Assignment 4: The Beginning

Now, it's time for Assignment 4. This is about creating an effective poster that will capture the attention of passers-by and portray the message effectively. :) And the theme for this semester is Active Aging! Wooohoooo!

Ok ok, so I got some ideas over Recess Week and came up with two posters during the break. Only hada chance to blog about it today. But first and foremost, I thought of my so-called 'sub-theme', which is basically the topic I want to focus on that is under the category of Active Aging. I had some ideas at first, which I wrote down on a piece of notebook paper. They are mainly slogans which I found here and there and it gave me some great ideas (with my main ideas in brackets). Copied it here:

- Make your WRINKLES TWINKLE! (Emotional health)

- An apple a day keeps the doctor away (Eat healthy)

- Laughter is the best medicine / Let laughter be you medicine (Emotional health)

- You're never too old to be younger (Enjoy life and keep that child in you)

- We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing (Enjoy life and keep that child in you)

- Keep on raging to stop the aging! (Be physically active)

- Life is not measured by the nuber of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away (See the world, explore while you can, enjoy what life has to offer)

So from my little brainstorming session here, I thought of various ways of creating my poster. Since I'm not allowed to grab images from the Internet, I'll have to consider my capabilities on Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. I seem to be more intuned with Illustrator. Hmm...

A lot of my rough ideas were played out on the Illustrator canvas, and some of them turned out to be promising. Like this one:

I thought this was a good idea, with a short funny description of the laughter tablets on the label, and the walking stick to show that my target audience is senior citizens. Then I realised that with aging seniors, this maybe be a bit crude and sad, as I highlighted the stereotype that all old folks eat medicine. I thought of a friendlier way to put my message of emotional health across.

One problem with this. I'll need to really make the wrinkles twinkle... Right now, you can't really see the twinkles so clearly. I felt that the slogan was catchy though. My own creation! :D

So then I asked my friend for her opinion on this poster, and she personally thought it was too childish and she even felt it might be an insult to old people. She suggested something more mature and detailed.

Then I thought of this:

Simple design. Message clear (I hope). Difference in font. left side is more... old-ish (words and the man) while the right side is more childish (a kite and the font). I chose a kite as it's probably wat was played by the old man during his childhood day. The shadows ot the old man and front scene gives it the calming effect. I also like how there's a balance in the picture :)

So thus, as you can see, the two done-up posters here are my finalists... I can't decide it myself though. Would need to get the opinions of my tutorial mates.

Assignment 2: Revisited

During the Recess Week, I chose to re-do my Assignment 2. Mainly because I felt it lacked the potential in abstraction despite it being unique and all. So I chose the Istana! I know, I know... People may not recognise this at a glance, but it's a place that every Singaporean should visit, as it is a national heritage. It is also the home of the President of Singapore. You'd probably recognise it if you have been there. Yep.

I picked the Istana because to me it had something special. It had a blend of 'British Colonial' feel to it and at the same time, has something that's quite 'traditional Singapore'. I'm referring to the architecture of the building. Notice the windows and how they are patterned in such a way that makes you have that 'kampung' feeling, a remnant of Singapore's fishing village past. But, at the same time, there are columns that look liek they belong at the White House. Thus, to me, I feel that the Istana is a buliding that has captured and retained the beauty of Singapore's colonial past (despite it being a  tad dark due to the Japanese Occupation and all).

So my first abstraction was a black and white outline of the whoel structure. I tried to be as detailed as possible when it came to the windows as I really thought they were unique, and made the Istana.... the 'Istana'. But then I figured it may be too detailed for a simple abstraction, so....

I took out the details on the windows. It looks a lot simpler now. Though I would have love to keep the windows. But the requirement is to simplify it as much as possible, so I had to remove it I guess. What do you think? Plus, I took out the unecessary details around the building as well to simplify the whole design.

Now I realised that there are too many vertical lines running down in the building. Pretty unecessary as even without them, it still looks like the Istana to me. I also removed a lot of the extra lines and dimensions that make the design 'pop', and kept the lines that kept the building's shape.

