Design Statement:

In this procedural call, we first sought to explore depth, ought to juxtapose cool colors and their various complements with a sharp geometric pattern to soften the jarring effect the fractal overlay might have had on the viewer.

To create the illusion of depth, we overlapped several fractal rectangles on top of one another. Since each recurring fractal rectangle is only about a fraction smaller than the previous fractal rectangle, the effect of the overlapping is such that the picture seems to be receding into the center. For example, if one were to focus on the left half of the picture, one might see the balconies of an apartment building, or stairs leading “into” the image.

The definition of our fractals is such that the first rectangle in a row of our three rowed fractal is averaged with the color white, and the second rectangle is averaged with the color black; this continues on for every other sub-rectangle of the larger fractal rectangle. The important part of this is that the sub-rectangles averaged with white are larger than that of the black, thus giving even warmer colors a cool color feel, and achieving the effect of coolness we wanted for the entirety of the image. As each new layer is added, variations of complementary and monochromatic colors are added, thus increasing the variety. Since each complementary or monochromatic layer is uniquely tweaked by adding some level of brightness or darkness, no two images are exactly the same, and each contains its own subtle variations. Our decision to use cooler colors stems from the fact that we did not want to use warm, powerful colors with such a powerful geometric overlay, as we believe that would overwhelm the viewer and impede them from viewing the subtleties of the image, such as the matching of the shapes as each layer is added, or the slightly brighter or darker complements.