Design challenges
A challenge is a brief with a few hard rules. Rules are not a limit on creativity; they are where it starts. Each of these comes from one of the activities, and each works on its own, in Studio Notan or with paper and paint: set one as a warm-up, a homework or a class competition, and compare the answers side by side.
Foundation
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Line · Foundation
Five Cuts, One Journey
Design a notan that leads the eye on a single journey across the sheet, using line alone. Make it in the studio, or cut it from paper and glue it down. Every cut must read as a line, and the implied line where two cuts almost meet counts as much as any cut. Show it to someone who has not seen it, on paper, on your screen or through an ‘Only view’ link from Share, and ask them to trace the path with a finger. If it follows your route, the lines are working.
- No more than five cuts, not counting the repeated small holes of a dotted line.
- Every cut, except the small holes of a dotted line, must be at least five times longer than it is wide.
- At least one line must be implied, made of separate holes or of edges that point at each other across a gap.
- Use only two values: the black and white a new design starts with, or white paper on a black ground.
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Balance · Foundation
One Heavy, Many Light
Make an asymmetrical notan in which a single large cut is balanced by a group of small ones, in the studio or in painted paper. Show the designs one at a time, on a shared screen or propped at the front of the room, and have the class vote on each: does it lean, and which way, or does it hold still? The designs that everyone agrees hold still are the winners, and their makers explain how they did it.
- Exactly one large cut, wider than a quarter of the sheet, and at least three small cuts, each much smaller.
- No two cuts may be mirror images of each other.
- The large piece may not share its fold edge with any small piece.
- Keep the sheet square, 5 inches by 5 inches.
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Contrast · Foundation
The Across-the-Room Test
Design a notan whose strongest contrast can be named correctly by someone standing ten feet away, and whose quietest detail can only be found up close. Make it in the studio, or cut it from black paper and glue it, with its flipped pieces, onto white. Pin up or project every design. Classmates stand at the back of the room, squint, and write down which of the four contrasts they see first; then they walk up and hunt for the detail. The winner is the design where both readings are clear.
- Only black and white: in the studio, Front and Back stay black and the Ground white; in paper, black on white.
- No more than nine cuts in total.
- At least one geometric cut and one organic cut drawn by hand.
- One edge of the sheet must be left completely whole.
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Rhythm · Foundation
Four Edges, Four Beats
Make one notan in which each edge of the sheet plays a different rhythm: regular along one, alternating along another, progressive along a third and flowing along the fourth. Build the cuts one edge at a time, so that Replay plays your four rhythms in order, like four bars of music. In paper, cut from a sheet you painted yourself, one edge at a time, with a painted strip beside each edge as its score. In class, swap designs and see whether a partner can name each edge’s rhythm without being told.
- Use no more than two kinds of shape for the whole design.
- Make at least sixteen cuts, with no hole overlapping another.
- Every cut folds out over the edge whose rhythm it belongs to.
- The progressive edge changes by one steady step, in size, angle or spacing.
Developing
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Shape · Developing
The Twin Test
Make a notan in which the flip itself tells a story through shape. Choose one organic shape with a clear direction, an animal, a hand, a boot, and let the mirror do the work: two animals meeting nose to nose across an edge, or a hand reaching out and a mirror hand reaching back. Before each cut, write down which way its piece will face. Then cut, flip and check your predictions, in the studio or with a painted sheet, scissors and glue.
- Exactly one organic shape and up to four geometric ones.
- The organic shape must be asymmetrical, so its piece is a true mirror twin.
- At least one geometric shape must land looking different from its hole, turned or pointing the other way.
- Record every prediction before you flip; a wrong prediction is allowed, a missing one is not.
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Space · Developing
The Space Between Wins
Design a notan in which the most memorable shape is one you never cut: a shape made entirely of the ground between pieces, or of the sheet between holes. Make it in the studio or with painted paper. Give it a subject if you like, a star, a letter, a keyhole, a bird in flight, but it must exist only as space. Show the finished design to someone who did not watch you make it and ask what they see first. If they name your hidden shape, the space has won.
- The hidden shape may not be drawn or cut directly; it must be formed by the cuts around it.
- No more than six cuts.
- At least one piece must be planned from where it will land: drawn outside the sheet on screen, or sketched beside the sheet by hand and cut as its mirror image.
- Use only two values: on screen, leave the front and the back the same color; by hand, paint both sides of the sheet alike.
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Value · Developing
The Squint Test
Design a notan of a place at a particular time of day, such as a street at noon, a lit window at night or a tree at dusk, using exactly three values. Make it in the studio or in painted paper; either way, draw it rather than tracing, so that every mass is a choice. Show the designs one at a time and have the class squint at each from across the room. The winner is the design whose subject and time of day are named correctly by the most viewers.
- Exactly three values: a black front, a white ground and one gray back, set by hex code in the studio or mixed and painted in paper.
- No more than seven cuts.
- At least one flipped piece must be part of the subject, not just decoration.
- Write one sentence explaining why you chose your gray.
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Texture · Developing
Three Textures and a Calm
Design a notan that shows three clearly different textures, for example fur, water and stone, plus one smooth area where nothing is cut. Make it in the studio or in paper, where the textures may be cut, painted or both. Show it to classmates who do not know your plan, from across the room and then up close, and ask them to name each texture. Score a point for every texture named or described correctly; the highest score wins.
- Build at least two of the textures from twelve or more repeated cuts; in paper, the third may be painted.
- Leave at least a third of the sheet uncut.
- Use at least two different fold edges.
- One texture must read as a gray from across the room and as separate marks up close.
