Assignment 5b: Greeting Card recreated.

I've no idea why the colors turned out like this. Looks fine on my computer until blogspot did something evil to it!!!!! TO BE FIXED.

assignment 6 - Good/bad poster design analysis

Valerie and I paired up to analyse a good poster and a bad poster. This is what we found. The first is a poster from the movie The Dark Knight (OMGGGG all their posters are amazing! this is my favourite), and the second is some random poster, advertising for some club event which we found online as well.

Reflections: After analysis and all, I find that Gestalt Principles actually coincide with some of the other design elements we learnt earlier in the semester. Like how similarity and continuity is achieved with colors - same color, there's continuity and similarity, or a pattern in contrasting colors even, can achieve those. They all have to work together and negotiate towards a good design. Yupppppppppp. So these are two posters (see below!).

Good Poster

Figure & Ground:

• Size - figure is smaller background


• Contrast - between foreground and background (hazy); tagline thus stands out since it is in red and it is against monotone background colors.


• Details - figure is more defined; it is in a stronger tone than the hazy grey background which fades off.
  

Proximity


•Red smile seems to be superimposed on the face behind, creating the trademark face of the joker
•All the main poster elements are unified in the center, contains the attention of the viewer


Similarity



•Colours: only red and monotone
• Similarity in the tagline which continues into the joker's face - guides viewer’s line of sight

Principles of Interaction

•Visual harmony (economy)
•Use of negative space (head) to contrast and balance out the strong red colour

Bad Poster

Figure & Ground


•Difficult to distinguish between figure and ground
•No single emphasis
•Weak contrast


Proximity



•No variance in proximity, everything looks lumped together
•Weak unity


Similarity & Continuity

•Elements looks jarring
•Messy, no sense of continuity
•Elements in poster do not guide reader’s attention

Princples of Interaction

•Weak unity and contrast
•No visual balance
•Too many elements speckled all over the place, no economy

Assignment 5 - Greeting Card: CHRISTMAS

This week we are supposed to be experimenting with colors while designing a christmas/new year's card. I've chosen to do christmas, because I love christmas! and I decided to have a theme for my card, which is something mushy/lovey.

Color schemes

Card cover

Inside Card

So, as seen, the idea is that on the outside, one will see that "Something's missing atop my christmas tree.." and I've purposely made an "empty glow" where the star is supposed to be to enhance the bareness of it. Also, the background I've chosen cooler colors; dull shades of grey/blue, and the tree isn't colored, so everything looks a little duller.

In contrast, the inside I've made it slightly more colorful because I've found my "star", i.e. "YOU!" (so mushy, i know).

Comments I got in class was that, the color contrast isn't great enough to convey the meaning I wanted to. So I thought about making the front even "grey-er" and the inside even more colorful with contrasting/complementary bright colors. However, with even more thought, I realised, it's a christmas card! don't think many will be excited to see a dull card cover or even buy it off the shelf. You wouldn't be attracted to it to even take it off the shelf, right?

Sighhhh. I think I'm changing my concept. Till later then!

Assignment 4 - POSTER DESIGN

This is my poster design. We're supposed to work on a poster with the theme SAVE/PREVENT. I've decided on Prevent Breast Cancer/SAVE YOUR BREASTS. I researched on different type of posters online, and what I realy liked were simple, minimal posters. And I thought, such a style would work for something sensitive like Breast cancer. Often, too much detail or too abstract design tend to either turn people off, or not get the message across effectively. So, I worked around using the silohuette of a female body, with emphasis on the breasts (as seen, it's in darker grey). Similarly, I used a darker shade of pink for the words "breasts" in the title.

For the text, I decided to place it to the left, as readers' eye movement usually start from the left and this would aid reading. Putting it in the middle captures attention as well.

So above was the design I presented in class. Received quite positive comments, cos it's simple and it gets the message across quite immediately. Only one thing, that the copy text and title could be shifted slightly more to the right, so that there's more breathing space on the left. Will try post my edited copy soon.

Assignment 3 - U C What I C

photo 1

photo 2

photo 3

photo 4 photo 5
photo 6

photo 7

photo 8

The story is quite straightforward in my opinion! I'll go through my concept photo by photo;

1. Introduction of first character who is on the phone. Shows she has her purse on the table as well, which makes it consistent with the ending. However, so as not to make the climax/ending so obvious, I have other elements/objects in the photo so that not too much attention is paid to the purse, for example, the umbrella and character talking on the phone.

2. Introduction of 2nd character in background, and shows 1st character walking off.

Guy is seen looking at her from a side glance, which makes it seem slightly suspicious, especially since the girl can't see him. He is purposely seated in the background, where it is more shadowy, enhancing the "suspicious effect".