The design looks a lot cleaner now. I modified certain elements like the top of the building, changed the many lines to simpel rectangles to maintain the overall look, so that I do not lose the Istana look. Although there are a lot less lines, there is room for more simplification. I do intend to keep the columns, but I may want to modify it to make it simpler, merely a representation of a column...

My final abstraction! The columns are still columns as you can see, but simpler. Plus the details on the first level of the building has been simplified as well. So voila... my new abstraction :)
This time, I will comment about my design process as I go along. :)

Assignment 3: The Beginning

This has to be the hardest assignment so far. I was really trying my best to think of a brilliant storyline with a twist and all amidst my many late-nights cramming for exams plus my very-time-consuming NM3216 module, which I have spent the past 4 days working on feverishly with my NM3216 game design teammembers all night till 4am in the morning.

So, instead I came up with a number of sketchy ideas. I will scan them and put it on the blog very soon, once my scanner is up and running again.

Here are some brief outlines of possible storylines:

- Turtle Mafia: My toy zebra being ambushed by 3 little plush turtles and being kidnapped and sent to the Big Boss, the big plush turtle. Very lame I know, but I thought it was funny, as when I took some pictures of it, the zebra’s head is able to turn in a manner that suggests that it’s confused and scared.

- Bye-Bye Teddy: My teddy is seen hugging and saying goodbye to his other plush friends, with the last frame showing him leaving with me in my handbag, and me rolling a luggage bag, showing that I’m leaving.

- Fate’s Role: This was an idea from my friend which I thought was pretty cool. No, I will not imitate his work of course, but rather use it as a source of inspiration. It is basically focuses on 2 environments, a LEGO world and the real world. There are frames shot in the LEGO world, of a red LEGO man driving a red LEGO car, only to shoot a white LEGO man and killing him. In the real world, a white REAL man finds the LEGO board, which has enacted everything as mentioned, and he packs it up. He was later confronted by a red REAL man, who was about to shoot him. And the story ends here. So, here is the qn? Did he die, as predicted by the LEGO set? Or is there no such thing as destiny and fate, and all our actions are determined by us alone?

- Mystery Mugger at night: I woke up in the middle of the night to find my teddy gone from my arms. I walked out into the living room in the dark, and saw that the study room lights was on. Who could that be? Hmmmm…. So I slowly approached the room cautiously and caught a glimpse of the back of my chair. My laptop is on, readings out in the open. Wonder who is sitting on my chair? So I turned the chair around and see my teddy bear right there, staring at me, with spectacles and all…

For now, I will stick to the one that I can do at such a short period of time, for my tutorial. I will work on my more ‘philosophical’ ideas later during recess week.

I chose to do the Mystery Mugger story for now. It later turned to be more of a....'Teddy Porn' story instead. Thought it'd be more humourous... hehe...

So I woke up in the middle of the night to find that my teddy is missing... Where could he be?

I peered out of my room and saw that my study room lights were on... How strange...

I had to sneak in and see what's going on.

Lo and behold, someone-or something, is using my laptop!

O.M.G My teddy is awake and doing something on my laptop!

Naughty Teddy... I reached out to grab him...

And he turned around looking innocent when I realised that he watching some Teddy porn :P Tsk tsk tsk... Naughty Teddy!

Assignment 2: The Beginning

Well, alrite… here is my long overdue post on my Assignment 2. I’ve been wanting to work on this for a while longer but I guess it doesn’t hurt to blog about it now.

My idea was to reduce a picture of the Marina Bay’s Floating Platform. I knew my job would not be easy by choosing this, but at least it was less cliche than the Singapore Flyer, which is next-door. I had intended to do the Singapore Flyer at first, but I was afraid of many others doing the same thing. (Turns out, I was right… but my Floating Platform idea was not so unique either)

Here are the abstractions… Based on the tutorial feedback I received, it was plain to see that my ‘symbolic’ design was hard to decipher… So I’ll have to change it to be iconic instead…

Well, a lot went wrong with my assignment this week. Where do I begin?

1. No colours. I realised that there weren't supposed to be any colours at all. I thought it was only black and white after abstraction, and didn't know that the whole process is meant to be black and white.

