Assignment 5 - Chosen work

The final work I've selected is the Nostalgic one. I thought it is better representation of Asia and asia's characteristic.
The quote written there is as follows.
"Embracing the old, Asia"

"Amidst our quest for prosperity and modernization, we take some time to look into our past."

I sort of want to bring out an Asian characteristic which is that the old always occupies a space in our lifes. Look at our calendar and often we can find holidays which are a few centuries old.

The colours remained colourful to fit the colourful Asia theme.
Sorry for not following instruction as the back of the post card should be white.

Assignment 5 - Final Work themes

I decided to come up with the colour swatches to portray clearer what kind of colour scheme I was planning. The 6 theme I came up with are Nostalgic, Eerie, Festive, Comic, Majestic and Gothic.

Nostalgic - Represented by the the colour of brown which brings out the feeling of old and antique. Something like remnance of the past.

Eerie - Green lights as we know from movies have this ghostly feel.

Festive - Without a doubt lots of red as though it is Chinese New Year. Japanese and Korean too have their own respective new years which are also represented in a very vibrant colours.

Comic - Black and White are not colours which I guess do not fit into the theme. However I'll just include it. It very much makes it very comical and feels funny

Majestic - Represented with Gold and Purple which in Asian context represents royalty. Purple dyes are the most expensive and hard to get and hence purple robes were only seen with nobles. Same for gold which are usually for the emperors or kings.

Gothic - I would rename it as sinister. The red in black background feels as though something bad has happened or going to happen.

Cheers~! Hope to add more themes

Assignment 5 - Development Process

I decided that lanterns are a very good representation of Asia after doing a search on lanterns on wiki. The origin of lanterns are mainly Asia and today there are different kind of lanterns specific to different cultures.

As such I did a research on the lanterns from the key Asian countries and gotten all these lanterns as my basis for my design

They are mainly from Japan, China, Korea and 1 more supposedly Vietnamese lantern.
I then decided that it would be good to include a modern lamp post to illustrate lanterns in our contemporary modernized world.

Assignment 4 - Poster Design Final

The 3 animals represent the 3 most commonly eaten meat in an Asian context. Pork, Chicken and Beef. I made it so cartoonish for a reason. When we were young, animals were often portrayed as cartoons and we always treat it as our friends in the world of cartoons. However as we mature we forget them as our friend and treat them as a food source. So the cartoonish feel is to remind people they are our happy friends.

I portrayed the boy eating apple from the tree as a symbol of being a vegetarian. In my opinion, I can cover the wordy parts below, read 'World Peace starts from what you choose to eat' then look at the boy eating apple, and immediately imply that it encourages vegetarian diet. Without even mentioning the word Vegetarian.

The smiling animals is used to enhance the happy and utopia feeling when we choose our diet wisely, and world peace can be related to the utopia background where clear blue sky and grassland are what we would commonly use as a place of peace and happiness.
The words below pretty much explains why one should be a vegetarian and the website is non existent.

Assignment 4 - Poster Design Process

The poster which I want to design is about Going Green more specifically Going Veg. The motive the poster would be to encourage more people to embrace a vegetarian diet.
I wanted to portray a world similar to Utopia where love and peace is the feeling one would get at first sight.
Though it remains very distant for many how being a vegetarian can bring you to Utopia, I wanted to show that it is the first step and all posters are an exaggeration anyway.
In this Utopia I wanted to portray happy animals living happily with human beings and that's when I started googling for inspiration which would be coherent to what I intent to design. I stumbled upon the 2 picture above. The pigs looked like a good illustration in which I can draw as Pork is one of the main diets in asia. As such I traced and modify the pig for it so that it is not an exact replica.
The second picture is what I envisage my background to be. Simple yet shows a very fantasy happy world.

Class Exercise 2 - Basic Elements

My partner is Esmund Wong and we came up with the above abstract images. They were shown to Miss Chiang and she was able to tell what what words it represented just at 1 glance. This shows that for this exercise we have successfully conveyed our message visually.
Kindly open the class_exercise2.pdf and look at the the class DW3 and I am sure whoever reads this can tell very fast too. =)
Passage and Order.
Passage is obvious but why Order is like that? We had a discussion and the reason is because we jokingly wanted to show a monks head with the 9 dots which will represent a monk's lifestyle which are supposedly to be discipline and orderly. But it was more of a joke and we realize that the 9 dots placed properly 3x3 is indeed very orderly.
Cheers~!.

