Design for Media I: Multi Stage Figure to Ground Transition

Now I knew at the start my design wasn't going to really deliver a clear transition.  Even so my professor had us use sumi ink for this and I absolutely loved it.  I was more concerned with having reasons to really put huge angular swaths of this wonderful ink across the board than I did with the transition.  It doesn't really get the transition done in an obvious manner at all.  It's the process a kanji transforming into another kanji and back into itself.  The smaller circles at the stage radials are more or less 'mechanically accurate' transitions (thank you Adobe Illustrator step tool).

The background of each layer is actually a giant version of the kanji on it's outer edge twisted at a random angle.  Since the center of each stage is obscured by the inner stage that's the next closest to the center a lot of that information is obscured.

The funny thing is even though as class project it was far less than ideal I have nowhere near the amount of dismissing hatred for this as I would with one of the illustrations I normally do.  Odd.

The Adobe Illustrator step guide I created and used.  I should have done circular grounds instead of squares in the final piece.  :(

bristol, sumi ink

This is a good example where preference clashes with the task at hand.  I was really aiming for a somewhat centered, 'large print', transition.  Because each circle obscures the center of the circle behind it this results in a less than optimal transition effect.

I thought about drawing each kanji multiple times along the edge of its respective layer but 1. I didn't have enough time to do that.  2. It seemed tacky.