W6 Process & Final Explanation: Making in Itself

Preceded by | Succeeded by (FINAL)

I realised I didn’t particularly mention the typeface and colour choices during the presentation, and thus have indicated them clearly in here.

Overarching ideas/common themes:

Jobs can work both digitally and analogously
- To depict the versatility of the digital
Jobs are non-descriptive
- Only the “base” job, and the specification is hinted through the composition
Names are of invented online handles
- To depict the temperamental nature of the online identity
Backgrounds are vector drawings
- To present differentiation between the digital world and the “real” you
- To provide flatness, to avoid standing out
Foreground letters are pasted on
- To present differentiation between the digital world and the “real” you
- To draw focus through layering
Logo(s) present in each composition
- To show online nature of each job
- To show what kind of online website it might be associated with
Borders have colour and pattern
- Either black or white to contrast image, e.g. if composition is too light-coloured, use black background to offset
- Patterns related to each composition for visual quality than just plain colour

Idea for logos from realisation that cameras have certain logos…

Which can be related to social media icons

Making texture brushes. Took many tries, especially where I kept accidentally glitching it up.

All the Art Brushes I made, using Photoshop.

Experiments with Hue Shift, Tints and Shades, Tints and None settings.

My Scatter Brush (mainly for rice but also for texture), Swatch (repetition looks atrocious but surprisingly useful as texture) and Pattern Brush.

CRITIC

Came out slightly differently due to the lack of realisation that printing on A4 photo paper would still mean <A4 size in avoiding bleed.

Of sushi
Tumblr logo (implication of food blogging)
Experiment with Illustrator pattern brush
- Edited in Photoshop to fix perspective and lighting issues which could not be resolved with the sushi brush
- No particular typeset choice as opposed to looking reasonably like a normal piece of raw salmon (hence the curves along the corners than straight cuts)
- Neutral colours matching typical wooden sushi table, and orange with white for contrast and pattern. Green wasabi to accent slightly.

I built up each face, then added the wood lines, then textures, then slight shadows (with Colour Burn for more saturation).

Sushi brush, after original prototype. Avoided adding too much lighting since it would definitely come out wrong.

Perspective was vaguely problematic. I followed guidelines for a 2 point perspective, and tried to mimick it as best as possible.

Edited in Photoshop for lighting and perspective issues, as well as to smoothen intersections.

Tumblr logo reference. Attempted to make it appear to be carved inward.

PHOTOGRAPHER

In hindsight, the editting to incorporate lighting made the contrast too low, so the focus isn’t very clear this way.

Of cats
Instagram/Youtube logo (implication of online sharing)
Collaging with use of gestalt
- Dissection of pictures of cats into parts, then collaging together
- No particular typeset choice as opposed to fixing the parts together in a comprehensive manner, where tails/legs define direction while eyes/paws/etc cover up small gaps
- Cats of various shades of brown to avoid too high or low contrast (light-coloured/black cats), avoiding too much focus to any one part of the typeset

Slightly jumbled to maximise space, as a straight line left too much unused space and made it not focal enough. Also varied size of each letter slightly to encourage reading in the correct order, and changed colours slightly to make it appear more believably as part of the screen.

Few examples of cats I used. In total, there were 32 cats used.

TRANSLATOR

Of Japanese/English
Self-designed logo (referenced from, implication of online translation services)
Painting with brush and ink
- Dissection of hiragana into parts, then mixing together to form English letters
- “Painted” calligraphic-styled font to evoke Asian brush strokes
- Black strokes to emulate calligraphic style

Initial contemplation of the strokes, and mixing to make suitable matches.

Repeated until satisfactory. I varied pressure, amount of ink, etc to get slightly different results, and focused more on moving naturally with focused energy.

Linguistics-related online service logo. No particular established online translating logo existed, so I took the liberty of drawing upon common images (dual chatboxes overlapping).

RETAILER

(rendered interpretation by superimposing traditionally cut and painted plastics onto digitally created background)

Of terrariums
Amazon logo (implication of online selling)
Acrylic on cut plastic
- Shaping of terrarium with plastic, display of terrarium through plastic
- Convex “bubble” font to resemble terrarium’s curved surfaces
- Browns and greens with red-orange-yellow to resemble terrariums’ trees/plants and flowers

Colour choices. Used acrylic paints directly from the tube: browns, greens, warms and white.

Painted on the back side of the plastic to “contain” the plants

For some variety, I changed it up a little here and there.

What I stated during the presentation was that the difficulty was really in using Illustrator, as aforementioned and suggested, particularly in relation to the brush creating (it took me a while to understand joining and separating shapes too). For me, too, the difficulty always lies in making the product match the overarching concept I have in mind, which is a necessity for me lest I end up with too wide a scope and a lack of direction. Certainly, though, what I HAVE taken away is that it’s always good to experiment nevertheless, and to avoid creating the “final” product too early lest it’s subject to changes when you think of something better.

W6 Process & Final Explanation: Making in Itself

Published by

EC Chee

Leave a Reply Cancel reply