Iridescent Eyes.

And so...

2011-11-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

We've come to the end of NM2208 for this semester!

I must say although the workload was pretty heavy and demanding (which granted, is expected of a design module), NM2208 was my favourite module this semester. I'm not kidding! I mean it's fun to let your creative juices flow and create something to be proud of. Sure, we had weekly assignments but it's more fun stressing over what to create as opposed to....doing readings or sitting for an MCQ test.

Taking NM2208 was very rewarding. I knew how to use Photoshop previously, but this module allowed me to explore other functions i've never used before. Also, I learned how to use Illustrator for this module, something I never thought of taking up prior to this module!

It's also rewarding when you get the end result after hours and hours of hardwork and it turns out really, really good. It's nice when you get to show it off and people come up to you saying how good your designs look.

I don't regret taking this module at all and i highly recommend it! Well, of course you'll need to have an interest and a bit of flair for designing to enjoy it! Thanks to this module, i now have a handy-dandy design portfolio. It's not much, but hey, at least i'm starting somewhere!

Assignment 1 - Me, Myself and I (FINAL)

2011-11-04T10:26:00.000-07:00

So, my designs for this assignment has really evolved! You can see the changes by clicking the link on the side!

Anyway, today was the final consultation for our portfolio. If you look at my past designs for this assignment, you'd realise that my background was quite detailed (though i did make an effort to reduce the opacity so that it didn't take the attention away from the main images). Julian surfaced during the consultation that the end result was still relatively 'busy' looking. After some discussion, it was decided that the background can be kept, but I should invert it horizontally so that the image is more balanced. I also changed the colours of some of the elements in the background so that more attention is given to the main images 'CAN'.

The following is my final design for this assignment:

So much editing for this assignment! Glad that it's finally over! Phew!

Assignment 2 - Business Card (Final)

2011-11-04T10:18:00.000-07:00

During the final consultation for my portfolio, Julian surfaced that the diver was a bit too big to be a logo. There were suggestions to cut the diver's bottom away but i felt that it would have look weird. Hence, my last solution was to reduce the size of the diver and make-up for the extra space by filling it up with fish!

I also changed the text alignment a little to fill up the extra space.

Here is the final prototype for my business card, everything else are in the posts before (just click links at the side to retrieve them!):

Group Project - Final Images

2011-10-31T06:42:00.000-07:00

After completing the sketches, Tabitha handled the vectors, Kevin coloured the images and Cheeling modified the images to fit the text.

When the images were being hand-drawn, it was hard to predict how much space was required for the copy. Initially when we converted the drawings to vectors, the final images were not standardized due to the irregularities of the text on each page. We had to make modifications to the images to fit the text.

We saw the problem and hence, i was tasked to adjust and make additional modifications to standardize the images and to make the placement of the text less awkward.

In all, i am very pleased with the result of our hardwork and tedious discussions!

Enjoy the book!

As you can see, we used a rhyme for the copy to increase interest in readers. It also promotes educational value through creative writing.

I think our storybook really stood out from the rest because (1) we had a really good copy (i think we did the best among the groups who did rhyming copies) (2) our images are so colourful (3) we used live trace to keep the hand-drawn feel of the sketches (this was pretty rare in the class, i realised?) (4) and lastly, it's so cute!

Group Project - Base Sketches

2011-10-27T07:48:00.000-07:00

We had a pretty rough start for our project. We had many, many ideas and went through debates and reasoning before finally deciding on a story about a boy who helps to do chores around his house in fun and imaginative ways.

We decided that this idea had the potential of capturing the interest of children and parents as it covered good moral values, imagination and creative language writing (we decided on using a rhyme for our copy).

Before we started sketching, we got down to deciding what scenes would go into the book. This would faciliate the writing of the copy and ultimately, the drawing of the pages. We decided that the book would have a maximum of 20 pages, lesser if possible.

