Bang!

10/26/2012 tringel 2 Comments

After reading Molly Bang's book I did not know what I thought. These concepts she discusses seem so simple and obvious. But at the same time they are not. I think that we think these principles are so "obvious" to us that we take them for granted and tend to glaze over them when designing because we are so worried about all of the other aspects (at least i know I do this). But in the end, it is the simplicity that is the hardest. I know that I need to take a tip from Bang, take a step back, start with simple and build up, rather then adding all the bells and whistles at first instinct and having to cut it back to realize that simple does in fact work. After all, "less is more." (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe).

I decided to look up more of Molly Bang's work to see if and how she implements it in other work. I found her website. While she does not create all of her books out of simple shapes and only four colors, she seems to keep her guidelines in play by keeping images simple and the color palette light. I also ran across Marika McCoola's illustrations of the classic tale of Hansel and Gretel. Like Bang, she uses four colors throughout her designs - black, white, blue, and orange. She uses simple shapes - rounded and pointed, and she plays with the angles, placement, and size of the shape to create the effect and emotion of each scene.

Although these techniques seem so simple, I cannot imagine putting them in place and completing the task of a story. I would assume, as with anything, that is gets easier with practice; it is just the getting started that is the hard part. I guess it is a good thing we are required to bring scissors to class tomorrow. Snipping here I come!