The first exercise we were tasked with was to create a light-to-dark progression by adjusting the size of shapes such as squares, circles, and triangles. Although simple, it was somewhat difficult not to repeat the same patterns for each set of shapes. It also didn't help that we couldn't change the position of shapes, only the size.

After multiple pattern iterations of each set of shapes, I began to understand the difficulty that such a field of basic elements can create when making compositions. Even if simple, my thought process to make each one unique was puzzling. And even though these are simple shapes, they become the foundations for good compositions, while still staying very simplistic.

Similarly to the first exercise, where we had to work with the sizing of squares, circles and triangles, in this exercise we were given more freedom. While exploring abstractions, we were not bound to set positions and could place shapes where we wanted to create our compositions. We were however required to only use 3 sizes of shapes. The exploration phase of this exercise was much easier, but was overall more complicated when doing the triangle compositions.

Unlike the square and circle compositions, triangles have pointy ends and diagonal lines that make it hard to create a good visual that isn't too complicated. After having a bit of trouble myself, I tried imagining a line or form to then make my triangle compositions off of. It worked pretty well since I could visualize where I would put each triangle.

Just like with the past exercise, instead of using shapes, we started using type. The prompt was to use 3 different weights and sizes, as well as to make an album cover using a song that we picked. After having done this with shapes, I understood how using a bolder weight or a smaller text size can create hierarchy throughout the composition that can then guide the viewer's eyes easily to important information.
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I found this to be very fun because it felt like I had a good hang of creating a good visual layout. For each of my compositions, I stook to having the information near the edges, to create breathing room in the middle.

Using the shape compositions from exercise 2, I had to enlarge and crop specific areas, which made me really think about what positive and negative spaces were good as a whole. Like with the past work, the square and circle compositions were much easier to crop than the triangle compositions, not only because of the pointy corners, but also due to its seemingly larger variety of possibilities. When I was working on the cropping of my past triangle compositions, I kept running into cropping similar shapes, until I went with a mountain looking one.

Building off of exercise 4, we were now placing type into the cropped compositions. Using both hierarchy in the composition's shapes and type, although difficult, became easier for me to understand as I was working on them. The circle and square visuals were easier than the triangle visual, because I wanted to have slanted or diagonal text that would follow the triangle's sides. But in the exercise, we were locked to having only straight type. Following the 2 triangles in the composition, I placed bigger type near the top, and smaller type in lower areas.

Using the compositions from exercise 4, I added very large letters to reveal new shapes and compelling interactions of shapes. I really likes rounded letters, and found that letters suck as 'k', 'v', or 'y' were somewhat difficult to place on my cropped compositions from exercise 4. I do find that I could have done some things differently after looking back at some works, such as either leaving more space above the 'n' in the composition that says 'one' so that there isn't a thin line.

Using the compositions from the past exercise, I was now using monochromatic tones to create a sense of depth when looking at the compositions. We did 3 versions; light gray, gray, and dark gray compositions. I found the light gray and gray versions to be easiest, but played around more with the dark gray version. I would use a lot of similar dark tones that wouldn't create a separation between the forms.

After learning the basics of shapes and positions on a composition, the final project was a fusion of all past exercises to create a page front with the class details of 2D Form Studio. Making use of shapes, letters, monochromatic tones, and type placement, I tried making a nice-to-look-at composition with a good hierarchy.I started with a cropped shape-composition and then added letters to create more forms. Afterwards, I started to dive into adding depth and liked 2 of my compositions.