Category Archives: Process

ZINE | Finally

Okay, so I am finally done with this assignment yeah! Honestly speaking, after actually doing zine I realised I am quite bad with design elements. The eye to see how designs work together, how the words and image can compliment one another. There is honestly no excuses, I probably should have tried harder but I guess I should really learn to manage everything properly.


I was really questioning myself if I would want to do a photography / illustration zine. But I have no confidence in my photo taking skills, so I guess I went ahead with starting on illustrations. The first thing that I actually thought of was the cover of my zine. At first I had at the idea of having this perspective illusion when the pages get folded into half.

However, the perspective only work well from one angle, which isn’t really what I wanted. But I still wanted the thought of like having a perspective feeling for the cover, it was then I came up with this.

After seeing this again for 2 weeks, the orange looks actually looks jarring— whoops

I was asked to change because of one the terrible colour, I see it now and also apparently mimi mentioned that the seniors once did a survey before. It was on the colour that people from the young adult age range most dislike and it turns out to be orange. Honestly, I am very curious to why “we” dislike orange. My initial thoughts of having it orange was that it was close to the colour gold. I thought was using yellow but I am afraid that it was just look too light.

Why did not I think about inverting the colours? I have no idea either. Having inverted colour scheme somehow brings our attention away from the details too. There honestly is just so much wrong with this image but I have no idea why I did not see it the first time.

So I inverted it. The first colour that came to me was blue. I wanted black but I felt that it was too much of a in your face kind of thing. I guess I went to the following darker shade. I was trying to find a shade that would fit blue when I came across this zine which looked great with the combination. I thought to myself, “Oh! Lets use this colour scheme. Why not right?”

Wrong.

So the question came, “Why did you use this colour? They should have a meaning too.” Isn’t there anything that I can do right. Even though I have all my things planned but I felt that that was not me. I am more of a spontaneous person. So the deadline came and I was stressing out. I still have not figured a lot of the things out. When searching for examples during the consult, mimi suggested that I could maybe look into children book illustrations and there was a book called the “little big books”.

Time to dig! I went to adm library to hunt for the book and there the holy book.

There was a few that really stood out to me, but I feel like I shouldn’t try to copy any style since this is a zine? I should probably do it in my style? Let me just list them out below, some of which I took ideas from for my final.

Olive Jeffers

Elisa Gehin

Blanca Gomez

Chris Haughton


Reflection:

After everything, I guess it comes down to my final. I wanted to put in like my own impression or like fun facts about that particular place of worship. I really learn a lot of new things through this zine assignment. It was not only about learning a new software but also the many different types of way one can stitch up their book or make it have a different feeling with a different stitch. Zine is just one of the cheaper alternative to get ones idea across without having to worry too much I guess? The paper, the mood, the typography all comes together to set the mood.

Printing colours also served as a difficulty for me. Sometimes the colours on my screen seemed to be off from the colours they have printed out. It works for some occasion but for this zine, somehow it has turned my whole zine more yellowish. I guess I need to start having test printing as a habit to tell if the colours are off. Though through this assignment I also learn a lot more about Paya Lebar and the interesting worship places all around the area. This was one crazy ride but all is well.


Final

Que sera, sera – Career : Patisser (WIP04)

I have a lot of problem with this career to be honest, I want to cry. But I already kind of gotten the stuff for it already so I might as well see it through right? I was debating on whether if I want to do this in real life or a photo montage of it. Then when I consulted Mimi, she told me that I could probably just try doing it out in real life. After all this assignment is about trying out different medium?

But then me being me got pretty lazy with having to gather up the materials or sweets that I am required to design my name. Then I tried to test photo manipulate my name. Truth to be told I was struggling so hard with the lighting. Like all the cakes and sweets just have different lighting on them. I also tried to use the utensils for baking and all. Of course it did not work out :’^)

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Oh how terrible it looks… My eyes hurts. I told myself that I need to stop being a lazy bum and go out to hunt for the materials instead. Then I was looking at my design thinking about the possible cakes that I could get or how I could execute them. Then I told myself that I should probably have an open mind in case I really cannot find the specific cake that I want.

So…… i really could not find the cake I wanted. Rather I found it but it was too big of a pocket burn for me, I cry. So I ended up having to change a little of my design according to the cake that I got instead. Also for the piping bag, I actually found those already made ones inside a pack. I might photo edit the piping bag into the more high class looking one considering how the career is a more classier version of the original?

Got all this ingredients and ready to rumble.

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As usual the first try was horrible. Since the opening was pretty small the thickness was not enough so I had to go over it twice. Also the piping require equal strength throughout if not the cream would not flow evenly. If i press too hard they start oozing everywhere with in consistent thickness but if I do not apply enough force the line would break off.

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Okay so I tried the second time, I would say it looks better? But the overall image seem to look pretty flat since everything is on the same line. Also the letters looks pretty hard to read since I have no experience in calligraphy I am also kind of at a disadvantage,

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Argh… After like so many tissue wiping and restarting of the of the icing, I would say that I kind of got the gist of it? Then I tried to lay out the sweets and fruits, played around with the whole composition of the fruits too to give it more pop. Then I realised something… My name somehow looks like it blends into the baking sheet making the sweets pop up instead. NOOOOOOOO!!—

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So I went to photoshop hoping to be able to salvage what I have.