Kevin then used our base plot to come up with the copy first so that we could roughly imagine how the scenes would look like. We then each took some parts of the copy to translate them into rough sketches for the book's pages. I was involved in taking all these rough sketches and turning them into the final base drawings for the book.

The following are the drawings i did while drawing inspiration from sketches done by my groupmates (Kevin, Cheeling and Tabitha):

This will be the cover page of the book. The household objects are drawn to look like they are waving at the reader, capturing interest as the child might want to find out why these objects are portrayed as such when this book is about household chores.

This scene shows the boy, Tommy, waving to his mum as she goes off to run some errands.

Tommy begins to shrink as the world around him changes into something creative and exciting. The outlines and the sparkles are to depict the shrinking process and the magic aspect of it all.

This picture shows Tommy chasing after dust-bunnies with a living room cushion.

They soon realise that a nearby flower is in need of help.

Tommy devices a plan to change the water despite his decreased size.

Tommy marches with the dishes into the soapy sink.

Tommy joins in the fun as he surfs the waves on a sponge, scrubbing plates as he goes.

Tommy hears some music coming from upstairs.

He proceeds to his room to find some loose socks which are hiding in the corners of his room.

Can you spot the hiding socks?

Tommy devices a plan to help his toys return to the toy-chest, using a makeshift trampoline!

Tommy hears his mum calling and the room is back to normal.

His mum praises his efforts. Notice how sparkly clean the kitchen is?

Tommy's mum takes him out for some ice-cream to thank him and we see that the household objects have come back to life again!

Assignment 5 - Christmas Card (FINAL)

2011-10-20T01:31:00.000-07:00

The latest update i received about my card involved some minor changes. Took me a whole night to do the editing actually, the woes of using Illustrator and Photoshop.

Can you spot the changes from the previous drafts and the newest one?

Changes made:

Expanded the card to look more rectangular - providing more breathing space around the main picture and text and drawing focus to them (AHA, applying what i've learnt).
Took away the background around the logo so that it looks part of the card. I had to make minor edits to the logo because CFA didn't provide one with white text and a transparent background. It was requested that i made the logo more prominent in size as well.
Gave myself a little bit of credit with my name on the left-hand side.
Initially, i had a red/white colour scheme but i was told that the red/white colour scheme was unfitting of the Christmas theme (which i found quite strange because...red and white screams Christmas in my opinion). But nonetheless, the client's views are more important and i changed it to white and gold...which turned out to be one of my favourites.

It's really interesting to see how my designs evolve into something better after getting multiple critiques on every possible detail.

I have already sent these in to the people of CFA and they like it! Thank goodness!

Assignment 6 - Visual Analysis

2011-10-09T09:04:00.000-07:00

For our final individual assignment, we had to take what we've learnt so far about visual analysis and apply it to two kinds of posters (good and bad) and critique it. It was pair work and i was in-charge of analysing the 'good' example, though both posters were decided by both of us.

We decided on using the following for the 'good' example:

(Image source here)

We chose this poster as it was eye-catching in its simplicity and intended meaning. We thought it was very smart on how they used the iconic features of Margaret Thatcher on the actress and featured it on the poster e.g. the dark red lips, the big hair and the stern but graceful glance. It was also interesting to see how they incorporated the London landscape onto the actress's face, signifying Margaret Thatcher's significance to the UK. Lastly, instead of using Margaret Thatcher's actual name as the movie title, they went for 'The Iron Lady' which was what she was known for during her reign, hence making the entire poster more thought provoking and interesting.

Here is my analysis:

Principles of Interaction

Unity through rhythm - Repition of sharp pointed buildings towards the left side of the poster which depicts the London landscape
Contrast in composition - Main image is placed in the centre, pale faced image against a dark blue background
Visual harmony - There is visual balance as the heavy images and words are placed in the centre while everywhere else is kept simple and empty. Active and negative space are equally shared.
Attention - There is alot of breathing space aroung the main picture. The image and text stay within and do not trail out of the poster, hence keeping viewers' eyes within the frame. Attention is hence, controlled.
Colours - The face is in high intensity compared to the background, showing good distinction. However, the left side of the face is still kept in lower contrast compared to the right to not draw attention away from the face.
Colour psychology - The lightness and paleness of the face tends to illuminate the surrouding areas and also the colour blue represents power and nobility, which is what Margaret Thatcher was as a political leader.