Assignment 3 - Photo Story

This is my final Photo Story. It is very eye catching for the wrong reason when it was put up for critique in tutorial. This is because I did not follow the instruction to have them all in a standard 3R size. The following are my reasons that I would argue for not following the instruction. =)

1. This is not the final work to be graded
2. Different sizes of photograph in my opinion is crucial because every photograph have different weight in the story and the sizes would drastically affect storytelling as compared to all standard 3Rs one.
3. Encourages the flow of creativity

Nevertheless, rules are there for you to follow and that is why we are safe in this land of law and order so don't break it unnecessarily or you shall face the consequences. Hehe.
I have yet ask Miss Chiang if I should change it to conventional all 3R, I have no problems with it all don't get me wrong I'm not a rebel.

A brief description of the photo story. Basically tells of a Policeman presence in the scene followed by a gangster to set people thinking that there should be an engagement very soon. As the policemen spots the gangster(the eye effect, photo 4), he runs towards him(photo 5) about to grab him for questioning(Photo 6). Only to end up in the toilet shitting(Photo 7). Such an abrupt change is being explained in the last photo which is supposedly a close up of photo 3 where there is actually a toilet infront of the gangster and the policeman simply just spotted the toilet and is running towards the toilet.


During tutorial class I think Penny gave a very good suggestion to have a scene where the Policeman run past the Gangster. I think it would make the story more obvious however I'm not sure if I would have the the time to go retake the 1 shot. I'll see how things goes.
Special thanks to Kelvin Lim who did most of the photograph to my liking and modeling as the ganster. Pauline Ning for helping out and giving suggestions.

Assignment 3 - Story Dev Process

I did not make any preliminary sketch but instead wrote down my ideas for each scene as unlike an 'Arts' person I document my ideas in the form of words and it would remind me of the picture that I had imagined during my brainstorming session.

Scene 1 : Photo showing Policeman's Shoes and his leg (A strong sense power)
Scene 2 : A man walking straight ahead, background is a toilet sign however the focus is on the man toilet sign should be off focus and blur. Man has a tattoo on the neck stating ‘Bei Hai Tong’.
Scene 3 : Photo showing policeman’s upper body showing rank name, peak cap with a normal look
Scene 4 : Zoom into the eyes with a squinting look(Spotted something suspicious) like those on Anime
Scene 5 : Policeman running
Scene 6 : Back view of man and policeman as though policeman is going to tap knock and arrest the man, hand position of policeman near the toilet sign, focus is on policeman and man
Scene 7 : sitting on the toilet bowl (kek sai expresson)
Scene 8 : Photo similar to scene 6. However focus is on the toilet sign in front of the man with the policeman’s hand reaching the toilet sign

Assignment 2 - Prototype

I printed 2 prototypes which is the 4th and 5th reduction of my Pictogram Reduction. Ms Chiang was quick to dismiss the 4th Pictogram and I could understand why because it looks pretty complicated to me for a pictogram as well. Despite Ms Chiang acknowledging the last of my Pictogram Reduction, I chose the 5th one due to the following reason. I wanted to emphasize on the use of the laptop meaning you cannot use them. Unlike food and drinks which shouldn't be brought into the LT at all, I think it is reasonable to bring laptops into LTs. However should not use them while in the LT.
Thank you =).

Assignment 2 - Reduction Process

The theme of the assignment is nothing creative but something simple and easy to understand. It is on the use of laptops in lecture theatres.
Environment should be in lecture theatres together with the no eating and drinking sign. The rationale of this design is because laptops are a source of distraction in LTs as much as food and drinks are. Majority of laptop usage in LTs to me are more for entertainment/leisure rather than for academic purpose.
The first/second pictogram were traced from the photograph of my friend. A friend told me after seeing the last pictogram and informed that a no laptop signboard is already in the market and he has seen it in National Library however I am not sure how it looks like. The laptop was simply created by shear imagination and created using 2 rounded rectangles and a small white circle.

Assignment 1B - Final work!

My final work for Assignment 1A. The quote together with the illustration reflects my believe that everyman should always live to do the right thing, morally. We might have different moral standards due to different cultures and upbringing environment this is inevitable. However regardless, we should all try to live right to our very own moral standards and not be ignorant about our moral obligations.
As compared to my peers in my class my seem kinda plain and I would have to do some touch up before submitting it with my portfolio.

Assignment 1A - 2 Roughs

My final roughs for assignment 1a. I chose the Police theme because I think it is a good reflection of my characteristic and also that I enjoyed the manner at which I served my nation. I am grateful being a Singaporean as reflected in both rough with the Singapore flag as part of the 'N'. I think Singapore is a safe and prosperous nation where we can enjoy lifestyle over livelihood.

I think I am a person with a strong sense of justice when in comes to determining what is right and wrong. Hence I think police icons very much reflected that.

