Well, I guess I shan’t bore you out with the documentation.
Those who want to see the technical terms, take a look here!
Just wanted to thank Syafiq for the fabulous drawings, my groupmates who stayed up the whole of Saturday night and morning to do the colouring – Erica, Meiyuan and Syafiq. 
And all who stayed up on Sunday to get the final edits done up before printing on Monday.. To the wonderful team behind Wolfie.. Thank you! (:
Anyhow, hope you guys like it as much as we do!
Soft Skills
Hard Skills
Assignment 1
- Analogous colours used for ‘I Love Sewing’ to further bring out the vibrancy.
Assignment 4
- Edited the typography of words so that it stands out more.
- Further ensure the proximity of elements which are supposed to be perceived as together. (Banana and condoms, Phrases)
Assignment 5
- Alignment of proximity of lines.
- Unity (with respect to simplicity of lines used in the drawing of swing and rainbow)
In the previous lecture, we were supposed to develop sketches with respect to the various Gestalt Principles learnt. I chose to illustrate closure, proximity and symmetry.
Here goes!
Classroom Exercise 4 [Click on image to enlarge.]
In this assignment, we were tasked to select one good and bad design of posters, magazine advertisements or information brouchures and present our design analysis in Powerpoint. My group mate Jasper and I chose to compare two posters.
Through this assignment, I can better apply what was taught during the lecture with respect to the Gestalt Principles (Proximity, Similarity, Parallelism, Figure and Ground) and the various Principles of Interaction namely unity, contrast, harmony and balance. In addition, I have also learnt that for a design to communicate its message accurately to its viewers, it should encompass unity and harmony in terms of size, shapes and type fonts used when possible. Furthermore, visual balance should always be kept in mind as the human eye tends to seek balance. Without balance, the design only goes far in making the viewer irritated. Balance can be achieved by making good use of the positive and negative spaces of the poster. Additionally, contrast should be used, but only appropriately and in control. Too much contrast will only add to the messiness of the poster while too little might not make a difference to the design. The Gestalt Principles should be used when possible and should be used correctly, not to the extent that the design ends up violating it. Nevertheless, a good poster is one that is simple, yet can convey the message across to the viewer effectively.
All in all, I feel that the various design principles that I have gained through this module would go a long way and should not be limited to design. They can also be applied when formatting reports, or Powerpoints. After all, they have visual elements in them as well and eventually what we would want to achieve from them is the same as what we want to achieve through different designs and that would be to create a visually pleasing view for the audience.
NM2208 Assignment 6 Powerpoint!
Good Poster Design [Click on image to enlarge.]
Bad Poster Design [Click on image to enlarge.]
Prototype [Click on image to enlarge.]
Finally, the final prototype. Having wanted to portray love as simple and happy, I stuck closely to the rainbow colours I have started out since Rough 2. But with the intention of a simple concept for this design, I used lines instead of the bold gradient I have used earlier in my roughs.
Guess there is not much for me to talk about this final prototye since I have already elaborated on the concept of design and colours chosen in the entries of my roughs. However, comments please! Thank you!
Concept 3 [Click on image to enlarge.]
Rough 3 [Click on image to enlarge.]
In the following designs which I have presented in class, I have stuck to the rainbow colours. However, I decided to heed Alfred’s advice and venture into something other than BGR – Fatherly love. However, after showing my tutorial mates this design, some mentioned that the father was not obvious enough and the son seem to merge too much with him. Well, I did wanted to capture the merging part to show that the father and son are close to each other. However, it was a little difficult to do that, as well as making the two figures distinct at the same time. In addition, my choice of black and gray for the father and the son was also to give a shadowy feeling to show that the father is the pillar of support to his children. However, this idea was a little too abstract to bring out in my design. Hence, I ended up scraping this idea in the end.
Concept 4 [Click on image to enlarge.]
Rough 4 [Click on image to enlarge.]
This seem to be the more popular piece of design as compared to the Fatherly love as most of my tutorial mates like the simplicity in this design. However, one of my friends commented that the gradient did not seem to match properly with the swing and stick figures which were simple. The strength and boldness of the gradient seem to stand out more than the main figure of the card which was the girl and boy on the swing. I agree with what he said, and hence decided to make changes to this design with respect to the rainbow.
Stay tuned for the final prototype!
Concept 1 [Click on image to enlarge.]
Rough 1 [Click on image to enlarge.]
So why a mouse and his cheese? Personally, I wanted a hint of humour in this design where love need not take the form of stereotypical Boy-Girl Relationship. To put it simply, I wanted to portray the love of cheese by the mouse. Yes yes, also inspired by the recent Ratatouille. But I guess it didn’t turn out well. Actually, the theme of love for food dawned on me while I was having my dinner in school. How apt. Being a person who loves eating, I felt this side of love can be ventured into.
I chose yellow for the cheese over mustard was because yellow as stated in Julian’s slides gave a feeling of richness and goodness and that was what I wanted to capture in the cheese. After all, only delicious looking, rich and good food attract people, albeit hungry or not. Well, I was not that adventurous when it came to the colour of the mouse and stuck to being safe with grey. I coloured the ears pink to show cuteness in the little mouse. Additionally, this shade of red was chosen as the colour of the hearts in his eyes to depict intense passion for his cheese.
Last but not least, the tail was drawn in this way for a reason. It was to show that he wanted the cheese so much that it formed the shape of a heart behind his body while trying to use it to get the cheese that was hanging on a thin rope.
However, as the elements of the card were rather simple and minimal, it was difficult to capture the intended feelings brought out by colours chosen. Furthermore, I did not illustrate the strength of love from the mouse of the cheese accurately. Hence, my tutorial mates did comment that I should come up with another if I can.
