Blue Waves – Style 1

This post will be sharing my ideas and stills for my first idea. This came about because of the prominent blues that occur throughout the silk road and is a symbol for many different things ranging from it being Timurid’s favourite colour to a symbol representing death.

It also represents water and thus I want to link it to abstract ways of presenting blues and imagery that is fluid and morphs naturally like water.

RESEARCH REFERENCE

MOODBOARD

 

STILLS

These are created by using acrylic paint to create fluid art.
Something else that I would like to try would be created images with cyanotype printing because of the blue outcome of the prints.

ANIMATIONS

Tried using the displacement map effect on ae to create fluid water effects and here are my attempts.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EroHyeISrfQS5k0yIS0ug4SS5xt2_nzr

Moodboard/Styles

A collection of landscapes, architecture design, textiles along the silk road. 

My focus: Mosaics/design on minarets. The colours used along the silk road.
Sepia tones and blues 

Samples with ELPHI dimensions

Layers edited in Photoshop

Frame animation created from a painting

 

Yonder’s View

Beauty is an amalgamation of elements that work together seamlessly to unify. Such is the case with nature and its five elements(五行)generating a force that conjoins fire, earth, metal, water and wood.

Yonder’s View was inspired by an Eastern view of yin and yang forces, translated in the colours used. There is beauty in the interconnectedness of colours and their ability to create an entire universe of its own. A more westernised approach was used in the interpretation of Eastern ideologies through the use of different stroking and paint techniques.

It tells of the connection between beauty and nature, bringing all the elements together as one.

Yonder’s View, 2017.
Portrait Banner composition.
Copyrighted & All Rights Reserved by Amadea Low

Golden Little Boys, 2017. Digital horizontal composition. Copyrighted & All Rights Reserved by Seng Yi LingYonder’s View, 2017.
Digital horizontal composition.
Copyrighted & All Rights Reserved by Amadea Low

MEDIA ART NEXUS DISPLAY

3840 (W) pixels x 480 (H) pixels.
Medium LED
15m by 2m
North Spine Plaza Media Art Nexus
NTU Singapore
16 November 2017

Yonder, 2017. 
Copyrighted & All Rights Reserved by Amadea Low

Yonder, 2017. LED
Copyrighted & All Rights Reserved by Amadea Low

APPLICATION

PATTERNS SWATCHBOOK

(please view for complete visuals of the entire process and journey)

 

Created by Amadea (amadealow@gmail.com)
Please ask for permission before use.


PAST PROCESS

research moodboard

Patterns | Research, progress and moodboard 1

Patterns | Moodboard Presentation

 

visual experimentation

Patterns | Experimentation 1

sketches

Patterns | Progress – sketches

first banner draft

Patterns | Banner progress

 

 

TYPE 1 | Project 4 process

I started the project having in mind a dual functional item. I thought of doing a calendar with a postcard/card joined to it.

It was decided that it would be a 2-year calendar because of the 26 letters of the alphabet and each year would be distinguished by separate colours. Although navy was a debatable colour because one can’t write on and be seen. However, I stuck with it and introduced a colour marker that can be used on both the light and dark colours.

I started by creating and selecting the background colour first and then moved on to design the calendar.

What was tedious about it was to shift and align the dates and days of every month fearing that one or two may be misaligned. Halfway through, I found some that weren’t aligned and had to realign everything in order for it all to be consistent. For 2018, I chose

After that, I moved on to making the 3d letters from A-Z and then creating the pattern.

What was difficult about this was creating the 3d outlines for the curves of different alphabets. Of course, there were times that it was difficult to decide on the pattern unit. Would it have been too similar to something before, or would it look too boring and consistent? Should I use a line or fill? All these questions and uncertainty about the patterns arose but I decided to just play around and go with what felt best. 

In choosing the colour of the patterns, letters and background etc, I created a swatch and chose colours off it, tweaking it a bit here and there so that there would be more contrast or the colours would have complemented one another better.

Before putting together the alphabets, I created the dividers between the postcard and the calendar to separate it. The dividers also represent the marks for perforation so that it can all be separated easily.

Finally, it came down to laying out the alphabets on the calendar

Prior to this, thinking of the colour flow was something challenging too. Although the user wouldn’t view their calendar like this, I thought it was something important to think about despite that. I tried thinking along the colours of the rainbow or using something on the other end of the colour spectrum.

After this, I designed the cover of the calendar and made use of some of the patterns that I created.

I decided to go for a simple clean look outside to keep it minimal. I tried playing around with the glow effects to make it pop out more but decided against it as I felt that it didn’t work as well.

I created this little write up to put inside my calendar for users/views to have a better understanding of what and why this calendar was created. I printed it on a tracing paper to give it a lighter effect and viewers see it.

