Assignment 7

Theme: God created fly and forgot why

Assignment 6

Theme: Gestalt laws- design analysis

Good design

Visual Form and Harmony
- interaction of forms is good (position, direction, space)
- Frame exists
- Control and hold attention within frame (breathing space, no text off frame)
- Positive/negative space well maintained

Colour
- Good colour contrast and harmony (rose, body, font)
- Analogous colours
- Two colours: Easier to identify focal points

Gestalt’s Principles – Visual Perceptions
- relatively good organization of visual structure
- Figure and ground – size, contrast, details
- Proximity (chunking)
- Figure has continuity, no odd/out of place images
- Organized, simplified, unified

Bad design

Visual Form and Harmony

- interaction of forms is bad (position, direction, space) – difficult to identify focal point e.g. website address situated in the middle, elements is fighting for attention
- frame not distinct – does not set limit
- no unity and contrast – fonts, background and foreground, nothing flows or is significant
- lacks harmony (visual balance- no proper organization and balance of positive/negative space, economy – dots seem like unwanted elements - clutter effect
- cannot control and hold attention (little negative space)

Colour

- colour contrast but lacks harmony
– too many colours (mixture of warm and cool colours), cluttered and messy
- no specific colour scheme (complementary colour scheme mixed with other colours)
- colours too intense
– messy and all over the place

The more colours and objects in a composition, the more difficulty a viewer will experience in trying to locate the focal point of the composition.
- Michel Euge’ne Chevreul

Gestalt’s Principles – Visual Perceptions

- bad organization of visual structure
- figure and ground
– (size – combination of dots and fonts in foreground (in addition to the many colours)
- clutter, contrast – too many elements of random, different sizes, details – too many details)
- proximity
– elements too close together, no distinction (colours affect)
- lack of similarity - similarity in dots but not in fonts
- no continuity (affected by excess elemnts and clutter)
- poor use of Gestalt – unrelated, busy, disturbing, clutter

Assignment 5

Assignment-5
Theme: Love - Inspirational card

My love greeting cards, one hand drawn and one using photoshop.

Card 1 (hand drawn)
Front of the card

Back of the card

Card 2 (Photoshopped) Front page of card.

I chose the jigsaw love card as its response was better.
After using photoshop to apply colour, this is how it looks like below.
I chose complementary and harmonious colours on the card.


Comments said that the colours of the jigsaw are not balanced. Therefore I improved on it and this is the final one of my love greeting card. To add on, I tried to maintain a balance of the negative space so that it does not look too crowded and messy with the jigsaws, flowers, bees and words.
The texture of my card is rough as the background is using rough pastels.

Assignment 4

Assignment 4
Theme: Save this/that- Poster design

I decided on a rather difficult poster to design as I thought it might be challenging to do something different.
I planned to design on a poster to send the message to bikers that instead of speeding on the roads and hence wasting their tyres’ (wear and tear), they should go to the track to speed.
This is my 1st draft of my poster.
Comments were not very good as the class felt that the poster did not bring out the idea I wanted to push forward.
Fonts type and colours are not appropriate as sepia represents sadness or memories.

I did another poster, hoping that it will be better. I wanted to bring emphasis on SPEED ON TRACKS thus the words’ size are ascending. In order to fulfil principles of Balance, the bigger words are on the right, and the bike is on the left. The bike is blue colour to emphasize on the coolness instead of warm.

However, i felt that the poster looks wrong and it did not bring the the ‘cool’ feeling of playing bikes on track. I realized that I often chose colours that are harmonious and the effects I put on it is not strong enough for such an extreme sport.

Therefore, I made a final decision to shift the idea of "STOP" poster onto the picture below. What I am looking at is a motivational type of poster that gives people hope. Therefore the choice of colours are

harmonious, complimentary. The attention of viewer is brought to the words "Be a singer" by the position of the microphone and the downward position of the smaller words "stop dreaming...".

Draft


Final piece

Pictures tell a thousand word...

Theme: U C what I C

Main characters : My friends , Hongwei and Chottoh

Thanks to them for their funny poses.

After comments from Siti and friends, I decided to take out photo no. 1. as it seems redundant. I will also be re-taking photo No. 2 in landscape version... because all my photos are in landscape.

