Applied Sciences homework help

Artistic Expression in Your Workplace Environment:  Art

Interior design and décor is a multi-million dollar service industry.  When an interior design firm helps your organization decorate your working space, they seek to appeal to human aesthetic instincts in the following ways.

The goal of interior design and décor is to artistically illustrate your corporate brand and its values. This is accomplished metaphorically. This metaphor is in the artistic rendering of the colors chosen for the walls, flooring and furniture, for example.  What kind of associations does it create among employees?  What perceptions are created among existing and prospective clients?

It is often proposed that a well-designed interior décor scheme helps motivate employees to be more creative and productive. In health care, it is suggested that an effective décor scheme predisposes patients to healing and recovery.  As an employee or manager, how will you know whether your interior design and décor is effective or not?  Even your dress code makes an artistic statement.  Why not start by asking some of the same questions you’ve used in studying the artwork of this course?

1. Does the color scheme create a consonant sense of visual unity?  Does the color scheme create a sense of visual excitement through contrast?  How does the color scheme used impact your promotional materials or product packaging?
2. Think about the aesthetic impact of line in your workspace décor.  Are you using wallpaper or carpet?  Describe the impact of line in the artistic designs and patterns in your wallpaper and carpet.  Does the use of line in the room create unity or contrast between the walls, the floor, and furnishings?  Does the presence of line in your workspace illustrate a certain emotional undertone? Think of the impact of geometrically angular lines versus rounded and curved lines. How about soft, diffused lines as opposed to clear and sharp lines?  How does the use of line appeal to the aesthetic perception of your employees or customers?
3. Think of the use of literal textures.  Are your wallpapers textured?  What is the texture of the seating furniture, particularly those your customers will use. What is the intended aesthetic association created by each of these?
4. Is there wall art or sculptures used in the décor of your workspace?  Is it representational or non-representational?  What kind of representational subjects are used?  How does the form of each work impact your clients and associates?  How does the use of non-representational art help your brand?  What does your wall art say to your customers about your corporate values?  Would a representational wall mural would make a positive brand association?  How does the use of wall art or sculptures appeal to the imagination of your employees or customers?
5. How is the space in each room being used?  Is there an aesthetic balance between décor furnishings and the square footage available?  Does the room seem stark and empty with wasted space?  Does the space feel cluttered by the presence of too many furnishings?
6. What is the aesthetic impact of your corporate logo and its color scheme?  How is it favorably leveraged in your organization’s promotional materials?  What are its artistic strengths and weaknesses?

Here is where your experience interacting with and analyzing visual art will help you in a very practical way.  In your workplace, you may have the opportunity to participate in interior décor decisions.  When you can offer an informed personal response, based on how you apply what you’ve learned in this course, you’re making an important, value-adding contribution. This may be a significant opportunity for you.  In addition, a course like this helps prepare you to ask these kinds of artistic workplace questions as both a prospective owner/manager and as an employee.

Artistic Expression in Your Workplace Environment:  Music

How is your organization leveraging music to aesthetically engage both employees and customers?  There are essentially two places to look.  The first has to do with marketing and promotion.  There is no question that well-presented music creates a positive association with your brand.  The second has to do with the use of music in the workplace.  Many would suggest that permitting employees to use music as they work creates positive morale and actually enhances creativity and productivity.  Others propose that playing music throughout a building’s sound system creates certain aesthetic associations as well.  What does your further research tell you on the subject?

Consider the “music bed” or “music underscore” played in commercials describing your products and services to prospective customers. What kind of style is it?  Is it based on a contemporary popular style?   Does the use of that style appeal to a particular demographic or target market?  What kinds of musical styles do you think might best represent your organization’s brand and corporate values?  Does your organization have a musical theme or theme-based “jingle” they use consistently?  Think of the musical statements you hear and see in radio, TV and internet advertising. How do they appeal to your aesthetic capacity?  Do they create positive associations – or negative?

1. Think about the use of melody.  Is there a melodic theme present that is memorable?  Commercial composers call this “catchy” and refer to the “hook” within the music.  This has to do with favorably engaging a listener’s aesthetic attention with something interesting or valuable.  They use the same techniques you’ve studied.  A tune is “catchy” because aesthetic interest is created by the use of contrast.  It has a “hook” because a recurring motif creates familiarity when repeated.  Now, you know this as well.
2. Think of the harmony and tonality of the music.  Is the harmonic framework in a major or minor tonality?  How does dissonance or tension lead to a sense of consonance or repose?  Is it interesting?  Is it trite and overly simplistic?  Is simplicity part of its creative impact?
3. Consider how the arranger uses rhythm.  Is the rhythm driving and accented?  Does that connote action and energy?   Is the rhythm more steady or even blurred and obscured?  How does the use of rhythm aesthetically illustrate the goals and intentions of the commercial?
4. What about the use of sound sources?  Does it use singing human voices?  Does this create a more accessible, relational appeal to the aesthetic capacity of your clients?  Or, is the voice-over or displayed text more important, prompting arrangers to use instrument-based tone sources?
5. Think about how the use of dynamics adds to a commercial or a jingle.  How did the audio mixer create variety by boosting levels at some points while reducing them in other sections?  How does that create or direct aesthetic interest?

Your ability to recognize and describe the creative arrangement of music’s essential elements and their aesthetic impact can bring a value-adding contribution to your team’s music usage conversations.  This is a valuable and practical skill.

This is what makes the study of music and art unique as academic disciplines.

No other subjects of study can help you know more about how music and art impact your working world through your amazing, God-given aesthetic capacity.

Instructions

1. Review the rubric to make sure you understand the criteria for earning your grade.
2. Reread the Background Information provided here. Note: information in this portion will be included in your 4.2 Workshop Quiz.
3. Navigate to the Discussion page.
   1. Create a new thread. Name it “Music or Art in My Workplace – “Student Name.”
4. Using Video Note (required), create a three-minute oral summary of the use of art OR music in your workplace. If you are not presently employed, describe how either is used in the space in which you complete your studies and assignments.
   1. If you choose to describe the use of music, post a video frame or hyperlinked example of how music is used by your organization either in its promotional materials or in the building space in which you work.
   2. Next, using Video Note (required), comment on the following:
      1. Use of melody
      2. Use of harmony

• Use of Rhythm

1. Use of Tone Sources
2. Use of Dynamics
3. Overall: Is it effective or could it be improved?

1. If you choose to describe the use of visual art, post a photo or an example of how artistic design is used by your organization either in its products or packaging or in its interior design and decor.
2. Next, using Video Note (required), comment on the following:
   1. Use of line
   2. Use of color

• Use of texture

1. Use of space
2. Use of form(s)
3. Overall: Is it effective or could it be improved?