Concept 2 [Click on image to enlarge.]
Rough 2 [Click on image to enlarge.]
This was another design which I felt could bring out the mood of love in a cute manner. Well, BGR was a challenging one to do. After all, most people would do that wouldn’t they? Instead of using actual human figures, I decided to use silouette to depict them instead. Hence, black and grey seem to be the more obvious colours to choose.
As for the background where analogous colours was chosen. I felt that rainbows are sacred weather elements which happen only for a special time. Not everyone see rainbows everyday, and I wanted to use rainbows to better bring out the element of love, happiness and specialness. In addition, rainbows are a combination of both warmth and cool colours. Personally, warm colours seem to associate with ladies more whereas cool colours with gentlemen. Having said that, the combination of both seem to further complement the silouette of the guy and girl who were in love. Nevertheless, as stated in Julian’s lecture, ‘our eyes seek balance’ and the rainbow would balance the background definitely while making the foreground stand out.
I feel that the background could be further improved. Straight lines seem a little dead and boring, something more lively was needed and I am still working on that. As for the human figures, I am contemplating to replace them with other elements.
Till then.
Prototype [Click on image to enlarge.]
After the final lecture on Typography, I have decided to make changes to my poster with regards to its font. San-Serif as stated in the lecture, is said to be clean looking and good for imparct. However, I have chosen Rockwell, a Serif font as I felt it fits the seriousness of the theme and has better legibility for the subline “Prevent AIDs. Practice Safe Sex”.
In addition, I wanted to make several changes after the feedback session, such as putting the condom on for the banana as I was afraid that the condoms might not be obvious enough. However, this would result in a smiley face as putting on the condom constitutes a form of prevention for AIDs. The resulting message would then be rather comical and would contradict the seriousness of AIDs. Hence, I decided against the idea.
Additionally, I decided to keep the banana monochrome as it plays a part in the Principle of Interaction where it contrasts with the condoms.
In the process of designing, I learnt how to better apply the Principles of Interaction in terms of contrast, visual weight and balance while ensuring attention of audience is kept at the center of the poster by aligning all the elements including the text to the center and through the usage of colours.
Waiting for some comments
Concept 2 [Click on image to enlarge.]
I came up with this concept while looking through comics online. It was about 2 bananas talking and all of a sudden, it seems like a rather humourous design to work with, but I knew that if I crossed the line of humour too much, it would end up being silly and contradict the seriousness of AIDs.
Rough 2 [Click on image to enlarge.]
I did up the final rough but somehow, the poster does not seem to be cohesive at all. For example, the AI-drawn eyes and hands did not go well with real bananas hence unity in the poster is lost. Furthermore, the condom was hard to capture, and even after using Adobe Photoshop to tint the condom a little, it still does not stand out. Most importantly, the comical feel of this poster is too strong to be a good prevention poster for AIDs. After much consideration, I have decided to scrape this rough and work on the previous one to improve it further as my final prototype.
Classroom Exercise [Click on image to enlarge.]
During lecture, we were each given a pair of words to come up with basic visual elements which can communicate through form. Jasper and I got two words, ‘intense’ and ‘fascinating’ and these were what I thought of of these two words. As we were only supposed to use basic visual elements to communicate our words, I felt that having big circles that slowly become tight and small convey the meaning of ‘intense’ while an open-mouthed big-eyed face would be able to convey the meaning of ‘fascinating’. Well, as you can see, I have only used circles to bring my words across simply. At first glance, did the pictures convey those words to you?
Brainstorm 1 [Click on image to enlarge.]
Brainstorm 2 [Click on image to enlarge.]
Brainstorm 3 [Click on image to enlarge.]
Concept 1 [Click on image to enlarge.]
In this assignment, we were supposed to come up with posters that convey one of the words, SAVE, KILL or PREVENT. I came up with several concepts, ranging from suicide to broken family to smoking and finally AIDS. I decided on AIDS as I feel that there are a lot of elements in sex that we can play around with to create humour. I decided on a banana as it is able to bring out the other meaning of the male’s private part. Decided against the orange because I did not want to make it seem as though I am promoting fruits instead of the message of AIDS being dangerous.
Hence, I headed down to Condom Shop at Lucky Plaza to get the designated colours I needed for my poster. I purchased blue, pink, orange and yellow. But chose only orange in the end as many of my friends commented that blue is too dull to bring out the poster and pink and yellow are too happy colours to bring across the seriousness of the message. Orange was the more ambigious colour as it brought different feelings to different people.
Besides that, I had to get bananas and wait for it to rot before I could proceed on with the assignment. But by the time the banana would start turning real black, it would be too late for me to present in class. Hence I decided to make use of the Black and White function of the camera.
Rough 1 [Click on image to enlarge.]
So here it is, my poster. Using a sad face to portray what a person will feel when he gets AIDs. The black banana is to show a person who has AIDs. Not sure if you comprehend me as I don’t really want to be too explicit here. Decided to use the tag line ‘It may not be this obvious.’ as it’s true that any AIDs person will look like a perfectly normal person for the first few years after contracting the deadly disease. Just like the banana. But I personally feel that I did not convey this message very well as a rotton banana already tells me its obvious in that sense. Hence, my tutor advised me in playing around with the banana colour so as to bring across the message better. Either that, or to make the banana more battered and rotten. I guess I will work on that, but till then, I am still waiting for the banana to rot more so that I can portray the rottenness with a hint of yellow so that the banana would not be mistook for something else.
|
