Locale – FINAL

 

And here’s my final Changi zine! YAY.

I thoroughly enjoyed this project. Honestly, my favourite project to date. It made me appreciate zines/magazines or any type of publication at all. The process behind making one is tougher than I expected. Every little detail is so important, from the arrangements of the pictures, the sizing of the fonts, the colours and so on. For this project, I had to make an abstract piece that still holds a narrative. That frustrated me so much. I kept questioning all my friends “How can an abstract work have a narrative?”. However, Mimi cleared a lot of my doubts and was a massive help to the ideation of my zine. Thank you so much.

I also struggled with Indesign quite a bit. I did the whole zine on illustrator. I think if I had more time to dabble with Indesign and actually learn how to use it properly, the zine would turn out more crisp. Nonetheless, I like how it turned out. The printing was exceptional (shoutout to Ben Quick Print Services at Sunshine Plaza), even a few of my classmates commented on how nice the ink looked! However, the paper had mixed reactions. Some people liked it while some don’t. I personally felt that it was a little bit on the thicker side. I would totally get a thinner paper if I had another chance.

As for the concept and graphics, I got mostly great comments which I am really thankful for. This project made me really happy.  To produce a zine from the design to the texts and everything by yourself is super satisfying. 3 months holiday: I’m definitely going to try making another one!

Check out how this zine came together on my research & process posts!

Locale – PROCESS

For this project, I began by hand-drawing the buildings and figures on sketch paper before scanning them onto my computer and then refining them.

page 1 & 8 (changi prison)

sketching

Above is an outline drawing of Changi prison and a ghost which is going to end up a spread in the zine. That is why I made the building symmetrical.

editing

I edited the building before I did for the ghost. I added dots using photoshop to the building to give it a little dimension as it looked pretty flat before. Emulating Ruth Allen’s style, I coloured the building without filling every gap. I also coloured it outside the lines.

I ended up not liking the colour I placed as I felt it was not eye-catching enough so I removed it. I added the ghost that I edited. I overlapped two layers of the ghost, one of it being black and the other, red. It creates an almost 3D illusion which I really liked.

I settled with a bright red in the end for the colour of the building as it  fits my theme really well. It also looks pretty pleasing to the eyes. I wanted to still emulate Ruth Allen’s style which was why I purposely did not align the colour to the lines exactly. If you did not notice, I also changed the font of the title to a rather child-like handwriting. I think it gives a more creepy feel.

page 2 & 3 (changi beach)

sketching

I sketched an image of 3 decapitated heads as a reflection of an actual image I saw as I was researching on the massacre that occurred at Changi Beach. It was a pretty unforgettable image ( try searching on google for it!) which I thought would be impactful to add to the zine. Of course, I didn’t exactly copy the real-life image since I wanted to emulate the style of Karolina Koryl. Thus, I distorted the faces making them look “melt-y” and added more eyes.

editing

This page was quite simple to execute. I did not hand-draw the beach but used illustrator as the it only consisted of mostly lines. To make the zine consistent, I used about the same colours as the previous page.

I made this page into a spread upon Mimi’s feedback. I think it looks really cool and actually like it better as a spread.

page 4-5 (old changi hospital)

sketching

Most of the ghost stories that I have heard regarding Changi was about the infamous hospital. Thus, I wanted that page to have the most amount of ghosts which explains the sketches of many different ghosts above.

editing

I added one of the heads on a drawing of the hospital which I drew on illustrator. I initially planned for this to be a single page but ended up making it a spread as well as recommended by Mimi.

I could fit in more heads into it which is better. I spilled over the building drawing over to the next page as well to kind of create a better flow. As you can see, I also applied Ruth Allen’s style to the building.

page 6-7 (changi airport)

sketching

I sketched a group of uniform figures towering over and surrounding the airport. I made this the last page as I wanted it to be in a way, unexpected. I rarely hear ghost stories about the airport but it exists. That is why I made the figures less obviously scary-looking. I accompanied the drawing with a poem I found that I really liked.

editing

This particular spread went through a lot of editing. I made so many variations of it because it was the last page which I think is very important. It should leave an impact.

