greeting card.

I like my Santa Claus! Made it out of simple shapes (some drawn) in illustrator. But the most important aspect in this assignment is the colour scheme. I'm using cool colours for my card because Christmas is associated with snow and cold. I'd wanted to use a very dark blue for the top of the card but I can't control the gradient properly. 

Actually, the other colour scheme I have in mind is composed stronger, darker colours which I think are also symbolic of Christmas. Something like that:

For the background.

save/prevent/kill poster.

I love Amnesty International ads. In my heart, they're second only to the Economist ads, and that's only because I'm more of a copy-based person. Most AI ads are witty, engaging and they drive home the point. Many of them are provocative and all of them are powerful.

For press freedom, this is my personal favourite:

When I was brainstorming about press freedom, the first idea that came to mind was the image of 'a pen on a leash'. I think that's the fundamental proposition of press freedom: that the right of journalists to uncover and publish the truth should not be repressed. In my design, the pen is symbolic of the journalist and his attempt at writing. There is an ad that uses the pen as a symbol of the journalist as well, in a coffin. Its message is the killing of journalists. I swear I saw that ad after I thought of mine. But anyway, there is a difference.

My second idea was newspapers covered by grains of sugar spilt over it. Tagline: Stop sugarcoating the truth. Eliminate press censorship. But I guess it won't be as visually appealing as the first. Of course, this is assuming I've executed the concept well. If I haven't, please at least award some credit for my effort. For this poster, I've racked my brains for a suitable object to use as a leash (dog leash is too huge for a pen). I bought a fountain pen...and was fleeced of 5 bucks by Kino. And I owe my friend, Samuel Chee, a huge favour for his help with the photoshoot in the Sheares studio. (photocomm chair ok!) And I haven't started studying for EL1101 midterms which are in 3 days!! OMG.

Principles of interaction employed:

1. Contrast in size and composition: area towards which viewer's eyes are drawn to.

2. Harmony (visual balance)

Yays. I've just vastly improved that amateurish poster! Fiddled with levels in photoshop and somehow I've managed to produce this. (: (: (: It looks much more professionally done and I think it brings across the feel I wanted to convey better. That is, oppressiveness. Also, the visibility of the leashes around the pen is greatly improved. And the font is doing wonders!

u c what i c.

With 8 shots, we're supposed to tell a story with a twist. I actually had a different idea, but it's more difficult to execute. This is inspired by the mahjong addicts in my block. The guy here who's the lead, he's also one. 

The story goes:

It's late at night in Sheares Hall. Everyone is asleep already (this is fictitious because no matter how late/early it is, there will still be enough people awake to 1. pond girls 2. play DOTA 3. play mahjong 4. do whatever/make noise) except for this one room where the lights are still turned on. Upon investigation, it is found that the person in this room is still up (studying?). He looks deep in concentration. (Anyway, you're supposed to think he's mugging hard.) Suddenly, he has this eureka moment! Like he just solved a really tricky and difficult problem. He grabs his calculator and all his notes, runs down the corridor to the lounge and finds 3 other people for a game of... MAHJONG. Because he's found a sure-win method through his calculations, he wins big. (That's why the other 3 players look so unhappy and one is even cradling his head.)

Sadly, a lot of people cannot get my twist. I think even if I photoshop the word 'Probability' on the spine of the book, it still might not be clear enough. I might change the 4th photo to one that zooms in on what he's writing so people can see that he's solving the probability of mahjong (in a not so obvious way). Of course, I don't think you actually can use probability to solve mahjong, right? Quite a long shot. ):

pictogram

We're supposed to design a pictogram for NUS. Pardon me if my prose is clipped. I just spent 5 (?) unhappy hours with photoshop and illustrator. But I love the images on illustrator after livetrace, so clean and crisp.

I've decided to design a sign for the corridor at AS1 level 2, the walkway from Arts canteen to somewhere before ADM block. I'm always getting a heart attack there when I'm trying to sprint to my next class. Throngs of people will be clogging up the width of the walkway and I only wish they would...

...WALK FASTER.

Uhh...I don't think the message is clear enough though. I've been asking around for directions to incorporate motion streaks behind the motion blurred man, to no avail. There's no such thing? People don't even understand me when I'm trying to tell them what it is! Okay but anyway I used calligraphic strokes so it looks kinda stupid right? Out of place. Oh but I like my cartoon man! It looks really nice without the motion blur!

Right. I think I'm done for the night. Blah. Bye.

assignment 1 photoshop-ed.

This is when I desperately wish I'm less of a tech idiot. Photoshop nearly took my life in the past 5 hours. Illustrator? Don't even start. I spent the past few days aimlessly clicking around and giving up.

The result isn't fantastic but I'm hoping the images might pass for a cartoony take on things. I've used bright colours to portray favourable feelings and duller colours for distaste. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the sinister green I was looking for.

P.S. The stilettoes are supposed to be red, and the butterfly is brown with green wings. I think the colours have turned out differently because I saved the images in CMYK instead of RGB, for printing purposes.

me, myself and i.

Our very first assignment. I'm feeling rather excited about this business of designing. The box of pencils with varying degrees of thickness, the sketchpad and all. It's so artsy and I think I can almost, for the first time ever, get away with the whole tortured artist routine.

So during lecture last week, we started out with 4 thumbnails of something we love and something we hate. I felt self-expression was limited in the sense that what we chose had to be portrayable visually, so stuff like 'mediocrity' and 'hypocrisy' was ruled out. Also, my love for writing couldn't be presented in an original yet aesthetically sound manner; I had to compromise one or the other. The strongest design I could come up with was too heavily inspired by Leo Burnett's big black pencil, so it had to be discarded.

In the end, I settled for 'I love stiletto heels' and 'I hate butterflies' and presented 4 rough sketches in tutorial today.

I was told to make the first butterfly more sinister because apparently it looks too beautiful for anyone to infer my hatred. The second butterfly was rejected on the grounds that it 'looked too happy' haha. I honestly don't know how to go about sinister-fying my butterfly because I can't even look at pictures of butterflies. I had to google cartoon butterflies when I drew the sketches.

The stiletto ones were fine, I guess, except that the second sketch didn't fulfill the requirement (the incorporation of my name was more arbitrary than manipulated). They were inspired by Christian Louboutin, by the way. I drooled over the sexy heels and derived such joy working on the sketches. Here's a video:

Bet you're all salivating now! (: 

(final products will be up when i'm done)

the first baby step.

I love good design. Sleek, sexy gadgets that I can spend hours staring at. Cute animation that I go gaga over. And especially ads with clever art direction, those that make you go "ohhhh...", then "damn, why wasn't I the one who thought of it?!"

Sadly, I may be able to appreciate, but in terms of creating, I am greatly handicapped by a dismal art sense and poor execution. I hope this module changes that, or at least improves it. And so far, the lectures have been worth the agony of dragging myself to LT14 by 8am so it's all very promising!