and experienced. Mine wont be about that, but it will still be about something that is visual.

Photography in design or photography for design.

We all take pictures these days, most people have a camera on them all the time when they have their phone. Some people carry a dedicated camera to have more possibilities to edit and play with the images they capture. Whether you realise it or not photography is a process and it has a lot of different parts to it, most if not all of which benefit us as designers in some way or another.

In design, be it graphic, product, interior or any other form it may take, images are often the best way to get ideas across. People respond to images and process them regardless of what language they speak. Photographs are very effective images that can convey stories very quickly. The phrase “ A picture is worth a thousand words “ didn’t come from nowhere.

For me photography is a hobby and I am slowly getting better, as I learn about the different ways I might choose to compose an image. Composition is important to both design and photography. It can make or break how someone receives what your trying to get across. If your photo is crazy busy with all sorts of detail all over the image it is difficult to look at and make sense of, a similar thing happens with a page of sketches if you don’t have a clear focus or subject on the page it makes it quite difficult to figure out what the sketches are for.

A ring with a hidden heart

As well as composition, Light plays a major role in

photography.

You see all these stunning images posted everywhere on the internet, of amazing sunsets and sunrises. Beautiful colours spread across a landscape or using the light to cast shadows, making the negative space the focus of the image.

All of things are incredibly useful to know about when it comes to design. When we render things its important to know how the light is going to fall on an object, what way shadows might fall or what we might see in a reflective surface.

Design and photography are very similar in what they require from creatives. Learning both of these doesn’t make you a “Jack/Jill of All Trades,” it simply reinforces the core skills that we are being taught as we move through our undergrad. The more diverse our application of our creativity is, the stronger it becomes and the more freedom we will find in creating compelling designs.