It does look pretty consistent with the rest of the pages. However, it was not shocking or as interesting as I wanted it to be. Thus, I made it very different from the rest of the zine.

Besides the red, I inverted the colours making black the dominant colour. I really liked the vibe that this spread gave off. I consulted Mimi and showed all the variations I made and she also preferred this colourway.

I also ended up changing the poem. I removed the poem completely and came up with something on my own. Mimi commented that my zine lacked narrative. So, I wrote something that would tie the whole zine together. The last line goes “…and you are…” which would then continue to “not alone.” on the first page.

bonus

If you noticed, the silhouette of a flock of birds flying is a recurring motif in most of the pages. I wanted something to connect the pages together thus I added the birds which represent ‘travel/movement’. It is as if the viewers are following the journey of the birds to the different places in Changi.

Check out my final post to see all these pages come together!

Locale – RESEARCH

The location that I was tasked to make a zine on is “Changi”. When I hear the name “Changi”, I think of ghosts and all things haunted due to the countless ghost stories that have been fed to me. Thus, I wanted my zine to have a creepy/scary theme.

To start, I decided on the colours of the zine. I wanted the zine to not look too “busy” in terms of colours hence I decided on only three colours: red, black and white. I chose red as the dominant colour as it is found in most horror films/images. Red holds connotations of death/blood and danger. It is also linked to a sense of fear which is what I would like to invoke in this zine. Black and white are also incorporated in the zine upon learning that black and white actually represent death/mourning in different cultures. They also stimulate the eyes and excite senses which keeps the zine interesting. These colours would thus enhance and intensify the “fear factor” in the zine.

I was inspired by the colours of these popular horror movie posters where you can see red, black and white heavily used:

Image result for horror movie posters
A Nightmare On Elm Street
Image result for it title
IT

In the zine, I think I would lay unique “ghosts” around on the different landmarks of Changi such as the prison, beach and hospital which are more famous for ghost sightings. As I have presented, these areas are ridden with deaths having been a place of war and massacres.

10_S_doodles - Lars Henkel ||| (*d*)
By Lars Henkel
Recently came across German illustrator Evelyn Hahn. I totally love the quirky characters and weird proportions. So cool! Can someone do her a website though? :-) See more on her MySpace.
By Evelyn Hahn

Inspired by these artworks, I think I am going to go for a crowded look in the zine where the drawings are close to one another and perhaps big/vary in size.

While looking for inspiration on Pinterest, I chanced upon two artists who I think I would like to emulate their styles in this project:

  1. Karolina Koryl

Image result for karolina koryl

Image result for karolina koryl

Koryl purposely disfigures the human figures in her drawings. I liked the idea of drawing what are human beings but not exactly. She would pull/connect different parts of the face or body and even add additional parts which makes the figures disproportionate. I want the “ghosts” in my zine to still be identifiable as a human being despite looking distorted and quirky as in Koryl’s drawings.

2Ruth Allen

Image result for ruth allen

Image result for ruth allen

I like her sketchy style of drawing. It looks so quick and simple yet very eye-catching. Mostly, she uses a single colour on the buildings and does not fill them in fully. In fact, she colours out of the lines. Maybe I will emulate her style in my drawing of the different buildings.

And here’s my really ugly and rushed first sketches. I swear it gets better in my next post (I hope).

I begin figuring out the placements of the figures and buildings in the sketches below.

Check out my process post to see me make my ideas come alive!

Image Making Through Type – FINAL

My final 4 compositions!

To reiterate, my concept for this project is “CHILDHOOD“. The occupations chosen come from the perspective of a child. Thus, some nonsensical, non-existent and fairly childish jobs. Read more on why I chose that concept here!

ONE – TOY FIGURE  

This idea stems from the notion that children do not know what purpose a job serves.  I’ve heard kids saying “When I grow up, I want to be a lion”. That’s not possible now is it? This basically works around the same idea. It’s not possible to become a toy figure but that’s what they want to be. So, here we are. I manipulated “nAd” into looking like a doll-like figure. This composition is kind of like a game of “Spot the letters” which is why I did not make the letters too evident. The letter “n” is represented through the hair, “A” through the dress and “d” subtly through the shoes. I want to keep the figure as the main focus thus I kept the accessories around it pretty simple.

