Week Two
From Observation to Theory
Reflection
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Reflect and write about how you are exploring the words.
Identify the methods you are using to explore the words, write them down and explain “why?” you are using them.
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When I first started exploring my five chosen words, I wanted to look at them in their most basic form. My first thought was to start simple and look at their synonyms and similar words. I wanted to do this because even though similar words will have the same or similar meanings, they can hold more meanings. By breaking the main words into different words that held some differences, they could be broken down even further with their respective synonyms. I found this interesting as it opened the words up a lot from their starting point and created many new ideas that were all so different and held such different meanings. For instance, I broke up ‘Mirror’ and found a largely illustrative side to it, or how ‘Shadow’ broke down into different words that held a literal shadow meaning or something emotive and emotional. From here, I will explore the different branches of these words further and start to create pieces of work that I can use to further my project idea. I will be looking at the word in the literal sense and looking at the words associated with the original world, and bringing them together to create a new sense of the world.
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The methods I am using to explore the words are mainly conceptualizing them and prototyping. These two methods are essential when creating games and bringing ideas to life, so it was natural for me to use the same methods to explore my chosen words and see what I can create with them and incorporate them into my project.
Figure 1. Kate Giles, light cycle sketch. 2021
Figure 2. Kate Giles, window shadow sketch. 2021
Figure 3. Kate Giles, Room and drawer sketch. 2021
Figure 4. Kate Giles, 3D and 2D drawer sketch. 2021
Figure 5. Kate Giles, street scene sketch. 2021
Figure 6. Kate Giles, silhouette sketch. 2021
When exploring the words I chose I had a range of ideas that I wanted to test out, so I did some quick sketches just to get my ideas on paper. Shadow and Silhouette were the first words that I thought of ideas for. When it came to experimentation I felt starting off with making something that was quite literal would be a good starting point. I also had a thought to be able to merge metamorphosis and mirror together as both incorporate changes so that is where my ideas of switching between the 2D and 3D forms would be incorporated. As a designer who tends to jump straight in and create, planning out basic ideas in this form helped solidify what I had planned to develop and could see how I may incorporate it into my game.