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IT IS BLURRRY NOOOO—-

Que sera, sera – Career : Comic artist (WIP05)

After showing my design for Concept artist for consultation, it is quite hard for people to tell that i am a concept artist.

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Since concept artist is such a broad term it can go from abstract artist to surrealism and all. So I was thinking comic artist would probably be something I am more familiar with considering how next week is already the submission.

Something that really stands out as a comic artist is the panels, also a particular rendering style. They are generally more flat and “textured” with the etchings. I was thinking of showing the process of a comic through my name. From the sketches in blues all to the inking and maybe the colouring.

process

Since there is like different type of rendering style I need to pick something that screams comic instead of storyboard since they are pretty similar. There is the purely white & black and the coloured one.

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For the style I was thinking of trying the pop art style. Its not something that I have done before so I think it will be pretty fun. I actually thought of using the style with just my name but I figured out that maybe it is not that obvious that I am a comic artist?

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I realised after drafting out the panels, if I were to draw on tall the panels, everything would be too cluttered and you would not be able to see anything. So I tried it with just my name in a pop-art style.

comic-artist-test

To be honest, I am not really sure if anyone can tell this is a comic artist. So I tried doing the panels for the typography and added in some illustration. But somehow the blocky panels do not pop like the test.

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Then I tried editing the letters again according to the font I got from online. But honestly speaking I am not really sure what to feel for the background.

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Que sera, sera – Career : Archaeologist + Reflection (WIP06)

Last week during when mimi sort of saw my idea for the career Archaeologist, she also mentioned that a classmate is doing a similar. Though it was more of someone who specialises in dinosaur bones. So she suggested that I should have some tools or something that would stand out as an archaeologist. Honestly I tried designing a few compositions or ideas inside the journal that is has nothing to do with bones. But when I ask my classmates about what comes to mind when they hear archaeologist and they told me bones.

Then I thought to myself but archaeologist does not only necessarily dig out only dinosaur bones, yeah? Since they like to uncover mummy’s bones and all, I thought that maybe I could stick closer to human bones? Probably it will not be be that close to the other career. Also I about my name initials, I used that instead of Alicia because I was thinking about how it seems pretty word that you would actually find a whole horde of skeleton together. Since my name has like six letters….

There was this photographer that I stumbled across while searching up for some bones. His name is Francois Robert. Yes, photographer not an artist. I was so blown away but how he showcased his messages through his photographs as a way to stop violence. I really like how I could actually feel the distress through this photos. Since we generally associates bones with death.

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For the bones, since I am placing them in sand, I had to look for bones that is already deteriorated. A clean bone just would not work since it would look out of place in the sand. Also an archaeologist is supposed to be finding things that are there in the ground for a lot of centuries, so honestly speaking the bones would not be clean at all.

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I was thinking of adding the strings directly on the design inside of doing it digitally. Currently my design looks like this. I will upload another version with the strings.

archaeologist


Edit : I added more bones to my name, hopefully it is more prominent now

archeologists02


To be honest this project make me realised that I have zero skills when it comes to typography. Also, I really need to work on my idea generating skills considering that is like the greatest skill anyone in the art industry could have. After actually putting out all my ideas together I feel like all of them are almost the same? Just flat with an applied design? I am not really sure how to explain my designs… After actually seeing the works by some of my classmates, it really opened up my eyes. Their design really brings out the whole career feeling. Though this project has really taught me a lot on designs and typography. How even with just typography we are able to tell a story. Use proper camera when taking photos (Important lesson)

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Que sera, sera – Career : Hacker (WIP03)

Something that Mimi pointed out last week was that when we look at the design the typography/our name should be the main focus. Not the imagery that is accompanied by our name. Also when we did the peer reviewing with each other I realised that my designs need quite a bit of fixing, especially the designs I did for the career hacker.

Somehow the first thing that come to them would be computer science. Something that would actually differentiate a computer science person from a hacker is probably the little greenish glitches that comes with it. Also, i was told that I could probably add like repetition of tabs like they are jammed or when the screen hangs.

concept-artist

Apparently the texture for the fonts makes my name quite difficult to read. I was also kind of unsure what type of fonts could really represent a hacker. I honestly have no idea how to do glitches effect for fonts so I had to search up on a lot of things, it was all just trial and error.

hacker

Then I tried out the second one without the codes and try to switch up the fonts. Then I realised that the fonts are too thin, it makes the whole thing look very awkward. Also the plain background together with all the texture just makes its look like a spoiled film instead.

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For the third time, after going through all the different type of fonts, I thought that I would just go for something simple and add in the effects myself. Also for the codes at the back, I kind of blurred them since they clash with my name. Since I obviously could not tell what is better or worse I had to ask my friends again. What they told me was that my font was actually too clean, also my background was kind of flat and boring. SO HERE WE GO AGAIN

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My I-have-no-idea-how-many-tries at this point of time anymore. I was just going back and forth a lot of stuff before I figured this out, like finally! Now really at this point I am not sure of what to do anymore, perhaps I will come back to it when I do out my other careers.