TWO – PRINCE/PRINCESS  

This is similar to the previous “occupation” in terms of its craziness. However, it is possible to be a prince or a princess. Even if you’re not born into a royal family, it is possible to marry into one sooo hehe. Sign me up! Anyway, as you can tell, this illustration depicts the famous scene in the classic Cinderella movie where she finds herself to fit the glass slippers. This idea was suggested to me by Mimi. I manipulated the glass slippers into looking like an “n”. The prince kneeling down also shapes into another “n”. Together, it makes up “nn” which is my initials. I chose to present the job as both a prince and princess because hey, equality!

THREE – BASKETBALL PLAYER 

In primary school, I knew of a lot of my friends who aspired to be a basketball player. Not relatable HAHA. Sports CCAs in primary school were very limited in my school at least. For me, it was between soccer and basketball. I chose basketball because I thought the hoops would make quiet a decent letter “d”. I gave the ball a bouncing effect by drawing the trace behind it which I shaped into the letter “N”. Basketball players are generally really tall and have long legs so I thought the legs can be manipulated into a big capital “A”. Put it altogether and you get “NAd”.

FOUR – GAME DESIGNER 

I used my initials again as a platform for the rest of the elements. I connected both letters with a mini waterfall so as to avoid them looking too distant. I emulated Crossy Road’s block-shaped items into my game design depiction. It took a lot of extruding and beveling in Illustrator. All games consist of a setting and characters. Here, I set the game in the world of a princess hence, the castle and a beautiful little garden. In the garden sits a prince which if you notice, is the same one in my previous composition because of the same colour of clothes.  In front of the castle is actually the toy figure who is accessorized as a princess. If you can’t tell already, I wanted a little bit of all my other compositions to be in this “game” that I designed thus the additional basketball hoop on the top “N”.


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Image Making Through Type – PROCESS

CONCEPT 

From the start, I knew I wanted my illustrations to have an over-arching concept. So, I came up with one. The concept of childhood.

 I wanted the occupations that I decide on to be from the perspective of me when I was a child or of children in general. Most of children or me when I was a child at least, have no idea that a job is something that is suppose to garner me income to support my life. Well, that’s subjective still but I really used to think that jobs were something that you just decide you want to become and by something, I mean anything. That made me come up with nonsensical and non-existent jobs such as a princess based on the TV shows and books that children are surrounded by. Below, we have more weird ideas that I thought of:

All boiled down to my favourite 4: a toy figure, a princess/prince, a basketball player and a game designer.

ONE – TOY FIGURE  

To start off, this is my most nonsensical idea. First of all, it’s not even humanly possible to become a toy, what more be one for a job. That exactly proves my point about how children have no sense of what an occupation really is. They want to be whatever they find interest in. In this case, a toy figure that they really like.

Image result for doll packaging

I wanted to make a toy figure that was still in its packaging. I was deciding between using the typical doll boxed packaging and the hang-able packaging as you can see in the two images above. After much sketching, I preferred the latter. I manipulated the letters “NAD” into a doll-like figure to depict the toy and this was the result:

Nice.

I then went on to digitize the packaging. And of course, I wanted my toy to have a brand. So, I created my own logo and all. How extra.

Putting them all together with a few adjustments, details and rendering, we get this:

TWO – PRINCESS  

Why do children want to be princesses/princes? Disney. Of course! My personal favourite is the Cinderella movie so why would I not depict it in my composition. This was a tough one though. The rest of my compositions are pretty “block-y” while this one, I decided to make it look more like the real Cinderella movie itself. Credits to Mimi for giving me the idea to do something with glass slippers. The heel portion of the glass slippers in itself looks like the letter “N” so why not take advantage of that? Ta-da!