2. Should be iconic, not symbolic. Hard to interpret if its symbolic. I'll HAVE to change my final design.

Now I have my heart set into another iconic buliding in Singapore. Going to update on this Assignment very soon...

Assignment 1: After Tutorial 2

Here are my somewhat-finished designs. I am quite contented with this particular concept as it displayed what I had been striving for this whole time, which was a natural look to the arrangement of different related objects.

Here is the feedback from my tutorial mates:

1. Obviously, the ‘T’ in the second design, is hard to recognise. The big fat cooking pot might just be a bit too much.

2. The background in the second design causes the objects to be hidden. There needs to be a better contrast between background and the objects. Sufina suggested kitchen tiles to be the background and my environment to be the area next to the sink where dishes and such are lined up to dry.

3. Objects in the second design needs to look more realistic, with all of them from the same angle. They commented about the different angle the cooking pot is in as compared to the other objects.

4. The ‘T’ in the first design can be further improved if I were to use a T-shirt instead perhaps.

5. Dr. Julian suggested adding clothes pegs to the tie and the towel in the first design, but I later explained that I left them out on purpose so as to give that heck-care look and attitude to the way the laundry was done. I do, after all, hate doing laundry/chores.

Referring to that last feedback, the reason why I chose to have the second design placed in a dishwasher (can you tell its a dishwasher?) was because I’m too lazy to do the dishes, so I just chuck them into the dishwasher… Ahhhhh… Now do you see why I did things the way I did? :)

Going to make my final changes to the designs…

Assignment 1: After Tutorial 1

One of my tutorial mates suggested using the umbrella of Citibank for one of my designs (if I’m not wrong, it’s Alan).

Based on the two concepts I presented during the first tutorial, seen from the previous post, here were some of the feedback I received (and gave myself):

1. The ‘S’ in the first design looked too much like a ‘J’. My classmates then started spelling out names starting with a ‘J’, which was pretty sad for me to see since my message clearly did not get through properly.

2. Another problem was that it was not clear that the umbrella represented the ‘T’ in my name, since it is proportionally larger than the other letters (or figures in this case). So that was not clear either. An idea given by Alan (I think), was that I could consider using something similar to the Citibank logo’s umbrella.

3. When comparing the first 2 designs from the ‘caring’ collection, the second one was more unclear than the first. Mainly because the arms did not look much like a ‘T’ at all, worse than the umbrella idea.

4. Look at the second concept, both designs failed to show my name as the crinkles in the hair are just not striking enough. Looks like I’m going to have to change concept…

More ideas came to me after the tutorial, and I scribbled them down. Here was what I got.

I played around with other words and worked with objects this time. I tried out actual mix-and-matching of objects of a similar theme, something that I was unwilling to do up till now.

Oh yes, I did try to do a ‘Citibank’-related one as well, after getting feedback from the first tutorial. But later on, after having a chat with Dr. Julian, I don’t think it’s a good idea to manipulate an existing logo and changing it to suit my design. Isn’t that infringing copyright law? Hmmm… I decided to be safe than sorry and so I considered my other designs instead.

As I was trying to come up with more designs, my mum nagged at me and told me to do my chores. We take turn around the house, you see. Of course I got a bit frustrated. She interrupted my thought process! >_< Plus, I HATE doing chores. Particularly laundry and doing the dishes. So repetitive and time-consuming. But alas! I got an idea out of this…

My name is Siti and I HATE doing chores! :D

Assignment 1: The Beginning

Alritey! Here is the first assignment for this module.

- Select 2 words which best describes your character

- Come up with 8 design concepts based on this example

- Select 2 concepts which you like most

- Produce and present your selected designs on A5 size papers

Pretty interesting I must say. Though it took quite a while to brainstorm some good ideas. I guess it is easier to blog about my whole design process as I am going through it at present time. Though it will be more time-consuming, I reckon it will be a more accurate documentation of my work throughout the module plus I do not have to feverishly recount every detail of what I did at a later time, when I choose to blog.

So, without further adieu, I’ll begin my design process then. :)

I will try my best to follow the Design Process taught in class while creating my designs.

