Design Challenge 4: What a Pretty Mess

Ideation

For this design challenge, I created three composite photos in Adobe Photoshop depicting three of the Seven Deadly Sins. For the base photo, I chose to use a portrait of my mom that I had in my house. The portrait was made in Indonesia with my mom sitting straight up in a chair. Looking at it, ideas of how I could use it to portray the Seven Deadly Sins came to mind. So I decided to see where it went.

Portrait of my mom that I used as the base image for compositing.

The following is my ideation for this challenge. I thought about how I could make each composite uniform with the other, and I thought a good way to achieve this was through a uniform style of placing each composite image.

Seven Deadly Sins Ideation

I used my own photos for the base image and the background, and the rest were found online.

Theme of Isolation

Working through my ideation, I discovered that I can relate the repercussions of the deadly sins to the theme of isolation. When one gets too absorbed in one of these sins, they lose the quality of getting along morally with other people. Their view of the world and the way they come across to other people are tinted by the sin that they carry.

Pride

Why is Pride a deadly sin? Pride may give one a feeling of strength and superiority over others, maybe due to an accomplishment or a skill possessed. While a little bit of Pride is good to have, harboring too much of it can cause you to become conceited, and this conceit can prevent others from reaching out to you or standing at your level.

Pride

In this image, the woman wears a crown and a scarf with a lion design as a reflection of her sense of power and strength. Trumpets surround her like a fanfare of victory, lights shine down from the sky upon her like a stage light beaming upon an important subject, and behind her the mountain stands for her perception of her accomplishment. However, the level of pride she exhibits reaches the level of conceit, and this conceit leads to egotism that makes her view the people reaching out to her as insignificant. Her excessive pride has served to isolate her from other people, as she would rather put herself before others.

Wrath

Wrath is another sin one should not keep around. Not only is it destructive to the people around, but it is also destructive to the person keeping it alive.

Wrath

In this image, the woman's eyes are piercing white with anger, as if blinded by it. And orange sky reflects the flames consuming her body. She wears a scarf of thorns as harmful thoughts ravage her mind, and these thoughts are relayed outwards as potent missiles. Before her stands an iron gate that acts as a barrier from letting people in or letting the flames simmer down. Her uncontrollable Wrath leads to her isolation, as she prevents other people from approaching her by striking fear within them. As long as the cause of her Wrath does not disappear, the flames will continue to destroy her sense of trust in other people and her surroundings.

Greed

In my last composite, I wanted to depict the sin of Greed. I find it somewhat similar to Gluttony, but it also slightly differs from Gluttony in that Greed is the longing for material values as it relates to wealth.

Greed

In this image, the woman wears a scarf with a money design, and she sits among a forest of green and a rain of money. She cherishes this kind of atmosphere, and in her mind, as depicted by the rising arrows surrounding her, she puts a lot of value on her profits. In front of her, stacks of coins act as a wall that obstructs her view of anybody beyond that. When one is too greedy, they may only care about their profits and fail to see how their actions affect other people. The person can become isolated due to not being able to empathize with people who do not share their values of wealth.