Lorena Howard | Graphic Portfolio : publication design, posters, teaching projects, CI and symbols

Graphic Translation

Synthesizing visual information might be one of the hardest things to learn for freshmen at an art school. They seem to find it is too much work for such little ink on the paper. But soon enough the most simplified images start gaining attention on the critique board.

Graphic translation is a way to work drawing skills--whether good or not--into designing symbols, emblems and pictographs. It is also a way to emphasize desired attributes in a visual message. A single object can be represented in an endless amounts of ways. A subtle element can switch the meaning of a whole composition. It is all in the game of learning what does "less is more" is supposed to mean.

These four exercise samples show different ways of experimenting with graphic translations. Some are about the form, all are about the meaning.

The student work displayed in this section was developed by students from the course Language of Form, between the Fall of 2004 and the Spring of 2006, at the Art Institute of Boston.