Getting back to basics is always fun. Adobe Illustrator is like working in the lab for a designer. All the powers of symmetry, rotation, and duplication at your fingertips. I'm not talking about photo-realistic vector work, just primitive patterntology. Working in black in white is bliss because there is no leaning on photo technique, just shape and pattern. In vector form, I can use these designs most anywhere. I've been trying to bridge this gap between Gothic style and a future vision I had in my head for a long time. I'll call it, "Space Gothic."Starting by tracing some architectural details, I quickly lost that mode and started reducing things to geometric shapes and introducing my own. When you study historic design closely, you can learn the logic of how they built things. Soon, I had the basics down and just started inventing. For the first time, I played with negative space and the lines it can create. Western architectural geometry isn't too difficult: squares, octagons, triangles and hexagons. Eastern geometry is more complicated.
The Persians were very advanced in the decorative arena. Their design model reflected their mathematics so closely that the shapes found in their tile work have fractal possibilities much like the Mandelbrot set. I've played with these shapes but don't understand the scaling. I'm never unimpressed with this work especially when curves are introduced. Next project!