1st character when walking off, is blocking her purse, so audience are not led to knowing she has left her purse behind.

3. Girl seen walking up stairs.

4. Guy following her, and she still doesn't notice him.

5. Girl becomes suspicious, and turns back to look around.

I've purposely chosen a spacious setting and put her more towards the left 1/3 of the photo, so that it enhances her "aloneness" and the "danger" of the situation she is in.

6. Guy taps her shoulder.

7. She turns and wants to whack him with the umbrella. Introduces the purse, but not too obvious.

8. Revelation! With focus on the purse as it is a bright pink, and is put in the foreground.

Assignment 2 - Final

So I've decided to choose my 4th degree of abstraction as my final design - it is recognisable as laundry because of the washing machine structure and the representation of laundry in the tee-shirt shape and water line. It has been reduced to what I think is the bare minimum to still remain recognisable. If I'd chose my 3rd degree of abstraction, it still seems like it could be simplified further; and if I'd chosen the last degree, it wouldn't be comprehensible at all. It could be a TV or something.

Also, I made very slight changes to the final pictogram - shifted the water line higher so it better depicts water, and made the "t-shirt" a little smaller.

Assignment 2 - Needful Things

Washing Machine

I've decided to work on abstracting a washing machine, to represent the laundry rooms in Halls of Residences in NUS. So firstly, cos' my digital camera is down, I took a washing machine most similar to the one I use in Sheares Hall from the Internet.

1. Photo

2. First Degree of Abstraction
I drew the washing machine using Adobe Photoshop with line/pen/shape tools. I kept it 3D, and added an abstract picture of a t-shirt representing clothing, and kept the bare details of the machine like the buttons and the brand name.

2. 2nd Degree of Abstraction
I removed the shades of colors and added a line to represent laundry, instead of just clothings. I reduced the number of details (e.g lesser knobs/buttons and the removable box on the bottom left of the machine) as well.

3. 3rd Degree of Abstraction
In this degree of abstraction, I removed even more details such as the double circle as I felt it was unneccessary. The brand was also not essential to understanding the pictogram.

4. 4th Degree of Abstraction
I decided to make the washing machine 2D so it looks less complicated.

5. 5th Degree of Abstraction
I removed the laundry and left the basic structure of the machine in this degree of abstaction. It however looks too simple and could be anything; not necessarily a washing machine.

Assignment 2 - Getting Started!

So we were given our assignment for this week. We're supposed to design a pictogram for NUS, and in the process show how we've made decisions on simplifying it from a photo and present the bare essentials sufficient and communicative enough to convey the message. In other words, people must be able to immediately associate the picture with what it is intended to communicate.

I've a few ideas on what I might want to explore:

1. Central Library
2. Washing Machine in Halls of Residence
3. Lockers in NUS

Till then :)

Assignment 1 - Me Myself and I

Firstly, I've to declare that I can't draw very well, so it is no wonder that I found myself stumped at lecture last week when we were told to sketch/draw thumbnails for our very first assignment. Pardon my drawings if they look a little...juvenile?

Anyway these are my initial sketches - 4 for Love and 4 for Hate:

What I did to formulate these sketches was to come up with a "mind map" of sorts based on "What I Love" and "What I Hate", and I picked out Japanese food from Love and I could only think of creepy crawlies for Hate.



For Love, I really liked the first sketch because it was simple and it didn't look ltoo cartoony. The second sketch, I was working around individual japanese food to form my name, but it wasn't very interesting and looked like I was too lazy to think of anything better (haha). I quite like the third and fourth, but I think it might be kind of difficult to make my name look like part of the sushi/sashimi. If the colours and bolding are not done well, it might just seem like I was conveniently drawing my name into the shape of the object.

So, finally I picked the ones I fancied most (sketch 1 for Love and Sketch 2 for Hate) and used Photoshop to work on them. I used the pen tool to sketch out the outline. I had to manually draw/fill in a lot of lines because for my sketches, I used a HB pencil, which turned out too light and my scanner couldn't detect most of the outline. So now I know I should use a 2B pencil at least the next time I draw. Also, I used the paint bucket tool for the colours and magic wand to detect "color zones". The following are my prototypes for the assignment:


[upload Hate sketch]


One feedback I got from the tutorial was that I could add a mouth to show the "tastiness" of japanese food, but I've decided to do away with the suggestion because I tried sketching it out in my roughs and I just couldn't fit it in with the overall design, so I didn't want to add it in just for the sake of it. All in all, I'm pretty satisfied with my final piece :) hope it's all right!