With all the projects done and completed, the time has come for the end of this module and i'm glad to say that i have learned heaps in terms of techniques and skills, and also theory, and i appreciate the effort that the lecturers and TAs have put in. This module has definitely got me more interested in design and the exposure that i gleaned from this experience is valuable and has developed my thirst for design even more.

My Reflection:

For this project I teamed up with Jia Hwa, Karen, Louis and Zhengyi. I had a lot of fun working on this project as there was sketching and drawing involved and we basically could come up with any storyline we wanted as long as our creativity permitted. We had several ideas and we finalized on Jia Hwa’s idea of the story of love and flying between two fairies named Elly and Kurt. We used Zhengyi’s drawings as the characters of the story and we further refined them from there and integrated them into the storyline. The more detailed design process can be found in our design document and it is impossible to upload the picture files here as they are HUGE.

My Reflection:

For this assignment I teamed up with Karen to come up with a set of slides regarding critically analyzing movie posters and so we decided to use both a modern and olden movie poster. Below are some of the posters we picked:

We chose the top 2 posters for our ‘subjects’. We felt that this assignment helped us to look at the thought that goes into designing posters and I guess any form or print advertisements for that matter and it gave us a deeper understanding of such design concepts.

My Reflection:

I used a simple design for this assignment and I had some inspiration from a bathroom towel that had some ribbons on it. To me the ribbon symbolizes the gift of sharing that we celebrate with our loved ones for special occasions especially Christmas. Thus, I decided to use this ribbon and multiply it to make an arrangement of ribbons and use it as the fundamental design for the greeting card. I replicated the ribbon by drawing it by hand and scanning it in and touching it up with the help of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. I varied the size and opacity of each ribbon to create a kind of faded background that contrasted with the solid ribbons up front. I chose a striking red for the ribbons and a cheerful green for the background to signify the theme of Christmas.

In the end i came up with the final product...

Face of the card:



Back:

My Reflection:

I developed a certain concern that I always had with me for this assignment. I was always disturbed when I see people, especially close friends of mine, mutilate themselves but cutting their wrists and so I decided to display this concern I had visually by turning it into a poster. If I had a function for this poster, it was to convict people of abusing themselves, to let them know the extent of damage they are inflicting upon themselves (both physically and emotionally) as well as those dear to them. I would want them to see that the practice of self-mutilation would have long-term repercussions and when they do grow out of such a phase, they would regret doing this to themselves. I would want them to lead fulfilling lives instead.

In designing this poster I took a picture of my hand and used a red marker to replicate scars on my wrists. Then I cropped the picture of my hand using the magic eraser tool (a highly useful and effective tool I recently discovered how to use) and placed in onto a black layer. Next I added in the words and highlighting the important words such as ‘Right’, ‘Live’, ‘Happiness’ and ‘You’ to communicate the essence of the message I was bringing across.

Same tries shooting my hand at different angles:





I chose this shot eventually...




Final Product:

My Reflection:
I came up with a story for this assignment and this is how it goes:

Frame 1: One day a man gets a letter in his mail.

Frame 2: He gets the shock of his life.



Frame 3: He takes his best clothes out of the wardrobe to wear them.






Frame 4: He looks at a picture of his family.





Frame 5: He dons his clothes.





Frame 6: He walks out the house.





Frame 7: He climbs the stairwell to the rooftop.





Frame 8: He climbs the ledge there.





Frame 9: He glances down at the ground from the ledge.





Frame 10: He shouts for joy at the top of his lungs.











The story is portrayed to make the reader think that this man received a piece of bad news from the mailbox and he decides to commit suicide and he dresses up ceremoniously after looking at his family in the picture frame. He heads to the rooftop where he plans his suicidal act. The twist comes when he actually lets out a shout of joy and the piece of news that he received was actually that he won a businessman of the year award and he has been asked to photograph himself on a rooftop to signify a triumphant achievement to be featured in the Straits Times.

This was shot entirely with a 6.1 megapixel camera and the rooftop of the block in which I reside. The actor is a close friend of mine who happens to stay in the block next to mine.

My Reflection:

For this assignment I felt there was a need for an idea that would be unorthodox or rather something uncommon that most people would not think of like the usual toilet bus stop and computer station signs and so I mustered all my creative muscle and thankfully came up with something original, which was to create a pictogram to tell people that certain restaurants on campus had happy hour. Then the next challenge was to develop on some of the pictures I found off the net. I settled on the one with a clock and that had the words ‘happy hour’ on it. I saw another picture on the net which had a smiley face and so I incorporated the smiley face into the abstraction process (hoping I wasn’t deviating too much from the requirements). I thought doing so would be important in portraying the happiness that an alcoholic would feel when he sees a happy hour sign.

The only regret I had doing this was that I wished i could have developed this into a much more colourful and eye-catching pictogram as I’m not so apt in using design software but nevertheless the future allows me to develop on this. I added in a symbol from Illustrator which was the flames to signify a somewhat burning desire to consume alcohol, which may sound a little crooked. haha.

Below are a few ideas i got off the Internet as well as a couple of rough sketches to illustrate the concept i had in mind.






I decided to incorporate both these ideas into my final abstraction process...





Sketches:





Final Abstraction Process:



Chosen Pictogram:

For the second part of assignment 1, which is to show what i hate to do, my initial idea was to say 'I hate barbed wire' because i cannot imagine being pricked by some. So below are some of the thumbnail sketches that i did and the first 3 would be different representations of barbed wire twisted around to form my name 'Ben'.

Barbed wire 1


Barbed wire 2


Barbed wire 3


For this sketch i decided to change my idea to 'I hate thorns', since i hate being being pricked by them and i have had a real experience of scratching my arm against some thorns. I have never been pricked by barbed wire and so it's more personal. I came up with a rough sketch as this and developed it further.


I further developed the above sketch into a rough prototype which is shown below.


Finally, i added in some colour and did some touch-ups to come up with the final piece shown below.

These are 4 thumbnail sketches that i did for the "I Love..." representation for assignment 1.
Basically i wanted to say "I Love HipHop" and so i drew symbols that represented HipHop.



The 1st is rap as depicted by a microphone and a ring with words is worn on the hand that is gripping the microphone. This ring is considered fashion jewellery in HipHop culture or otherwise termed as 'Bling'.



The 2nd is 'Grills', which refers to the shiny toothcaps that rappers like Nelly are seen wearing all the time. This is also a kind of HipHop fashion.



The 3rd portrays 3 elements of HipHop namely turntablism, rap & graffiti.



And finally the 4th represents just graffiti.



Eventually, i decided to narrow down the scope of what i love to do and say "I Love Graffiti" and so i came up with this rough piece or a prototype to develop into my final product for this assignment.



At the end of the road, this is my final piece for this part of the assignment. Some of my classmates suggested i added more pictures since it has a graffiti theme as words would look a little plain, and so i added a garbage can and some empty spray cans on the ground. i'm not very good at drawing pictures and so i thought that was the best i could come up with at my level. Another classmate suggested i have a background like a brick wall and so i incorporated that into the design as well and i think it worked out pretty well.

Hi there, this online journal officially documents the various design processes for the completion of my portfolio for the module NM2208, also known as Principles of Visual Communication. I'm a fan of music rather than art and sketchwork, but it's definitely an area of interest to build upon and learn along the way. Any help is appreciated and any comment is certainly welcomed. Enjoy your stay.


peace