Week 9 : Design Exploration

Existing Brochure Design

I am always fascinated with origami folds. How it could unravel the message from within. I wish I could show more but here are three of my favourite designs.

# Numerical Order From Left to Right

Design Reference #01 

Unravelling the fuller picture when unfolded. This technique of fold only require a slit in the middle while retaining the mystery of an unusual fold technique. I really love the simplicity in layout of information and shapes played throughout the brochure design.

 

 

 

Design Reference #02 

The die cut technique used in this context was extremely appropriate. I really love how the mountains are cut out to show you what you would expect when visiting the holiday resort. The bold colour at the bottom (blue waters) block out the text and let its audience read without any distraction in the area. This method of cutting really captivates the eyes and I felt that it was really well played.

 

 

Design Reference #03
This method of cutting the paper is interesting because the maker blocks out an area in the middle (where the eye first goes) to draw the attention of its audience. With this method, one can place important text or highlights within this sunken area of folds.

Playing With Folds

As I was exploring with folding methodologies, I tried to minimise the complexity of the fold or cut techniques mainly with considerations for mass production. As I refer to my internship experience, brochures that are designed with more cuts (die cuts) becomes more expensive. Also, the risk or error or bad production plays a part in these designs. Hence, I chose a more functional approach towards creating the folds, trying to seek a simpler form with a meaningful concept behind the simple folds.

One last example I would like to show was this technique of one step folding. Whereby the users open in one step, views the information, closes in one step. I feel that this direct approach really attracted me as a user and I wanted to explore with its possibilities. Changing some shapes to develop what I ultimately want.

Mock Up Folds

There are three mock up folds you can see below varying from the usual panel folds to 3D cut outs and pop up folding styles.

As I did the mock up folds, my focus was on the fact that there were not too many information. So I should not have too many panels that might end up empty. I looked at how a brochure could be easily handled and decided to go for an A4 choice rather than the allowed A3 size which most of my classmates were using.

Visual Studies 

I studied how the placement of text affects the hierarchy of information. Also, I wanted to implement a flow line which was recommended during consultation that it could be a subtle line of information rather than a solid line work.

G1 Week 10: Embarking On Project Two NTU Museum Tour Design

Design Concept

As the first step, our group worked on incorporating games and puzzles in hopes to create a fun factor for the NTU museum tour. A tour that deviates from the usual you would see in a formal setting. We wanted the users to make use of a kit to solve puzzles that will tell them various locations of the artworks scattered around the NTU campus.

Our works took references to the Tokyo Metro Game as well as the collection of travel stamps trend overseas.

Design Concept

Through fun activities, our design was to create a physical set of game kit. Directing users around campus to view the artworks. The balance between good and bad game design was the difficulty and we struggled to fuse the difficulty level along with interest level of the users. Upon speaking to some of our friends, they felt that it was not extremely enticing to get on these tours as they felt that it might be too difficult to  through some tasks. Time was key that the tours were not too long such that it disrupts their day.

Field Research

We made sure that each and everyone of us went down on different days and times to explore the situation and find out about the artworks. All of us had different perspectives and took note of different details. Menno in particular had the preference of looking at works from far, and how it harmonises with the surroundings while the rest of us took many close up shots.

Here are some photos which we had taken:

We hope to show you more and here are two links to the images we had taken

https://drive.google.com/open?id=10ZOC3O43lcCTZB6js35hAhSTHmUKkkcg

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CTlEjIHaWxsHFe0CePA0o9U8Xo5dHRMe

It was during our field trip that we realise that even as a NTU student, we had a hard time when we tried to look for the artworks as some of them are secluded or are exhibited at places which we ourselves didn’t knew existed. We each went on separate occasions and found out that it took us at least 4 hours to finish exploring the artworks listed.

This idea became not fun anymore when the design issue is time.

The tour was to allow users to visit the artworks at their own time, thus it was important to retain the idea of time efficiency. We decided to morph this idea while retaining the idea of fun!

Interesting Finds

Something interesting that we had never expected to find out was the word MUSEUM created by some of the artworks. It was definitely a gem found and Laura recommended that we could possibly use it in one of the marketing collaterals as it was certainly a unique point we had in the project.

Ultimately we decided to develop them into stickers which could be interactive sticker and cards used for special occasions such as on NTU orientation or open house. As constantly replenishing the items on a long run would be extremely exhausting for the NTU museum team.

Hence, we decided to also implemented a challenging tour which requires the effort of uses to discover the Muse in them. Allowing them to look at these thoughtfully designed images and match them according to their artworks. Only upon matching are they allowed to proceed onto the next location revealed.