The 2 roughs have very slight deviation. I simply played with the same items just changing in their position with slight modification of how it looked. I focus on the way they are position to show my name 'CHUAN' as clearly as possible.

Thank you to whoever commented to my rough so that I know where I can make some modifications to my Assignment 1B. =)

Assignment 1A - 4 Sketches

This is my sketch with game elements forming my surname 'Chuan'. Needless to say, I enjoy playing video games and hence this is what I end up drawing. On top of that it is a reflection of my playful character. The sword, shield and axe may fall out of place however it is a representation of fantasy games which I enjoy playing on computer and also board games.Of all my sketches I think that the soccer themed one is the least visible when it comes to my name Chuan despite trying to bold the words.
I went to Chinese New Year visit and my relatives still recognize me as a Policemen even when I have ORDed for around 2 years. I certainly do enjoy my national service in the Singapore Police Force and I enjoy being the protectorate of the nation. However the reason why I chose to have such a theme is not just that I served my NS in Police but more because it is somewhat a reflection of my personality. To me it is important that we always do the right thing and I think law represents what is right. I also have a strong sense of justice when it comes to morality and righteousnous, and I am a fan of Justice Bao and Guan Gong... HAHA.. the TV drama show =).
Music is something that I have learnt since young and I admit I was forced by my parents to do so. However I am glad they did force me as I now enjoy playing the piano and guitar during my free time. Guitar and piano are reflected in the sketch as well as the standard musical notations. This is also my favourite sketch as I think i drew the piano, guitar and music notation pretty well. However for this sketch basically I could only use black and white for the most part and I thought I couldn't use colours extensively so in the end I did not choose this.

Of all the 4 sketches, I think thiis one is the least discernible because I really encounter a lot of problem trying to make out the 'A' and the 'N' despite trying to highlight the letters. There is one common thing though among all my sketches, that is you can always find 2 'Chuan's in my sketches. 1 would be used to form the main words while the other one would be written out somewhere in the picture. This acts as a backup plan for those who have problem trying to make out the words. I kind of embedded this subliminal information and the outcome would be.... No one can say I don't know what word this picture is forming because is written there already!

Assignment 1A - Thumbnail sketches

The above are the thumbnail sketches that I have drawn which is supposed to be free flow of ideas however I admit that I spend quite an effort in drawing them because if I had allowed my ideas to free flow with my hand, I wouldn't have drawn anything discernible. I broke it up into Music, Game, Soccer, Police which I intend to draw for my 4 sketches.

Assignment 1A - Thought Process

The following is my thought process for this assignment. For me I started off by brainstorming and pen them down in words. I know for many the flow of ideas translate into drawings however that's not for me. I simply systematically write down my interest and all the related items that come to my mine before I start working on my sketch.

Lecture Exercise 1

The very first exercise

Hello. This is the very first exercise that we were task to do in the very first lecture. What a great start with such a horrendous looking picture to kick off the new semester. Anyway, the objective of this exercise is to start the ball rolling by sketching a machine that enhances one's creativity by 100 times.

Obviously this exercise is not suppose to be a realistic portrayal I guess it is most likely to jump-start the creative part of our brain. I look around and my friends had stuffs really out of the world and it isn't really a machine any more.

My Creative Oxygen Machine

For me, I think pretty straightforward (I'm not sure that is good or bad). The word 'machine' really restricted my imagination even though the lecturer encouraged not to. Regardless, I diverted my creativity to the make up of the machine.

I imagined that enhancing creativity should first be something received by the user and in my case it is fed to the user through oxygen. The user lies in the incubator the same way you do so for artificial tanning while a pump would pump in 'Creative' oxygen which I named CrO2 (after which realizing that Cr stands for Chromium). But anyway you get the point. I added an additional function to the machine if you realize, you can adjust the scale of input.

Can I draw?

A trick question by our lecturer Jing(Ms Chiang), "Who in this lecture cannot draw?" Well I raised my hand. But 'duh' who cannot draw, its only whether the drawing is good or bad. In the standard of the artistic world, my sketch is nonsense. But in terms of visual communication, I think I fulfilled the objective because it is intuitive what my drawing is all about it is not that bad that no one would understand what the picture is all about.

However if we were to look seriously I probably need to work more on my drawing because it is horrendous as I have difficulty drawing the 'coffin' into a normal 3D rectangular shape. I also struggled to draw a person, something that I couldn't do for 22 years. But anyway it is the first exercise and the photoshop/illustrator part hasn't come in so hopefully better stuff would be up as we turn to software to aid the horrendous drawing.

Thank you!