And I digitized it:

Can you spot the “Nn”? Yup, as mentioned, it’s the heels and also the space between the prince’s legs. But can you also spot the mistake? The colour! It turned out so ugly so I had to take the appropriate measures. I experimented with a few:

 

The colours were honestly just not working. The yellow… But I worked something else out:

THREE – BASKETBALL PLAYER  

This goes out to all the sporty children out there. With the pretty limited amount of CCAs back in primary school, my knowledge of sports careers were pretty limited. Basketball was really popular though and thus this choice. This was really quick to make as I really laid down the exact sketch of how the illustration would turn out.

Digitized it and BAM!

FOUR – GAME DESIGNER  

This one honestly was not planned. I initially created this illustration with the depiction of a princess in mind as you can see in the planning sketches here:

As seen in my research post, I emulated the work of Astro Oscar where he stacked letters over one another in an isometric manner. At first, I chose to work around “NAD” but I realised it was a little too much to only represent a princess.

I didn’t like it so I changed to “NN”.

Much better. Here, I added the mini waterfall to connect the letters so that it does not seem too distant.

Now, this was what I showed Mimi during my consultation. What she got from it at first was a game designer and not at all a princess. Children of today do aspire to design and create their own games, if you ask me. Example being my younger brother who loves playing games and hopes that he will one day get to make one of his own.

The isometric elements made it look like games such as Crossy Road and Habbo. So I thought, why not change it?

 

If you did not notice, I designed a game space that had a little bit of everything. Observe closely and you will see that the princess is actually the toy figure in my first illustration. The figure sitting in the garden area is actually the prince in the princess/prince composition as told by the colour of his clothes. More obviously, the whole space depicts a castle setting paired with a garden which is pretty representative of a princess. Additionally, there’s a tiny hint of a basketball player through the basketball hoops in the illustration.


This illustration made for a good conclusion for all my 4 illustrations which I will be explaining more closely in my finals post. Stay tuned! In the mean time, check out my research post! ♡

 

Image Making Through Type – RESEARCH

For this project, we were tasked to create typographic portraits using our names according to different jobs that we choose. Thank God the letters in my name are pretty easy to work around with. I’m going to be using “Nad”, my nickname and “NN” which are my initials. In hopes of becoming a graphic designer in the future, I have decided to dabble with the unfamiliar Adobe Illustrator. But first, of course, how can I start without taking inspiration from the ever so reliable Pinterest?

ONE

ALFABETO 02
Alphabet City by Ranganath Krishnamani

Alphabet City consists of illustrations that depict different urban landscapes. The artist manipulated each letter in an isometric manner to look like a space which I think is what I will be experimenting on for one of my illustrations. Although it seems a little complicated, there is no harm in trying right?

Creatures of the deep on Behance
Creatures of the deep by Astro Oscar

In this illustration, the artist stacked each letter over one another leaving just a little bit of space. At the same time, he connects each letter using different elements i.e; the stairs or the building. Also, doesn’t this illustration look like the game “Crossy Road”?

Image result for crossy road
Iphone Game: Crossy Road

This inspired me to choose Game Designer as one of my jobs.

TWO

I don't feel like doing anything
This illustration plays around with hollow space which gave me the idea to do something associated with a construction worker because we all know how construction works do take place underground.
We've recently blogged a big illustration by Adam Simpson. Here some other ones:
By Adam Simpson

In this hollow space that takes the shape of the letter “L”, the artist places furniture in it to make up a mini apartment.

THREE

Sieh dir dieses Instagram-Foto von @battery_full an • Gefällt 1,584 Mal
By John Ed De Vera

Although I said that I am planning to do this project digitally, this papercut piece inspired me to do something similar to it. It looks taxing I must admit, but I will consider.

1486743_612097872170148_81611836_n.jpg (500×647)
By Matt Chinworth

Here I found something that looks like paper but is done digitally. This made me think of newspapers which inspired me to do perhaps a newspaper article writer.


For now, I will be looking for more inspirations and consult Mimi and my friends on my ideas before I settle on 4 occupations to carry on with my project. Wish me luck! ♡