Assignment Five - Personalise Your Notebook

1st Draft

Concept:

Exterior

The covers portray the dark side of reality, and how childhood fantasies about adult life often turn out false. The colourful balloons the little boy is holding, symbolise the many happy dreams a child normally has, and hopes he holds for the future. However, the balloons are all floating towards a mess of dark clouds. This is to convey the sense of ominous and impending doom for the balloons.

Interior

A sole flower shaped like a heart, is amongst the bushes. It is bending over, as if dead. This is supposed to complement the text 'love is dead'. However, I realised that the text does not reflect the message I'm trying to convey at all.

Techniques:

Balloons

• The balloons are brightly coloured to portray the cheeriness and brimming hope the child holds.
• The balloons nearer the clouds are drawn smaller than the rest, as to communicate depth in the image, and that the balloons are floating away from the viewer, and in a sense, 'into' the laptop.

Child

• The child is drawn to sit on the logo of the laptop, as I deduce that many other artworks would most likely ignore the logo, and therefore I have decide to incorporate it into my work.

Overall

• A gradient of grey and white is used, in a diagonal way. This allows the portion where the child is at, to be brighter, to convey the sense of positivity. Conversely, the dark clouds are enveloped by the darker grey, and this carries the meaning of negativity.
  

2nd Draft

Reasons for changes:

Addition of lightning flashes:

• makes it clearer to viewer that those are lightning clouds
• reinforces the threatening ambience intended in the work.

Change in text from 'love is dead' to 'reality is harsh':

• I realised that the latter makes more sense as it relates to the entire message I am trying to convey.

Heart-shaped flower replaced with broken balloon:

• From the comments I received, I realise that some find it ambiguous what happens to the balloons after they float towards the dark clouds. Hence, the broken balloon amongst the bushes will show that the balloons burst and drop back to the land, when they hit the clouds.
  

Reflections:

I have never thought of how important colours are, in our judgement of objects, until this assignment. After listening to the lecture on colours and doing the assignment, the significance of colours proved to be overwhelming, and in fact, most important amongst all other elements.

It is colour that our brains register first, whether it be a new acquaintance (skincolour), a shirt, a house etc. Colour is such a dominant element that it is vital to know the various symbolic representations of different colours, in order to be a good designer.

Assignment Four - Save/Prevent/Kill ... Poster design

Draft 1, 2, 3 : Stop Social Phobia



This photograph is of my brother (again! :D) and it is used as the main and only image in the poster.

Draft 1



Text is then added in.

Draft 2



The poster is photoshopped to create a more gritty feel, and a spotlight is placed near the top right corner, to enhance the aesthetics of the poster.

Draft 3



A blue hue is added, however it might be mistaken to portray a 'underwater' ambience, which is not what was intended.

Draft 4 : Stop Depression

The theme was changed from stopping social phobia to stopping depression, as general opinions from friends reveal that they thought the poster was about depression, rather than social phobia.

The blue hue was replaced with a greenish black hue. This creates an overall gloomy effect, which was in coherence with the theme of the poster.

The text was reduced to only one line, as I realised that too much text actually distracted the viewer and provided little focus. Also, the poster left a more lasting impression on viewers with this one-line, rather than with the long block of text.

Final Draft

The text was re-arranged. The portion, "never meant to be for life" was placed in the spotlight's beam, to promote focus on these words. Also, alignment of text allows eyes to travel from top to bottom of the poster, and finally end off reading the phone number given, in small text.

Comments:

Friends all approved of my poster, some even commended that it looked rather professional. :D

Reflections:

This assignment allowed me to reflect on what posters should (and should not) incorporate in order to achieve its purpose.

A poster is often created to convey a specific meaning, with the intended function to persuade, inform, to warn etc. Specific methods should be used in accordance with the intended function. For example, a poster which is used to warn, should capture attention by using bright colours.

Everything in a poster should serve a purpose, or else it should be considered redundant and removed. Posters are often placed on walls, and so attention given to it is very short. Any irrelevant information or elements will discourage the viewer from further viewing the poster, and a poster which nobody looks at, is a poster which has failed. Blocks of text which only tires the reader and diminishes interest should be deleted. Images which steal attention from the main object of interest should be edited or removed, to prevent distraction.

The font of any text in the poster, should reflect the theme of the poster. Consistency is a crucial determinant in constructing an effective and visually pleasing poster.

Assignment Three: Photo-essay with a twist

I got my brother to star in this photo-essay of mine. :)

The story
He receives a phonecall about a meeting that will start in thirty minutes. Extremely flustered, he spends a great deal of time writing on Post-it notes and his whiteboard, reminders that there's a meeting later. Also, time ticks while he dresses for the meeting later. Finally, when he is ready, he realises it's already past the meeting time, to his horror.