Research: Define and Analyse

Conceptualisation: Ideate and Select

Prototype: Implement and Evaluate

Here is just a quick recount of my first brainstorming session. During the lecture, I thought of a few questions that could help me assess if a word is suitable for designing my name. I thought it was quite important as while doodling my name in various themes and ideas randomly based on things related to me, some tend to look rather odd or cheesy, and others too complex to be understood (or at least by friends nearby).

The questions I posed to myself were more along the lines of:

Do the designs produced from the words match the shape of my name?

Can my designs be feasible enough to be done on Photoshop/Illustrator?

Do my designs send a clear message to viewers?

So the first thing I did was to list down words that describe myself. That did not take long, but what did take a while to do was the research I did on the various words and their general ‘definitions’ or representations. So I started to doodle randomly and simply just trying to produce that spark of creativity.

Then, I came across a tiny problem. Since my name is Siti, I have the ‘luxury’ of two ‘i’s. This can be a problem if I were to manipulate my letters into representions of individual objects, rather than have the letters manipulate themselves into the environment or the ‘overall picture’. It would be awfully boring if I had to use two of the same objects to represent the ‘i’ (you can see this in the cookie example, french one, and star trek). I did intend to put together different objects of the same theme to create my name, but so far it looked messy and clashed badly with the others overall (like the astronomy one). So I decided to stick to theme-like designs.

However, in our first tutorial Dr. Julian explained how certain designs are too malleable, a.k.a the ‘smokey’ effect, where you can craft anyone’s name out of smoke, water, air, stars, etc. So certains themes like running, mazes, (and much later on, the ‘hair’ design), are no longer considered for my final designs.

From then onwards, I changed my perpective on the idea of manipulation and went for the more… ‘overall picture’ look. I decided on the finalists soon enough, and had 4 words to choose from. All 4 of them produce clear messages of what it is I like/dislike/etc. But now I need to know which are feasible and simple enough to be designed the ‘photoshop’ way, and after careful inspection, I decided upon:

My name is Siti, and I care about others.

My name is Siti, and I hate my curly hair.

Allow me to explain my reasons for picking these two sentences. For one, they do represent me. But they also portray something about me that’s different from others and is unique at the same time. Most of my tutorial mates display designs based on what they like or hate and so on. I just thought that displaying a bit about my character could be something refreshing and new. And yes, I really do dislike my curly bangs, although you might often see me twirl my hair in class (mind you, that is to keep them as neat and anti-frizzy as possible).

It wasn’t so easy at first, as I was pretty set on making designs which represent a picture that depicts natural objects in their natural settings.

So I ended up with a picture of 3 people (stick-figures) under an umbrella, and a picture of curly hair being cut. As you can probably guess by now, both the designs are scenario-based and not a mix-and-match of different objects under one theme, like what most of my other classmates did.

For the first concept, I considered using the umbrella to signify the ‘T’ in Siti. Then I created stick-figures to simply represent the ‘S’ and the 2 ‘i’s. Then, I realised (after adding hands to the figures) that I could make the middle stick-figure’s hands stretch out to look like a ‘T’ (or i tried, at least), and wrap them around the other figures to depict the caring-ness, which is what the concept is supposed to be.

As for the second concept, I tried my best to bend and twanggggg the hair to look like my name, but it did not turn out the way I envisioned it. Furthermore, after the tutorial, I had to scrap this idea as moulding the hair is too malleable a design and therefore not recommended by Dr. Julian and Mr. Alfred.

Pretty simple designs, I must admit. I didn’t want to confuse viewers even further with more detail into the design, so I stuck to a B/W simple overall design at the end for presentation during tutorial.

After going through the first tutorial of the semester, the feedback I received from my peers in the class was very useful and I must admit, it sparked new ideas and images in my mind, plus improved on previous ideas as well. As there is still time to change my designs and such, I will not waste anymore time and will improve on my work.

Keeping it simple...

There seems to be a problem with my previous blog on Tumblr. So I've decided to relocate here on Blogspot and manage this blog concurrently with my other blogs as well. Makes life a lot easier for me I guess (despite thinking that Tumblr was the answer to my prayers).

I'll copy over my entries from the old blog onto this one for your viewing pleasure. :)