Gestalts' Principles

Continuation - Pointed end of the neck leading towards the title of the movie which confirms your thoughts about the poster e.g. I see someone who reminds me a lot of Margaret Thatcher on top of the London landscape on the left and i look down to see "The Iron Lady" which confirms my inferences.
Closure - The face is incomplete and not enclosed, but it does not cause a misunderstanding as it is still quite clear that it is a woman's face. The other side of the face is also incomplete but understandable as London's iconic landscape with the clock tower Big Ben.
Proximity - The picture portion is grouped in the centre and furthermore, all elements of the poster are aligned to the centre creating unity.
Figure & Ground - Elements of the poster can clearly be seen against the blue background, hence giving good distinction between figure and ground. This also provides focus to the central image.
Similarity - The use of similar and dissimilar buildings on the left provides and interesting aesthetic appeal to the image instead of same height monotony.

Overall, the design and layout is simple with limited areas of focus and it is hence not busy. The elements are kept simple whereby they chose to use her face instead of a whole body. There isn't an excessive and exhaustive use of text, other than the mandatory credits at the bottom of the poster. Lastly, there is unity and organization with the main image in the centre, words above it kept small so as not to grab first attention and the words below the face are bigger than the ones above but not so big that it overwhelms and takes attention away from the main image.

Assignment 5 - Christmas Card (SECOND DRAFT)

2011-10-09T08:18:00.000-07:00

After the critic session on Wednesday, i had to work on the following (click here for the original first draft and here for a sample of the e-card):

Making it look less nautical and wheel-like
Change the circles for something more angular and 'glassy'
Making it look 'colder' and 'snowier' to increase the Christmas factor
Blend the CFA logo and name into the card
Swop the dancer with the guitar so that she's the right-side up
Removing one musical elements as i already had three (they CFA people pointed out that i may want to remove the guitar as the treble and harp were quite Christmas-ish) and replacing it with something to do with film-art to show diversity as that was the last area i didn't cover in my card

When i worked on my new design, i knew i wanted to keep the concept of the five elements poking out like a star but i had to tone down on the 'wheel' factor. So i decided to remove the polygon frame, the circle spikes and the diamonds that were poking out of the frame (i think that was what made my design look like a ferris wheel). I also had to do some outlining to make it look 'glassy'.

As usual, here is my sketch:

It is essentially 'glass' shards that form the shape of a star, on top of spirals that also resemble the shape of a star.

Given the simplicity and minimalism of my design, i decided to stick to simple colour schemes i.e. using two colours in one image. My six colour schemes are as follows:

The further changes i made were, as follows:

Made the card slightly longer in length so that it will look less packed and i have more space for the text.
Changed the guitar to a film roll, but in the shape of a ribbon so that it's more Christmas-y
Added gradiented dots to look like snow. Previously, i used solid dots which were not as convincing.
Added Christmas stars to add to the Christmas feel.
Changed the font of the text to make it look more like a hand-scribble - like those handwritten Christmas gift tags you find on presents!
Added a 'from' before the CFA name and logo to make it look more included and personalised
I also deviated from my previous 6 colour schemes and i am more pleased with the present set!

I'm very pleased with the final results! Let's hope the CFA people like it to!

Assignment 5 - Christmas Card (FIRST DRAFT)

2011-10-03T10:51:00.000-07:00

For this assignment, our instructions were to design a christmas card for NUS Centre For The Arts, so our design had to incorporate elements of Christmas (obviously, since it's a Christmas card) and some elements to show the diversity of the arts.

