I named this drawing “Dancing Compasses.” It is useful as a relatively simple representation of pure design. It contains many elements that dbaArchitects’ uses in design:
- Pattern: The elements set up a pattern (of two “legs”) and then break it. The two legs don’t need to be parts of a compass but just design elements.
- Humor: The compasses seem to be dancing or, at least, posing.
- The sum is more than the whole of its parts: The pieces come together and represent a chorus line or something similar to letters in a word.
- Simplicity: The elements are all very simple: black and white images, forms of two or three elements each, similar scale items.
- Complexity: Taken together they become some kind of prickly-rounded-sliding-hinging assembly.
- Repetition: Individual elements gain justification by repetition.