The twist
how ironical it was that he was trying so hard to remember to be punctual for his meeting, and spending so much time writing notes to remember, only to overshoot the meeting time.


Comments:

The class generally found the storyline confusing, and the photos ambiguous. Apparently, they wouldn't have been able to piece the story together without my narration. This all points to a lack in focus for my photos, and a weak flow throughout the story.

Also, I feel that the twist is rather mild, and was not conveyed clearly in the photos.


Hence, I think it would be more apt to create an entirely new photo-essay, rather than improve on this.

/Edited

Final Work for Assignment Three

Having failed rather miserably for my first attempt for the photo-essay, i had no choice but to redo the assignment. And so i set to work on brainstorming for ideas and stories which i could tell using photos, plus they needed to have a quirky, surprise twist. i tapped on everything i came into contact with, for inspiration. Bus-stops, teachers, campus life. Finally, it dawned on me.

Shall not give anything away yet. Hopefully, these photos make sense! :D and read on!

The Story:

Viewers are led to believe that a business man is stressed out about his work. But finally, it is revealed that the man is just trying to welll, do some other kind of business. :P

Comments:

People who i've shown this series of photos manage to piece the story together without much problem, so hooray! :D

Reflections:

Yar, the idea struck me when i was answering nature's call, hee.

Anyway, I made sure to take photos using the same alignment throughout - all landscape, because the tutor had specifically reflected that it was distracting to the viewer, to look at a chain of photos which alternated between landscape and portrait alignment. I guess, it's because the different alignments broke the consistency, and in turn, disrupted the train of thoughts that the viewer was trying to link up into a story.

One thing i must note, it was so much more difficult than i had imagined to convey a story, using no words at all. Emotions and actions which seemed blatantly obvious to the signifier, was in fact insignificant and often looked over, by the intended recipient. An outsider's point of view was particularly important in this assignment, as only he/she could accurately tell you if the correct message had been conveyed.

Also, to link up seemingly disjointed photos into a story proved difficult, and it was no easy task to capture the necessary (i must emphasise on the word NECESSARY, as irrelevant elements only served to distract and confuse the viewer from the main message) elements of a picture into a frame.

Not forgetting, special thanks to my boyfriend for agreeing to be in the photos. :)

Assignment Two : Making Images Talk, Abstraction

The first is an iconic sign of a beggar, and it is being distillated, till it evolves into the final image, of two hands being held out. Generic meaning sets in at the fourth image.

The final symbol - Begging.

After the lecturer had given us this assignment, i had deduced from the avid discussions amongst my coursemates, that many people were going to be abstracting cars, planes, cellphones. I wanted to increase the challenging level a notch, and so i picked on the furthest item from everyday objects, i picked the action of begging to be abstracted. It was a really interesting theme to be working with, as it triggered me to wonder about the various signifiers of begging, and finally, i decided that the most universal of all was outstretched palms, facing upwards, with fingers curled.

I did not attend class for presentation of this work that day, as I was running a high fever. SOOO, i'm going to need your comments for this work. comment!!! :)

/Edited
Comments:

Having not attended lessons, I had to show my family and friends the final picture, and ask them what came to their minds. Most of them said begging, or things closely linked with begging. (donations, beggar etc) So this will be my final work, thankfully as the constant fever was definitely making the creative juices flow to an ebb.

Reflections:

It was rather interesting, to learn about the concept of signifier and signified. In this case, the very first image is iconic of begging, while the final image is both indexic and symbolic, as it suggests begging by the link that begging is often carried out with the action of holding out both hands. It could also be symbolic, as the culture of begging could differ in different environments, for example a society could recognise begging when they see a hat turned upside down, instead of the hands. This is because in that society, maybe begging is conducted merely with a hat for people to throw in donations, rather than outstretched hands.

Draft Two of Assignment One



I love being around nature. (spelling out JOCE)

the top image (in white) is a pencil-drawn sketch, which i scanned in and made edits with Photoshop, to result in the second image (in black).






I hate the pressures of life.

the background replica of the iron, was to create a looming effect which would serve the purpose of further emphasising on the overbearing and larger-than-life pressures. Black, white and shades of grey, were the only colours used to illustrate the fact that i HATED the pressures of life.



Comments: I had thought these would be the final sketches, but alas for the second one, EVERYONE thought i loved ironing (which is actually kinda true, hmm.) instead of i hate pressure. I changed it from the previous egg image to that of the ironing, which depicts my name being flattened by the iron, to illustrate pressures being exerted on me. But i guess trying to convey such an abstract idea was too ambitious a task, so i'll be changing the entire theme to something else (i contemplated keeping the image and just changing the theme to 'I love ironing', but that seems like cheating, so oh well.)