When it comes to Christmas cards, i normally like to go simple with incorporating commonly recognised Christmas symbols like a snowflake, Christmas tree, tree ornaments, candy canes, gift boxes etc. instead of landscapes or people. So i worked around these elements while keeping the need to incorporate arts elements inside it.

So i decided on the following idea:

I've always liked a snowflake as a symbol for Christmas as every snowflake is different and it's really up to you to come up with the shapes. Also, the spikes and partitions allows me to play with shapes. Instead of the usual straight cut-outs you see in snowflakes, i replaced it with elements of the arts with a treble, harp, guitar, dancer and a paintbrush and palette (hence covering the visual art and performing arts component). I used a star as a centre piece because, well what's Christmas without stars? The surrounding small dots represents snow.

Here's what happens after i designed it on the computer:

I rearranged the arts elements a little as the original sketch had the treble, harp and guitar all on the same side, which was a bit too much 'musical' in on one side. I also used a classical guitar instead of an electric one as i did in the sketch as it looked out of place with the other more 'classical' images.

The following are my 7 different colour schemes (i couldn't decide which light blue was better for the first colour):

I personally like all the colour schemes as i feel they are very Christmas-ish and i love everything about Christmas. I actually don't think (4) is very dull at all, it gives a rather matured and vintage feel? Was quite surprised at how it turned out.

This assignment was really interesting as i love Christmas and i do make Christmas cards, just never on Adobe Illustrator! Looking forward to the critic session on Wednesday!

Symbols and Gestalts' Principles

2011-10-03T09:03:00.000-07:00

I can't remember which lecture this was but my partner and i were supposed to draw simple images of lines and curves to represent the words 'fortune' and 'unique'. The 'unique' representation is quite simple. The 'fortune' one actually shows fortune when palm-reading, thought it was more interesting than drawing bags of money.

This week's lecture, we had to demonstrate three of Gestlat's Principles with simple shapes. I chose proximity, similar (dissimilar) and symmetry.

P.S: Sorry for the ugly images.

Assignment 4 - I Fear...

2011-10-03T08:23:00.000-07:00

This assignment is about conveying fear appeal through a poster with regards to a health concern in society. I initially planned to do a poster on child water safety as i felt it was an issue that is normally neglected among the other safety issues, but i figured my idea would only be effective if it were a fake 'drowning' scenerio, which would have been difficult to photograph (due to the insensitive nature of the idea). So the idea was dropped and i looked into other commonly neglected health concerns and thought of child obesity.

Here are my sketches:

(1) Swimming and Driving Safety.

(2) Swimming Safety at the beach

(3) Child Obesity

So ultimately, i went with the last idea as it was convenient to execute and it was different.

The above was my first idea which i presented to the class for critic session. The comments i got was that the text alignment were to similar and the are too many areas of focus with the bolded and large text. Also, i had a comment about getting a fatter kid (which is...difficult as i don't know any).

The above two are the final designs i came up with after playing with the alignment and size of the text. I decided to go with the second one because i prefer the alignment of the text. Also, i shifted the image to the top to take up half of the poster as people normally look at pictures first. I also chose the fact about child obesity as my main focus instead of the quote i had in my first draft as i believe health facts are what makes people ponder their actions.

EDIT//

The last design would be my final design as the text alignment was the best. Also after consulting Julian, I made some minor changes to the poster copy by changing 'child' to 'children' to maintain some form of consistency in the message.

I know my poster is lacking in the fear department....but if you overlook that, it actually looks like an actual health poster right? Right?

Assignment 3 - U C What I C

2011-09-14T07:59:00.000-07:00

The task for this assignment was to tell a story in 8 photo frames, using no words and the story had to have a twist. To be honest, i had a serious brainstorm session thinking about what to do that would be interesting, convenient to execute and could communicate well to an audience. My ideas revolved around the main actor, my younger brother and here is my chosen idea (in 2 slightly different arrangments):

Rough Version One.

Rough Version Two.