Mapping

We plotted out a map of the artworks on campus and came up with a full tour route that is the most time efficient. We also decided to incorporate the bus routes around the campus, which we already mapped out in our previous project. However, at this point since we realise that the tour will take approximately 4hours long to complete the entire tour which we had mapped out. The duration is too lengthy and users will be easily exhausted since they are required to do a lot of walking as the artworks are scattered around the whole school compound. Thus, we took in the suggestion to split the artworks up into themes to create various sub-tours. By doing so we cut down on the time spent to 1-2 hours on each tour, which is more manageable for the users.

Shorter Route Options

As mentioned in our first project, the ability to choose shorter tour routes was extremely important. This allows the user to hold the flexibility of choosing a longer or shorter route according to their own time constraints. Lastly, we had the numerical markers on the map and key to finding the artworks as the overall map. This allows users to look at a glance where were the works located for informational purposes.

Ultimately, we derived two tours of <Find Your Muse> as well as the <Sustainability Tour> which allows you to look at a fun and challenging tour vs another tour which is direction for educating methods of sustainability initiatives taken on by NTU Museum.

 

 

 

Week 8 : Poster Exhibition

Final Improvements

As I continued to work on the layout and colours, I had to print out various test prints to look at how the poster is in real size. It was difficult to judge small details based on what we see on the screen as I could only see a small portion if I were to set to the A2 actual size. 

Some visual elements were improved to make more sense out of the poster. For example, the droplet that is falling from the cloud is a paint droplet squeezed from a tube of paint. 

Final Print Out

In the final print out, it was important to note the margins as well as reducing weight of certain text (top left) to reduce the complexity of the poster at one glance. 

I do acknowledge that there are still some small details which could be refined at this point of time. Nevertheless, the journey of poster design was an enriching one. I never expected myself to create a poster with so much thought and concept behind it. Looking back, I am proud of what had been achieved at the poster exhibition session. 

G1 Week 9: Essay Presentation

Prezi Style

As we came together for our group presentation, we realise that it was difficult to captivate the attention of our viewers through a simple essay presentation. Instead, we took the approach of Prezi Application as this was most appropriate for a discussion on space. The animated slides made our users go through a series of movements, as though looking through what we have reflected on.

The following is a link to our presentation slides.

https://prezi.com/view/YoWwDbGnahTvnoN55U42/

Week 7: Design Refinement & Mock Up

Colour Palette

As I added more elements to the poster design, I wanted to restrict myself to three main colours. Of which I chose the primary colours to work with.

Readability & Legibility

Script typefaces were selected as I wanted to bring out the crafty sense. However, when I looked at the typeface again, it was difficult to read from a distance and at close up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cursive words were not ideal and I tried with another typeface that shows a scribble effect while retaining a san serif block typeface. Also, I worked with a white font colour so that it could pop out of the darker surface colour. Upon testing out this, it worked and I decided to use it for my final print out. 

Test Print 

A test print was done to see the layout of the final design. I felt that the visual elements were too many and I decided to reduce the scattered white pieces.

Week 6: Design Exploration

Compositional Study #01

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my first digital translation, I tried to play around with placement of the images and text. I struggled to incorporate the text harmoniously with the poster design. I tried to go for an asymmetrical balance as I did not want the poster to seem too static. I also added musical elements with a flow line to enhance the visual appeal. After the discussion in class, I gathered through the feedback that the colours were distracting and the use of certain lines were redundant. The visual hierarchy was not clear with the layout as the smaller and larger icons were not distinctive.

Compositional Study #02


 

 

 

 

 

 

In my second composition studies, I started to develop along the texture of paper cut material to better visualise how the outcome should be. I retain some of the idea such as the pencil mountains as well as the sun while adding more visual elements. The use paper cut concept holds the entire poster together and seemed more together as compared to the previous concept.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Retaining the idea of the sun, I tried to incorporate the idea of a palette in the water or land shapes. Giving a subtle suggestion of the craft aspect. By rotating the river slightly, I could see that the entire poster came together with a line of motion being very organic. I was told during the discussions that there was too much shadow and it made the poster too distracting. Also, I removed the arrow under the letter A as it was distracting and was not required to read the slogan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After getting feedback from the class, I was told that the visual elements seem to be too little and I had to find a balance of number to place into the poster design. I learnt that while placing the objects around, I had to take note of the visual hierarchy, not over powering the main focus of the poster design. As such, I went with the idea of exploding the art elements from the bottom right to direct the viewer’s eyes to read the text at the bottom.