12:42 PM
YAY! finally, something which I think I would enjoy pretty much. For this assignment, we have to pay special attention to colour schemes and colour palettes! Which is great, because for me, it's all about the colours that brings out the intended visual effect.

So, when it was mentioned that the theme was Amazing Asia, i immediately thought of the Nokia advertisement whereby there was a sketch of this entire town, which i thought was pretty funky. However, I was thinking that many people were going to do on maps, and places.

Hence, drawing from my South-east Asian Module I took last semester, I thought about the interesting cultures in Asia, and what it had to offer. And i found that performing and the arts were very distinctive features in Asia that attracts tourists! Moreover, they would provide my postcard with a sense of vibrancy, through the use of colours. Hence, I decided to do a series of masks in Asia, presenting the cultural diversity, as well as the variety, through the use of more than one colour.

Thus, I did vector images of a korean mask, a chinese mask as well as an indian mask, which I thought was a good range to play around with. I decided to put them on square backdrops to make them look more modernized and pop-art-like.

The colours which i chose were also very contrasting to add to the pop-art effect, which I hoped would encourage people to pick up the postcards and take a further look at them.

In the end, I chose to use the colour scheme 'Neon Lights', with the concept that the streets are filled with people, and that Asia is no longer the traditional Asia that people think of when they recall a mask from Asia. In fact, it is one with such culture and diversity that keeps on evolving. Also, as the concept for my postcard was to publicize an arts event/gallery that would be held at the Singapore National Museum, by artists from all over Asia, conveying its marked change.

Here's a look at the colour schemes, you can see that i tried as best as i could to use contrasting and bright colours so as to make the masks stand out!


Here's the front:

and here's the back!


although my tutor, Siti, commented that masks are quite common, I have no regrets, cause i really like the simplicity in the design and how the colours convey the meaning!

(:

12:11 PM
Argh. Poster!!! One of the things I'm not really keen on right now, given the fact that i've been designing too many!!! especially for RadioPulze.

Okay, not that I hate designing posters, but the numbers right now are just overwhelming..

So, this theme is on Save, Prevent, Kill...

Meaning to do up a poster with a slogan:
1. Save....
2. Prevent...
3. Kill... (deforestation, or something. not in a bad way like: kill a person)

Yes. I really liked the sample of the Environmentally friendly one that was showed in lecture! But I wasn't going to copy the design obviouly. So basically, I thought of children. I love little children, and I actually thought of Child Pornography. However, I found that it was quite difficult to portray that, and it is not that close to heart after all. Then my idea moved on to the Prevention of Abuse. Child Abuse, to be specific. Considering in Singapore, many families face financial woes and parents take out stress from work on their kids.

So Yes! I did this.

Firstly, what came to mind was for me, the image. For me, an image speaks a thousand words, and I believe that if it were a photo which can derive so much sympathy and empathy for its reader, then it would have achieved half the goal in driving to mind that we do not want such things to happen around here.

I was thinking of using an actual child for this, like a toddler. But it's unfortunate that I don't have a little cousin who could help me with it! So I decided to seek help from my younger sister to be my model! I made her sit in various positions, with her knees up, and heads to her knees. such that it seems like she's crying. And i wanted the emotion to be conveyed through. So i kept telling her to clench her hands and feet, and to make it seem like she was in pain. My normally shy and undramatic 15-year old sister, actually pulled it off quite well!




I was pretty satisfied with the photo. I wanted to use the frontal view initially, but on second thoughts it looks like some 'The Ring' character or something, so I decided against it!
Then i decided to have a figure of a man in the background holding a cane, as if about to cane her. But i find that perhaps my shadow could have been better. I tried so many times to adjust it, but it just kept going more and more out of shape, so i decided to leave it as it was.

I used a dark background with shadows because it was symbolic of evil, and how a child engulfed by darkness and is traumatized when facing abuse.

At the same time, red was used for the Title, as it was eye-catching, serves as a warning, and at the same time, depicts how blood is shed whenever there is abuse.

My classmates didn't exactly have much to comment on it, but I might decide to change the layout around a little, but here's how it looks for now!

11:50 AM
Hmmm! I was quite excited by this assignment! Since it's on photography! and i enjoy photography a lot (:

I kinda came up with an idea of how to do it, but i needed a girl and a guy to be my couple!

*excited excited*
but my hopes were kinda dashed.

The girl and guy had schedules that totally clashed!
there goes my brilliant idea! ):

So i had to hurry adapt and change my plan cause my assignment was due the next day.
(yeah they only informed me the very last minute that they couldn't make it)

):

So, I decided to ask my dad for help and be part of my photoshoot. and thinking of me brings me to the topic of food!

Generally, warmer tones and vignetting were used so as to create a feeling of happiness and joy at the beginning, the feeling of warmth.

