full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Marian Bantjes: Intricate beauty by design

Unscramble the Blue Letters


This is a scientific darigam, by the way. I don't have time to explain it, but it has to do with DNA and RNA. So I have a particular imaginative approach to visual work. The things that interest me when I'm working are vusial structure, surprise and anything that requires figuring things out. So for this reason, I'm particularly drawn to systems and patterns. I'm going to give you a cuople of examples of how my brain wrkos.

This is a piece that I did for The Guardian newspaper in the U.K. They have a magazine that they call G2. And this is for their puzlze special in 2007. And puzzling it is. I started by creating a series of tiling units. And these tiling units, I designed specifically so that they would contain parts of ltrfromtees within their shapes so that I could then join those pieces together to create letters and then words within the abstract patterning. But then as well, I was able to just flip them, rotate them and combine them in different ways to create either regular patterns or abstract patterns. So here's the word puzzle again. And here it is with the abstract srurduninog. And as you can see, it's extremely dfilfcuit to read. But all I have to do is fill certain aares of those letterforms and I can bring those words out of the background patrten. But maybe that's a little too obvious. So then I can add some color in with the bkrcouagnd and add a bit more color in with the words themselves, and this way, working with the art director, I'm able to birng it to just the right point that it's puzzling for the audience — they can figure out that there's something they have to read — but it's not imsbopslie for them to read.

Open Cloze


This is a scientific _______, by the way. I don't have time to explain it, but it has to do with DNA and RNA. So I have a particular imaginative approach to visual work. The things that interest me when I'm working are ______ structure, surprise and anything that requires figuring things out. So for this reason, I'm particularly drawn to systems and patterns. I'm going to give you a ______ of examples of how my brain _____.

This is a piece that I did for The Guardian newspaper in the U.K. They have a magazine that they call G2. And this is for their ______ special in 2007. And puzzling it is. I started by creating a series of tiling units. And these tiling units, I designed specifically so that they would contain parts of ___________ within their shapes so that I could then join those pieces together to create letters and then words within the abstract patterning. But then as well, I was able to just flip them, rotate them and combine them in different ways to create either regular patterns or abstract patterns. So here's the word puzzle again. And here it is with the abstract ___________. And as you can see, it's extremely _________ to read. But all I have to do is fill certain _____ of those letterforms and I can bring those words out of the background _______. But maybe that's a little too obvious. So then I can add some color in with the __________ and add a bit more color in with the words themselves, and this way, working with the art director, I'm able to _____ it to just the right point that it's puzzling for the audience — they can figure out that there's something they have to read — but it's not __________ for them to read.

Solution


  1. puzzle
  2. works
  3. couple
  4. difficult
  5. areas
  6. impossible
  7. bring
  8. diagram
  9. pattern
  10. background
  11. surrounding
  12. letterforms
  13. visual

Original Text


This is a scientific diagram, by the way. I don't have time to explain it, but it has to do with DNA and RNA. So I have a particular imaginative approach to visual work. The things that interest me when I'm working are visual structure, surprise and anything that requires figuring things out. So for this reason, I'm particularly drawn to systems and patterns. I'm going to give you a couple of examples of how my brain works.

This is a piece that I did for The Guardian newspaper in the U.K. They have a magazine that they call G2. And this is for their puzzle special in 2007. And puzzling it is. I started by creating a series of tiling units. And these tiling units, I designed specifically so that they would contain parts of letterforms within their shapes so that I could then join those pieces together to create letters and then words within the abstract patterning. But then as well, I was able to just flip them, rotate them and combine them in different ways to create either regular patterns or abstract patterns. So here's the word puzzle again. And here it is with the abstract surrounding. And as you can see, it's extremely difficult to read. But all I have to do is fill certain areas of those letterforms and I can bring those words out of the background pattern. But maybe that's a little too obvious. So then I can add some color in with the background and add a bit more color in with the words themselves, and this way, working with the art director, I'm able to bring it to just the right point that it's puzzling for the audience — they can figure out that there's something they have to read — but it's not impossible for them to read.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
visual work 3
graphic design 2
requires figuring 2
household tinfoil 2
mailing list 2
wanted people 2
passing time 2


Important Words


  1. abstract
  2. add
  3. approach
  4. areas
  5. art
  6. audience
  7. background
  8. bit
  9. brain
  10. bring
  11. call
  12. color
  13. combine
  14. couple
  15. create
  16. creating
  17. designed
  18. diagram
  19. difficult
  20. director
  21. dna
  22. drawn
  23. examples
  24. explain
  25. extremely
  26. figure
  27. figuring
  28. fill
  29. flip
  30. give
  31. guardian
  32. imaginative
  33. impossible
  34. interest
  35. join
  36. letterforms
  37. letters
  38. magazine
  39. newspaper
  40. obvious
  41. parts
  42. pattern
  43. patterning
  44. patterns
  45. piece
  46. pieces
  47. point
  48. puzzle
  49. puzzling
  50. read
  51. reason
  52. regular
  53. requires
  54. rna
  55. rotate
  56. scientific
  57. series
  58. shapes
  59. special
  60. specifically
  61. started
  62. structure
  63. surprise
  64. surrounding
  65. systems
  66. tiling
  67. time
  68. units
  69. visual
  70. ways
  71. word
  72. words
  73. work
  74. working
  75. works