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Emphasis · Developing
The Smallest Difference
Build a field of at least eight identical cuts, then make the smallest single change you can to one of them that still wins the eye. Show each design to the class for three seconds, and ask viewers to point to the exception. A design scores a point for every viewer who finds it, and the class then ranks the designs everyone found by how subtle the change was. The winner is the quietest exception that everyone still saw. Work in the studio, or on paper with a stamped field of paint marks in which one mark is stamped differently.
- On screen, the field is made with Transform and Copies; on paper, it is stamped from one stamp on a measured grid.
- Change exactly one property of exactly one cut or mark: size, shape, position, or in the studio, fold edge.
- The exception cannot be a color: Front and Back stay the same, and every stamped mark uses the same paint.
- Viewers get three seconds and no more.
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Movement · Developing
In at One Corner, Out Over One Edge
Design a notan whose path enters at one corner of the sheet, passes through at least five cuts, and leaves over an edge you choose in advance. Make it in the studio, or cut it from black paper over a painted ground. Write your planned route on the back of your sketch. Classmates trace the path their eye takes with a finger, and a design scores a point for each viewer whose path matches the plan. Then play every studio design with Replay: does the order of the flips agree with the route?
- At least five cuts in the route, each differing from the last by one small step in size, angle or position.
- Use no more than two kinds of shape.
- The route must cross at least one edge, so that pieces carry it beyond the sheet.
- In the studio, Replay must play the route’s cuts in reading order; on paper, the painted strokes must run with the route or plainly across it.
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Unity and harmony · Developing
A Series of Three
Jacob Lawrence and Hokusai both made series that read as one work. Make three notans that belong together the same way: three moments of one subject, such as morning, noon and night, or three animals, or the three letters of your initials. Save each design as a project, then use Reset, Design to start the next: the cuts clear, and the sheet size and colors stay. In paper and paint, mix each color once, in enough for all three panels, and cut every panel from papers painted from the same jars. Hang the three together. The strongest series is the one a viewer recognizes as a set at a glance, yet cannot mistake one panel for another.
- All three use the same sheet size and orientation.
- All three follow one house style, written down before the first cut.
- All three use the same three colors; you may rotate them among front, back and ground, but add no fourth.
- No panel may be another panel with a cut moved: each needs its own arrangement.
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Variety · Developing
Three Settings of the Dial
Make three notans from the same parent: one too plain, one with variety held in unity, and one that tips into chaos. Show them unlabeled and in a shuffled order, and ask viewers to sort them from calm to chaotic and to pick the one that works best. Work in the studio or in painted paper: in paper, cut all three from the same painted sheets and settle each arrangement with loose pieces before you glue. The winning set is the one whose middle design is picked most often.
- All three begin from five identical cuts of one parent shape: in the studio, one saved project; in paper, three sheets painted and cut alike.
- All three keep the same sheet, the same three colors and the same number of cuts.
- The middle design changes no more than three qualities of the parent.
- Every cut in the chaos design is still made from the parent, so the chaos comes from difference, not from new shapes.
Advanced
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Form · Advanced
Three Solids, No Shading
Make a notan still life of a ball, a box and a can standing together, as if on one table under one lamp, using only flat cuts and three values: in the studio, the three colors of the Mono harmony; by hand, a white ground, your painted gray sheet and its black back. The test is consistency: a viewer should be able to point to where the lamp is, and every solid should agree.
- All three solids must seem lit from the same direction.
- At least one solid must be made from a cut that touches the edge, so that its hole and its piece together make the form.
- At least one solid must have a lost edge that the eye completes.
- No more than seven cuts in all.
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Color · Advanced
Same Cuts, Two Seasons
As Dow printed one woodblock in many colors, give one notan two palettes that tell two different times: summer and winter, dawn and midnight, calm and storm. Make them in the studio or in painted paper; in paper, cut both versions from the same templates so the cuts match. Show both without titles and ask viewers which is which. The best pair changes the mood completely while keeping the design just as easy to read.
- The cuts may not change between the two versions: only the three colors.
- Both palettes must keep the light-to-dark order of your gray value plan, checked by squinting.
- At least one palette must be built from a harmony: around a locked color in the studio, or in paint from one mixed color and its complement or its neighbors on the color wheel.
- Record all six colors, by hex code or as a dry swatch with its recipe, with one sentence on why each color has its role.
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Pattern · Advanced
One Motif, Every Edge
Design a pattern notan from a single motif that uses at least three of the four moves and carries a repeat across at least two edges of the sheet. Then swap designs with a partner, without notes. Your partner names every move in your design, points to where it happens, and judges whether each repeat holds where it meets its reflection at the edge. A design scores a point for each move the partner names correctly. Work in the studio, or in paper: trace every cut through one stencil and fold each piece out over the edge, as the studio would.
- Every cut must be the one motif or a copy of it, slid, turned, mirrored, glided or scaled.
- On screen, every repeat is made with Transform and Copies; on paper, every cut is traced through one stencil at measured steps. Nothing is placed by eye.
- At least twelve cuts in total.
- The pattern must fold out over at least two edges of the sheet.
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Proportion and scale · Advanced
One Ratio Rules
Choose the golden ratio or root two and let it govern everything. Set the sheet to your ratio, make one parent cut, and derive every other cut from it by scaling with powers of the same ratio. In paper, build the sheet with a square, its diagonal and a paper strip, and measure each cut before the knife touches it. When you present, show your arithmetic: the sheet’s size, and each cut’s scale against its parent. The class votes for the design in which the ratio is felt before it is explained.
- The sheet’s long side divided by its short side is within 0.01 of 1.618 or 1.414, or within 0.02 for a sheet cut by hand.
- Every cut is the parent scaled by a power of the ratio: 61.8, 38.2 or 23.6 percent for the golden ratio; 70.7, 50 or 35.4 percent for root two.
- Use no more than seven cuts.
- At least one cut is large enough that the paper around it reads as the figure.