So basically, this is how the story goes...

Photo 2 and 3: The guy in white is taking out his money and counting in the lift.

Photo 4 and 5: As he reaches the void deck, somone is looking from a distance at the $$$.

Photo 6: The guy in helmet snatches the money.

Photo 7 and 8: He was beaten by the white shirt guy with his umbrella.

Photo 9: The 'robber' surrender and unveil his face as he took out his helmet.

Photo 10: The white shirt guy realized the 'robber' was his friend, and laughed at him. He helped him up and walked off together.

To admit, this is a simple story plot and getting the guys to act out naturally was already a task! *laughs*

Assignment 2

Assignment 2
Theme: Needful Things. Making images talk

The object I have chosen is the Fan as it was just infront of me while I was brainstorming for ideas.

I used freehand drawing on the fan and the outcome was not good as the pressure of the pencil was inconsistent. This tutorial was done on the ivle forum and I had the chance to look at my fellow classmates’ works. They were gorgeous as most of them uses photoshop.
Thus, to improve on my work, I decided to change my object and use photoshop instead.

The new object I have chosen is Popeye.
This is my first draft.
Many people ask me why the 5th picture is like this. I would tell them that I thought of creating a fading effect but anyway it didnt work well. hee.

After some comments from Siti, I edited to improve on it.

At the 1st level of abstraction, I took out the colour, the eyes and sweat.
At the 2nd level, I eliminate some lines on his cap, the lines around his mouth and his eye brows.
At the 3rd level, I erased the thick lines on his cap, and the black colour on his pipe and mouth.
At the 4th level, I decided to erase more things as Popeye is still recognizable! His well known nose and pipe!
And finally the 5th picture, I decided that the outline of Popeye is a good representation of him as his pipe, chubby face and the cap is a good symbol of popeye's appearance.

And there, my most favorite and chosen representation of Popeye is the 5th picture. =)

Hello everyone!

Hello everyone, beloved tutors and Prof Julian for NM2208. =)

Have a delight journey while surfing through this blog.

Assignment 1 : Design Process
Theme: Me, Myself and I

I brainstormed several ideas for my loves and hates.

My Loves includes : Mushrooms, sceneries, pillows, soft toys, sun, flowers

My Hates includes: cigarettes, insects, raining , housework, flies, huge chunk of words

Final shortlisted ideas are MUSHROOMS and CIGARETTES.

I will present my works for MUSHROOMS first.

Pictures of the 4 design concepts. All hand drawn.

After I have presented to the class, majority like the mushroom pic from sample 1.
Comments I received from the class are the letter I is too fat and basically it looks fine and cute. After using photoshop to apply colours onto MUSHROOMS, this is the outcome for my tentative product.

Mistakes Made:
1. Alignment and framing wrong. Picture is more to the left.
2. Colour Scheme: All types of colour. Analogous, complementary, tertiary colours.
3. No focal point.
4. New to the photoshop software: Being curious, I tried several effects and colours.

During consultation, Siti enlightened me by saying that sometimes simplicity works best.
The previous picture was too hard to revamp entirely and the outlines were hard to form on photoshop.So I decided to use the 3rd sketch. Simple and easy to outline.

I used simpler colours and effects.

And it turns out to be nicer and organized than the previous one. =)

1st Draft

2nd Draft

Some grass were removed, background added, and outline effects on the mushrooms.

Next, My hate is cigarettes. These are the 4 sketches.
Pictures for 4 sketches


Finally, I chose sample 1. as i want to bring the addictive feeling of smoking and the idea of cigarettes imprisoning the smoker. Not on the detest of cigarette. I drew handcuffs on the cigarettes and hopefully they look like TT. And the Letter “Y” is actually a stick of cig surrounded by a rope and being nailed. In all, I just want to express the feeling of addiction of the cigarette that actually tied a smoker down. And yes, I hate the feeling of addiction to cigarettes and not the smell or people smoking.
Last of all, I use photoshop to colour my drawing. Comments were that it seems messy and complicated. There were also good comments saying that it looked nice, however a little complicated though.

My final decision is to keep it the way it is as the idea of the picture is to show the messliness, smoky and complexity of the cigarettes effect on humans.
Colour scheme: mostly monochromatic, different shades of brown