Following that, a normal white balance was used for the next few frames, whereas for the ending, to depict contrast and anger, more reddish hues were used.

I shall not reveal the story right now, but you'll have to figure it out for yourselves! (:

enjoy!

*NOTE: follow the numbers!!

9:22 AM
The other day in lecture, Ms Jing had us get into groups and we were to come up with simple illustrations conveying clearly two themes that we picked!

Sherman, Youshen and I chose Cracked, as well as Power.
Here are the two illustrations!!


Cracked (okay I have no idea why blogger changed the colours in the file, anw, the grey parts were black, whilst the blue ball creature is actually red in colour, whilst the cracks are in yellow! ): )

Power (omg, the colours are changed again!! ): i'll try and get it fixed soon! anw, the creature in dark blue is supposed to be in red, whilst the tiny creature was in yellow!)

10:30 AM
For the second assignment, we had to think of a situation or picture, so as to abstract it into a symbol, which everyone can understand at just one look. It had to be done such that no words were used to communicate the idea across, hence we needed to have good representational techniques in conveying our idea across in just one symbol.

For my part, I decided to do a symbol which depicts a dance studio, which can be placed in the campus compound, perhaps at the Centre for the Arts (CFA) or the University Cultural Centre (UCC). So first off, I had to start by taking a photo of my friend from Dance Synergy!

I requested for her to pose for me at the bars, and then vectorized the photo using Adobe Photoshop, changing it to a black and white vector image.



I actually did a pictogram that was pretty much abstract in the sense that, it made it more difficult to further do an abstraction all the way to the 5th frame.

The second frame consisted the dancer, the bars, as well as the mirror. However, her reflection was removed so as to simplify the entire orientation of the pictogram as it looked far too cluttered to convey an idea across simplistically.

From there, I removed the mirror as well as the reflection of the bar..

Then the fourth pictogram was of the dancer herself, which I found was pretty much sufficient enough.

Lastly, I simplified it to just a pair of ballet slippers.

Some comments I received during tutorial was that, my abstraction process was not consistent enough as the ballet slippers suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and that I might want to add it in. I think it really made sense, as to how I shouldn't be adding new things to a process of reduction and abstraction.

Thus, judging from the comments that I received in class, I would have to re-think my first abstraction.

Hence I will update when I'm done editing!!

EDIT:

I'm done with the edits! now you can check out my new abstraction process and compare it to the previous one!

7:10 PM
I'm back! so here's what went on for Assignment 1!
We were supposed to come up with a design for our names given our characters, or the things we like, or generally relate to!

We had to prepare 4 sketches (A5-sized), out of which i explored flowers (cause Jasmine is a type of flower), photography (my interest), as well as sweets (i've got a sweet tooth!).

Afterwhich, we had to pick out one design to develop into two drafts for our final prototype.. I didn't manage to portray the one on photography properly, and the ones with the theme of flowers looked too generic and lacked character, so in the end, i chose to develop the sweets!!

Here's a look at the final prototype (i'll scan in the sketches soon!):


Well, some comments i got on it was that it was pretty unique, but that i needed to change the ice cream because it was fairly difficult to tell it was an 'A'! so okay, i'm probably gonna rush all my final edits like how i always rush these assignments ):

But i think overall, it looks kinda kiddy, so maybe i'll try to make it more realistic? in a more 3d kind of way.. i'll try to figure that out with photoshop, since i did this with illustrator. And maybe i should add a background? hmmm.

any comments or advice? email me at jasminehow.wt@gmail.com
(:

7:42 PM
okay, I'm finally getting down to posting because I've been so busy designing things for RadioPulze and Synergy!!!

So, for the first lecture for NM2208: Visual Communications, I didn't really know what to expect, since this is a module based on design! But it turned out to be pretty fun, because by the end of the lecture, we had an activity!

Basically, we were supposed to design a machine which can enhance creativity!! And one popped into my heard right after I heard what we had to do!

So my machine is a HUGE transparent vat, which had a (juice) blender and a huge mechanical Mouth (with thick red lips and all). Basically, it works like this:

The mouth is actually some sort of a paper shredder which shreds things like paper from magazines, photographs, and such! All things colourful and creative, it shreds. Then the shredded pieces go into the huge vat of creative juices.

Similarly, the blender blends objects, from oranges, to nail polish! Basically the same concept just that these objects are more 3D.

Everything then gets mixed and churned up in the vat which is boiled, and the steam condenses on the cover on top, which is connected to a tube, sending it to the Creative Hat that is supposed to be put on by the user!! So the user of the machine gets all the creative juices flowing in his/her head! :D

Well, that's all for this post!
I'll be updating soon on Assignments 1 and 2, where I had to design my name, and a sign to be placed in school.

Check back for more!

edit: here it is!