Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

“Rapid Pattern” by Jon Olav Eikenes. This image shows texture.

Texture to me is what is showcased in an image that makes your brain feel like you could feel the image even if it is on a single, flat, plane. This image is a good example of texture because of the airy, open pockets that are featured throughout. You can see there are multiple layers to the pockets, all intertwining at different points that show depth, and thus increase the texture of the image rather than having one layer. Even by looking at the image, you can get a sense of what it would feel like if you were to run your hands over it.

To me, point is the place in which an image clearly starts, begins, or has it’s own space that is specific to the image. Line to me is when different points join together to create a line that your eye follows, or can be an actual line that draws your eye. Plane to me is the larger, flat surfaces that either are coherent together or flat that section off different parts of an image in large areas. Volume to me is when an image clearly shows depth and allows your eyes to see that the image does have layers to it, even if it is a flat image. This second image shows point, line, and plane. Each of the diamonds can be viewed as a point, but together they create lines going both horizontally and vertically. You can also see the different planes that are featured as each of the diamond sets change color going from blue to pink to white. There is also volume visible in the image because you can tell, especially in the center of the image where the pink diamonds are, that the diamonds are not all flush with each other, but that some of them are slightly raised or lowered in relation to the others.

Image by Sam Cox. This photo features point, line, plane, and volume

“Sea Waves” by Tanor. Found on his commercial store profile REDBUBBLE.

Repeating waves in this image make the composition a pattern. A pattern is the repeating of individual components to make a whole. The repetition of individual components creates an image which looks cohesive. In this image, the waves are the individual components. There is a blue swirl to signify water, and then a white part to signify the wave’s foam. The piece is very fluid because of the curving of the lines. This pattern is an example of a random repeat pattern where the image is made up of repeating sections. You can see where the composition repeats by looking at the biggest two waves on the left side and comparing them; they are identical as are the smaller waves around them.

Image by Sania Pell taken on a trip to Croatia. Image found on her blog.

A critical part of design is texture. With texture we are able to understand more about the design by just looking at it. Texture is the visible physical attributes of an object which give it its appearance. Yet, texture can also be digital, or man-made. In this photograph of ropes, we see actual ropes, but it is an image, the ropes have been created into a 2D photograph. Even in a 2D photograph, we can still see the texture and imagine what the ropes would feel like. We see a small juxtaposition of texture in this image; the braiding of the rope is very smooth and fluid, yet the material the rope is made of, is rough, fibrous and even a little weather worn. This juxtaposition makes the image even more interesting to viewers.

Photograph by naughton of the Tate Museum. Image found on Flicker. 2007.

To create a visually interesting piece, point, line, plane, texture and pattern can be used. In this photograph, all of the above mentioned design elements are used. Point is best illustrated by the figures at the bottom third of the image. These figures represent points on a surface. Next line can be seen in the vertical windows in the upper two thirds of the image. These lines are very apparent as well as the lines created in the shadows they cast. Plane is also prominent in this image. The two main planes are the floor and back wall which are both large flat surfaces. The three windows could also be planes since they are too thick to be lines. The vertical windows when viewed as a group also take the form of a plane. Lastly, we will look at texture and pattern. Texture is visible on the floor of the building. The way the light hits the floor lets us see the texture otherwise hidden by the shadows. Pattern is observed in the vertical widows where many tiny horizontal lines run length ways. This gives the windows a striped pattern.

I think pattern have a lot of different meaning and be used in many fields, but they all have a same concept. Pattern has the structures in a consistent, and regular manner. For example, Business can identify data pattern, like their sale and learn adapt based on it. However, pattern can also be described as a repeating element in a form of shape or form, with the combination of lines, points, and planes. It has an echo and rhythm element. It is designed to look parallel, and have a structure. Having a pattern are not just having the same plane and line, but it also works with the color. Patterns are commonly used in painting or drawing to add an interesting element in a composition.

Art Deco Oriental Pattern Vector picture example from WideWalls

Texture, I think can be used to describe the feeling and physical elements of the certain object. Most of the time we described the texture when we describe the food that we are eating, or what we are touching with our hands. Its used to describe the surface quality of the work. It is an element in two and three dimensional designs, and in how we perceived the physical element of the object or properties. For example if there is a bump, or something is standing out, it can be described as bumpy, rough, or uneven.

Elements of Art and Design – line, shape, space, value, color and texture –  Picture example from Grafix

This illustration explains both the pattern and texture. It has the repetitive elements in the pattern. The line and the plane are all facing the same direction. The individual plane have six sided which made up of 6 lines. It also has a parallel to the surface texture. Just looking at the picture, you can see the middle individual plane have split in the middle making it feel like the surface quality is rough, and you can feel it if you run your hand over it.

Ron Dexter, Focus Pattern Instruction, 1999.

There’s a difference when it comes to defining pattern and texture, but the two seem to be often linked together in artwork. This photo is great example of how patterns are made up of dots and lines. Patterns can be made up of many things, but this picture in particular is made of black or white line (maybe both) getting thinner and meeting in the center. The direction of this photo flows inward due to the obvious change in shape the lines have. Each line has the same amount of space between them and it is very harsh on the eye due to it’s brightness and dramatic color difference.

Fat Tony, Textures and Patterns from East Africa, 2010.

In this second piece, there is more of a textured look within the pattern. Lines again are very apparent here and even the horizontal breaks within the wood pieces create an even pattern on each because they are evenly spaced. Looking closely the wood appears very smooth in some areas and rough in others. Texture is something you can touch and feel. Just like a pattern it too can be very pleasing to the eye. In “Point, Line, Plane” it says how texture has many contrasting features such as what’s in this picture: rough/soft. I don’t believe there is a specific direction in this picture. If I could think of anything it would be flowing left to right just because that’s how we read.