For the first 'i love nature' image, comments were generally positive, yay! Some even commended that the drawing was pretty, which was really heartwarming after some really long hours of sketching, and getting pencil marks and eraser shavings everywhere. hee. So i guess the first image would be my final work already. (thankfully :p)

/edited!!

I hate being in cramped spaces.

and so, the final sketch of the i-hate assignment!!

Honestly, there is just something irksome with being stuck in a place (think a bus, or train) with virtually zero space to move, and having to be in skin-to-skin contact with the next stranger beside me. Multiply the whole degree of disgust by hundred, if the stranger is sweating/stinking(mostly the first two characteristics come together)/making weird jerking actions. So there, the justification for my edited sketch.

This was how it initially looked like. Okay, good for you if you've noticed that this is one of the thumbnail sketches in my very first sketch. But it's my design afterall, and that can't be considered plagarism right. Plus, i did think it was a good design, which carried a strong visual message, and should thus, not be neglected and left in the dumps of the first sketch. :P

I used Photoshop to erase all the pencil markings scanned in, and to fill the image with colours using Brush function, and Magic Wand.

When i was sketching this thumbnail, i was thinking more along the lines of pressure, and that led me to imagine being compressed from all sides, hence the image. I added the lock to further emphasise on how it was impossible to be relieved from all that pressure, and compression. And that I(my name) was being caged in, and given no space to breathe. Lastly, the lock also served to tell the reader that the pressure wasn't created by myself, but an external source. But as mentioned previously, 'i hate pressures of life' is too abstract a concept, so to narrow it down, one of such pressures would be being stuck in cramped places almost everyday when you have to be in crowded transportation areas during rush hour. and so, the theme changed to 'i hate being in cramped spaces.'

Comments: All my peers whom i've shown this to, guessed correctly what the image was trying to convey on no more than three tries. Brilliant!! :D

the 2 X 2 A5 sketches of "i am ... , and i love/hate ..."

wooo, first tutorial's over! pretty interesting, and definitely a refreshing change to see and hear my fellow classmates, rather than just staring at the tutor for two whole hours. :) Some of the works were really impressive, while some were, just , ahem, lets just say, they've got a bit of work to do.
okay, who am i to comment actually. Just look at my sketches! they're still so problematic! :(

"My name is Jocelyn, and I hate the pressures of life."

In this sketch, I've chosen to use the image of an egg cracking under PRESSURE, and the yolk seeping out, to depict the strain from the combined pressures of life. My name 'JOCELYN', spelt in capital letters, is embedded in the cracks of the egg for both first and second sketches.

In the second sketch, the concept used is similar, with the addition of a grey woman's high-heels stepping on the egg. This is to heighten the sense of pressure in the drawing.

Both sketches are hand-coloured with felt-tip markers.

Comments: I have realised that this is too abstract an idea to express, and most are unable to understand what the drawing is intended to portray. Also, it is hard to tell the name apart from the lines of the crack in the egg.




"My name is Jocelyn, and I love being around nature."

In the first sketch, there's a close-up drawing of a fresh leaf, with a dew drop on its very tip to emphasise on the vibrancy of nature. My name is written using the inter-twisting veins of the leaf.

In the second sketch, a butterfly is drawn flitting around a flower. My name is written using the trail left behind by the butterfly.

Both sketches are hand-coloured with felt-tip markers.

Comments: The second sketch, is too literal as it just spells out my name without incorporating it into the picture fully.

Bah. If there's one thing the teachers have been emphasing, it is to learn to not fall in love with your very first draft. And so, i'm going to heed their advice, and forge ahead, and trash these sketches. Time to take out those colour pencils again..

Assignment One

This is the very FIRST assignment, and i'm pleasantly surprised at how excited i am with being able to do something i love for a school assignment - DRAWING!! i've always been a artyfarty at heart. :P

So, after a few hours, these are what resulted.

Sketch One, of eight thumbnails.
'my name is Jocelyn, and i hate the pressures of life' and 'i love being around nature'



will be having tutorial presentation soon! wonder how THAT will be like, hmm.

Reflections:

This assignment invoked a lot of thinking about self, and what i REALLY like, or hate. I was stuck for a long time, as it suddenly seemed like there was nothing i felt strong dislike, or like for. i had to will myself to imagine the activity i would most enjoy or hate doing, and that finally brought me to deciding on the themes of nature and pressure.

Communicating the concepts through manipulation of my name proved to be quite tough, as to mesh both text and imagery together, in a visually pleasing and sensible manner, required quite a lot of work. However, the assignment allowed me to imagine things in a different and out-of-the-box way that i normally would not do, in order to incorporate my name in the image. Also, it got me thinking of how i can twist the alphabets in my name, to portray as objects that would fit in the image.

In all, this first assignment was definitely a challenge and got my creative juices pumping, after a long hiatus from art!