I tried executing both versions and version two worked the best in terms of practicality and communication. I also decided that i will do many photo edits and artifical additions (question marks, exclamation marks etc.) to enhance the communication process in my story.

Here is my final product titled:

Tanning Tip #3: Try Not To Oversleep

So...did you get what's going on in the pictures?

I had to do quite a bit of editing work like enhancing the brightness and sunny-ness of the pictures (it was almost rainy-weather the day i chose to take these photos), add in more leaves in the 3rd frame (it was really, really hard getting a good shot of flying leaves), use exclamation points to enhance reactions and making the sun-burn on the boy more obvious. It was time-consuming, but quite rewarding after i get the final product!

I think the message in my frames was clear enough as there were no suggestions to make any edits to them during the critic session today, which is a good thing! :)

Assignment 2 - Business Card

2011-09-06T10:45:00.000-07:00

(Click for larger view.)

This assignment involves creating increasingly abstract images from and an original (almost-life-like). The arrow indicates the point where people start having questions about what they see (in this case, whethey they are 100% sure that i'm referring to sea-diving). In fact, the last image looks like some kind of alien race!

We were then instructed to take that chose image and turn it into a symbol.

I wasn't completely sure which colours to use so i stuck with a deep blue colour and a dark charcoal to signify the deep sea. I stuck to very few colours as well.

Lastly, we had to incorporate the chosen symbol into a business card from a business related to our earlier assignment 'Me, Myself and I'. I chose the the theme of the sea and from there, an underwater diving company.

I felt it'd look weird if i just placed the diver floating around in the card without a 'purpose'. Hence, i added a background of the sea and the waves in the card so it makes it seem as though the diver is swimming in the water. I ended up with two designs because i couldn't decided which was better! Also, i realised that the colour of the card you see on the blog itself differs from when you view it in a seperate tab.

I made an additional front to the business card:

We also had to do a little write-up on our business to accompany the business cards.

The critic session went well as my tutorial mates were good with my designs and i don't have to make any changes to them! Out of the two business cards i made, they felt that the first one was better, so i'll stick with that one!

(Original diving image source here.)

Assignment 1 - Me, Myself and I (EDITED AFTER CRITIC SESSION)

2011-08-31T03:37:00.000-07:00

After the critic session on our final prototypes today, i went home and made the edits!

The only critics i got was for the last alphabet 'N'. Previously, i had seaweed in the background behind the dolphin but it was suggested that i remove to allow focus to be on the dolphin and corals itself. Also, i was told to push and tilt the coral on the far right side outwards to make the 'N' more obvious.

As for the sweet-treats design, it was suggested that i extend the hook of the candy-cane in the 'a' to make it look more like one and tilt the wafer in the 'n' more towards the right to make the 'n' more obvious. Prof. Lin suggested that i change the colours of the candy cane in the 'a' and stick in the 'n' to make them look like a part of the bigger component, and so that they don't look like seperate entities.

Iconic and Indexical.

2011-08-31T03:13:00.000-07:00

Here is a shot of the in-class assignment we did in Week4 when we learned about semiotics in visual communications. In this class assignment, one of the things we learnt was how to differentiate between indexical and iconic designs. The first one is obvious but common, the second one was not a good example (even i thought so). Hence i drew a third one at Prof. Lin's request and i think it's a pretty good example!

Assignment 1 - 'My name is ......' (Continued)

2011-08-28T11:23:00.000-07:00

Drawing my designs on Illustrator was such an insane process! Because there was so much detail and shading on my actual drawings, i had to find a way to make it as interesting because there was no way i could bring the sketchy lines and the shading across. I added some little details here and there, as well as a background to unite the 3 drawings in each set together! Enjoy!

I wanted a background that could unite the three images instead of a background that left them floating around, so hence the seabed! It gives some resting ground for the crab and ground for the corals next to the dolphin to take root! The initial colour of my background fish was orange but after some feedback, i changed it to grey so as not to take the attention away from the three designs. Compared to the thumbnail of the dolphin in the first post where it was an 'n', i added an extra coral to make it an 'N'.