A photo of the Altare della Patria in Rome, Italy. Taken by me in summer 2017.

Pattern and texture are often intertwined in graphic design. Pattern can be described simply as a repetitive design. The variations (of color, size, spacing, and so on) incite different emotions and uses.

The following photo is a good depiction of this term. It is a photo of the ceiling of an Italian national monument. The pattern is clearly visible – an intricate design of octagons, diamonds, flowers, and embossing, each repeated so precisely. They have the same amount of space between them and are all the same size as their counterparts.

A photo from shantanukashyap, 2017. Depicts the texture of a carpet. https://pixabay.com/en/texture-fabric-gray-pattern-2630309/

In comparison, texture can be defined as the feel of an item/image. This means the actual physical feeling of a piece upon touching it, or how it seems it would feel. The photo to the left gives a sense of texture. Although we can not feel it physically, we can see the coarseness of each strand and we can imagine the way the braided pieces would feel. The photo gives off a sense of touch, almost a three-dimensional feel.

Building in neighborhood of Naples, Italy. Photo taken by me in summer 2017.

Pattern and texture can be intertwined with the idea of planes, points, and lines, as seen in the Graphic Design: The New Basics. 

Another architectural photo illustrates this notion. This building caught my attention in a sea of ancient apartment buildings. Each wall on the checkered building represents a plane. Within this plane, the wall is separated by lines. Each enclosed lines creates a brick, or plane. The lines and planes show distance – the further away the wall gets, the smaller the bricks get. While this building displays planes, lines, and points, it also also defines pattern. The brick colors are interchanged repetitively on each row, creating a checkered pattern. The placement of each brick is chosen explicitly – no one black brick is directly lined up with the black brick below.

License Plate Collage by Elijah Macleod at Unsplash.com

This garage is covered in lots of textures, both virtual and physical. Tangibly, the garage door is made of a grid of license plates, which most people know to be smooth metal with raised numbers and letters, and sometimes a raised frame as well. The walls of the garage appear to be covered in scrap metal, with raised and depressed ridges. These scraps are pieced together like a puzzle. Possibly the most eye-catching feature is the rusty brown tire and tire-cap positioned on the wall above the garage door, noticeably off-center.  This wheel, combined with various other signs and old license plates gives the impression of an old and cranky virtual texture. The greenery in the top left corner of the frame indicates that this garage might be surrounded by trees. The soft, and delicate aura of the nature seen here creates a stark yet ordinary juxtaposition with the industrial and haphazard impression of the garage. Within these textures, one can decipher a patter. Ellen Lupton, and Jennifer Cole Phillips of Graphic Design: The New Basics, say, “Dots, stripes, and grids provide the architecture behind an infinite range of designs.” I think this a well- worded definition for pattern. The metal ridges of the garage wall stack atop one another to create lines of slight color variations. The grid that is formed by the pieced together license plates is another example of pattern. Each license plate could be considered a point and each point is strung together to create a line and those lines intersect one another to arrange a grid. This grid is arguably the most eye-catching pattern in the picture.

Succulent frenzy by Edgar Castrejon at Unsplash.com

This picture to the left exemplifies point, line, plane, and volume. Each plant is its own point and each of these points has depth. The points form paths, both vertically and horizontally.  The volume created by the proximity of all these points and lines gives this picture depth and variation. The colors vary seemingly randomly, but the colors are all within a spectrum of blues and green.

Before reading the definition for “texture” in Graphic Design The New Basics, my prior knowledge for texture in terms of art; was that it gave the object more depth. An object could be ‘flat’, in which it looks smooth and dull. By having texture, it gives an object more characteristics to it; texture is what gives bricks that grainy-rock like feel, texture is what allows a wool-knit sweater to have the grooves and bumps, texture is what gives depth to such objects.

My definition of pattern, is simply a reoccurring design that’s been repeated several times; whether the design be copy and pasted in the same manner, or certain repeated ones are slightly modified.

A picture of a giant boulder with holes eroded into its surface that I took when I went hiking in the Ape Caves during summer break.

In this picture example of a giant boulder that I found during my hike inside of Ape Caves, the holes are a great example of texture. Along the cave trail, there are many boulders of all shapes and sizes – and then once in a while; you’ll encounter these boulders. They had holes eroded onto the boulder’s surface, which is done from a long and slow process of water dripping from the ceiling and onto the boulder. The eroded holes in the boulder give it a new texture, from the smooth-grainy texture it had before. It now has a bumpy, indented feel to its surface. The boulder itself was huge, so by assuming that no one will move it in the future, the holes are likely to increase in depth as water continues to erode away the surface.

An overhead look of some fields from my view when I was on my flight to San Antonio, Texas this summer.

This picture was one that I took also during my summer break, when I flew to San Antonio, Texas. The aerial view I had from my window seat gave me the opportunity to take this picture. A bunch of simple rectangular green shapes; reformatted in different angles and sizes, and are in a repeated manner. But the general gist of the rectangles being repeated one next to another is what makes up this image’s simplicity.

Fallen tree from Redwood national park. Photo taken by me.

This photo was taken when I was on a hike with some friends at Redwood national park. It’s a great demonstration of lines, particularly because the national park is full of long trees. Amongst all of the tall vertical trees, there was this particular one that seemed to have fell, and carved into to allow passage through. I like this example because the fallen tree appears to be like that of a perpendicular line on a graph, it contrasts and cuts through the other other vertical lines.