Quantifying Aesthetics of Visual Design Applied to Automatic Design

147 Pages·2016·4.9 MB·English

by  Ali Jahanian (auth.)

Springer Theses
Recognizing Outstanding Ph.D. Research
Ali Jahanian
Quantifying
Aesthetics
of Visual Design
Applied to
Automatic Design
Springer Theses
Recognizing Outstanding Ph.D. Research
Moreinformationaboutthisseriesathttp://www.springer.com/series/8790
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Theses are accepted into the series by invited nomination only
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Ali Jahanian
Quantifying Aesthetics
of Visual Design Applied
to Automatic Design
Doctoral Thesis accepted by Purdue University
123
AliJahanian
CSAIL
MassachusettsInstituteofTechnology
Cambridge,CA,USA
ISSN2190-5053 ISSN2190-5061 (electronic)
SpringerTheses
ISBN978-3-319-31485-3 ISBN978-3-319-31486-0 (eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-3-319-31486-0
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016936782
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Tomymotherandfatherfortheirunlimited
loveandsupport,forbelievinginme,andfor
teachingmethevalueofhardwork,honesty,
andcreativity
TomybrothersMohammadandMostafa
fortheirunlimited loveandsupport
TomylovelysisterMina

Preface by Supervisor
Gooddesignplaysanimportantroleineveryaspectofourdailylives.Traditionally,
designistaughtasasetofconcepts,rules,andpracticesthatcapturecontinuously
evolving trends, with a basis in 100-year-old traditions. As an important area of
humanendeavor,designisnaturallyattractiveforstudybyscientistsandengineers.
In this thesis, the author makes several fundamental contributions to the study of
design of graphical materials. The thesis begins with an insightful review of the
relationship between design and aesthetics and the use of mathematical models to
capturethisrelationship.Then,anovelmethodforlinkingwordstocolorsusingthe
Latent Dirichlet Allocation Dual Topic Model is proposed. This work is informed
by a dataset of over 2,654 magazine covers and a crowd-sourced experiment with
859participants.Next,thethesisconsiderswhatcomprisesanaestheticallypleasing
spatiallayout.Byapplicationofprinciplesofsaliency,andGaussianmixturemodels
to a dataset of about 120,000 professional photographs, the author provides a
remarkable confirmation of Arnheim’s conjecture regarding spatial layout. The
thesis concludes with the description of tools to support automatically generating
personalized design of pleasing magazine covers by individuals who lack design
trainingandexperience.
Cambridge,CA,USA AliJahanian
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Acknowledgments
I would like to sincerely thank Professor Jan P. Allebach for believing in me,
facilitatingtonurturemycreativity,andinvestingonmetodevelopasaresearcher.
Throughoutmystudies,Ilearnedmanywiselessonsfromhimandhismonitoring
discipline,andIhopeonedaytopayitbacktotheacademicsociety.
I would also like to sincerely thank Professor S.V.N. Vishwanathan for his
support and lessons in statistics. Throughout my collaboration with him, I learned
manywiselessonsaboutresearch,scientificworkethics,andperspectiveonlife.
I would like to acknowledge Professor M.J.T. Smith for his valuable guidance
andkindsupport.
I would like to acknowledge Professor Mimi (Mireille Boutin) for the lessons
that I learned in her pattern recognition course and Dr. Ruth Rosenholtz for her
thoughtful comments and exposing me to a different point of view in visual
cognition.
I would also like to acknowledge the faculty members of the School of Design
at Purdue University, especially Professor David Sigman and Professor Petronio
Bendito for their valuable insights to my work and for always motivating me to
followmypassioninquantifyingaestheticsandautomaticdesign.
Finally,IwouldliketoacknowledgeMrs.CorneliaHaeringenwhoisoneofmy
bestteachersforproofreadingthisthesis,whichwasaccompaniedwithkindnessand
motivation. I would also like to acknowledge Ms. Elana Cutter for kindly helping
mewithcollectingdesigndatasetsaswellaseditingsomepartsofmypublications.
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