Similarly, i wanted a background to have a link with the three designs so i thought, why not just let the treats spill out of the bag with other candies and desserts in the background? Also, the alterations mentioned in my first post with regards to the 'N' has been made, and it is now an 'n'.

Hope you like my designs as much as i do!

Me.

2011-08-22T08:11:00.000-07:00

This week's in class assignment was to do a quick sketch of how we see ourselves and what we were good at. I chose to draw myself exactly how I looked on Monday in terms of dressing, topping it up with a vacant expression and the crossing of arms (because I've been told that i look aloof and unapproachable...sometimes).

The phrase "Cold at first but that doesn't mean I'm mean" is something that really represents how i deal with people. Most people think I'm really cold (and to some extent scary) at first, but when i open up....I'm really quite nice and i don't really stop talking!

The things I'm good at that have been listed above are: (1) good at slacking and being a couch potato (2) shopping (3) having a sense of direction (4) designing (5) sewing (6) dressing things/people up. My lecturer, Dr. Lin commented that the compass was not a very good way of showing 'a sense of direction' as he interpreted it as 'travelling'. Sure enough, a friend of mine misinterpreted it as well as she thought i meant 'street-wise'.

Assignment 1 - 'My name is ......'

2011-08-21T08:45:00.000-07:00

The assignment given was to identify what two things that we liked and build ideas around them while incorporating our names (or part of it).

Here is what I came up with.

#1 - "My name is Can, and I like sweet-treats"

Thinking up designs for the alphabet 'C' was easy as there are many round-shaped desserts and sweet things around. I wanted to make it more interesting by making the opening of the 'C' look like someone chewed it away (hence, i added up liking #1 and #4 the most).

Thinking up ideas for 'a' was tough as i wanted one that actually showed a clear distinct 'a' shape and it was not possible without making a combination of two items.Also i realised there are two ways to writing a lower-case 'a' which made me come up with the #4 design, which i like the most.

Lastly, the 'n'. What i pictured was two long poles at the side and something curvy to join the two to look like an 'n'. So i worked around this idea. I wanted some variation though, hence the modification of the pretzel to look like an 'n'. While i like #4 the most, looking for the 'n' in the pretzel was not as clear as #3 or #2. #1 barely looks like an N at all.

#2 - "My name is Can, and I love the sea"

My initial choice was 'i like mermaids', and using the bodies of the mermaids to form alphabets. However, i realised that it was too narrow a range to come up with 4 interesting designs. So i broadened the category to 'i love the sea' and had a much easier job designing my thumbnails as there are so many things to draw inspiration from!

I still wanted to have a mermaid in one of my designs so i kept it in the first row! Thinking up designs for 'C' was not tough as there are many things in the sea that form the 'C' shape.

As for the 'A/a', i did variations of upper-cases and lower-cases. I wanted to use a different method of what i did in the sweet-treats version (combining two items to make a shape), hence i came up with seaweed, an opened oyster and the hermit crab.

Once again, the toughest part was the 'n'. I followed a similar method as i did for the sweet-treats set (visualising two long sides and a curved centre) as it was difficult thinking of just one item for the 'n', though i managed to do one with the jellyfish in #2. Thankfully, there are many long-shaped things in the sea to draw inspiration from. Following this concept, i think #1 and #4 showed 'n' the clearest.

EDIT//

So after going through my designs with the class and lecturer, the designs picked for the sweet-treats were the donut, sugar roll-candy cane and the strawberry sitck-wafer (though i personally liked the pretzel!). As for the sea set, the squid, hermit crab and dolphin were picked. I really liked the whole of my sea set so it's *sniff* a little emotional throwing the rest of the designs aside!

My class also raised the point about mixing the upper-cases and lower-cases together, which can get quite confusing. So it was suggested that i increase the proportions of the first letters to differentiate bettween the different cases.

Thank you to the class for your positive feedback! :)