Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?

I’ve been to London to see the fair Queen.

Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there?

I frightened a little mouse, under her chair.

PUSSY CAT PUSSY CAT

When I first started this assignment, I did some research on some of the modernism art movement and eventually my idea was to use Dada-inspired  style of artworks for my design style. I focus on the narrative elements rather than realistic visual elements to convey the story.

This is a total list of black and white images I have created for this assignment. After creating the first image set and doing some thumbnails drawings, I realize the variety of images is not enough so I created another set.

These are the second set of thumbnails that I created. I experimented with different styles with some surrealistic, some abstract pieces, and even more nonsensical. This was done after I did my initial thumbnails drawings.

After picking 4 of the best looking, I did a few variation of those versions before deciding on the final design. This is the second part of the experimentation where the focus is in refinement of the main idea.

The first image has the audience guessing where the cat is and is hinted by the birds guiding the audience’s eyes.

The second is an abstract representation of London by using many of the Big Ben  and pasting a lot of copies of the cat to represent the cat searching for the Queen. The Queen is represented by a crown on one of the clock tower that makes it blend in with the rest to simulate the idea that she is hard to find.

The third image uses the same London image from the first image but now it is used as a background to bring focus to the cat. The cat is shown to be walking around but with different sizes to create visual interest.

The final image uses the same repetition idea used in the previous images but this time it is used to bring focus to the cat and the mouse. Despite that, in order not to make the image too monotonous, some of the chairs are scaled or distorted to make the image more dynamic. Once again the crown is used to represent the Queen.

Overall, the main idea of the images is repetition and horizontal and vertical implied lines to bind the images into one interesting narrative.

A Reflection:

It was interesting to go back to the basics again after spending a long time studying and working as a game designer. The topic that I chose was just an excuse to use cats in this assignment as I really love cats a lot and I want to express why I love them visually.

I learned to capture the silly way cats act and behave, and making it into an interesting narrative using design principles. I also gain a new understanding of modernism art movement that our predecessors helped to push forward into art and design as we know today.

This let me appreciate art movements such as Dada and gave me a new informed way of thinking how to visually communicate your ideas and getting your ideas from concept to the final product. I look forward to learning more in the future. 🙂