Here comes the printing:

As you can see, the perforation isn’t straight and that’s because it wasn’t easy to do it as there must be accuracy in the strength used for the perforator if not it would roll off wrongly like this.

I decided to do a sleeve out of tracing paper so you can slide it in and out.

 

However, using this as a packaging may not be the best as you can see the tabs clearly and pasted and of course all the errors that lie behind.

Here is the little sticker collection of all the patterns from A-Z, it was fun cutting everything out with the small little details. However, it isn’t perfect due to the human error. But this was an additional item I wanted to add on to the product presentation.

It was a long and tough process of piece everything together and I saw the importance of using layers in illustrator to create everything balanced and to have a good order or what and where everything is. What was fun was thinking about the patterns and I think seeing everything come together layer by layer is worthwhile!

Here is the digital copy of everything!

Will have more updates after the presentation!


PRESENTATION TIME:

Wire-o binding!

Presentation layout:

The sunlight was amazing, so we took a chance with that and I love the colours that came out! 

Alphabet cards:

Stickers:

Viscom show set up:

I didn’t put everything up but this was it and I hope my pen isn’t gone!

 

Really had a fun time with this project! Thank you!

TYPO 1 | PROJECT 2

PROJECT 2a: Vernacular Type 


Location: Marketplace (Yishun)

I chose the Marketplace at Yishun as it is a place close to me. It was a place where I frequented and grew up in. I wanted to bring out the market vibes which is the common market lingo that ‘aunties’ and ‘uncles’ use for their purchases.  I thought of the different things that they would say and came up with:

“cheap can anot”

“one basket how much”

and a lot more Hokkien lingo that is exchanged – which I don’t really know of.

It was night by the time I decided to take pictures and I thought this would be a good setting because I wouldn’t usually go to the market at that time whenever i’m home. So I thought this would give me another perspective to the way I saw things at the market and I hoped it would give me another angle to the way I saw the signs and looked for types.

It was a challenge because a lot of things were foreign and I had to look at things different as compared to what i would usually if I made a trip there during the day doing the routine marketing. However, this time I was trying to pay attention to small details and pick on things that wouldn’t usually catch my eye. It was manageable at first, however as I went in further, I felt I was running out of things that caught my eye or had a type to it. I also wanted to choose types that would represent the market and also find elements would be visually recognisable by the general public and that they can associate it with the market.

After I got back, I edited them, sifting out the shapes and type that I could see and just had them in little blocks and exported them over to illustrator to lay them out. I didn’t really play with the contrast and brightness at first because, whatever I saw, I directly cropped it, thinking that if I saw it, others would too (mistake).

However, after the review with my peers and with Shirley, I started to understand better how ideas can be played around but it must still be fun yet clear in conveying the message to viewers.

Below is my first attempt at the quote

“Ah uncle, cheaper la, cheaper abit more can or not?”

Looking at it now, it is very messy and all over the place. I can read it, but unless the viewer knows what the quote is, the type isn’t conveyed very well in this.

I then shortened the quote to “Uncle cheaper abit can or not” because it was already cluttered and having too much type was abit confusing. I then changed and manipulated the images to amplify the type and letter I wanted to bring out. I also played with contrast, brightness and saturations etc. This helped to clearly directed the viewer to the letter without being too distracted.

I chose not to add any filters or over enhance my images because I wanted to continue bringing out the raw essence of the market and attributes of the market, which is: all over the place and messy with it’s market and very tradition culture and colours that we can associate easily with. I kept with the 1:1 ratio as to try and keep it consistent because of the already very vibrant colours.

Thus, I present my final quote and layout to you:

 

PROJECT 2b: Organic Type 


This is project 2b! We were tasked to created an organic type form

I first experimented with some drawings and a different quote which you can take a look here.

However, I felt that I wanted to change my quote and do other experimentations besides drawing a quote and creating that hand drawn type.

I moved to thinking about cut outs or painting. This image is of my planning the layout of a new quote that I chose. This quote is “You are what you eat” which stemmed from the original quote that I really love “I eat flowers because I am beautiful and you are what you eat.” I shortened the quote because I wanted to represent the first part of the quote by the type creation (using flowers) which I felt would give the quote a double meaning to it.

I wanted to try a cut out idea where I cut out the letters and layer flowers at the back of the type. However, I felt that it wouldn’t work out so well as much of the letters would be block letters, it would not have any variations or interesting elements to it.

My second idea was to paint and infuse flowers with it. I had some dried lavender, baby’s breath and several other flowers. I kept to a light colour palette of red, blue and white. These are the only colours used in this organic paint. I didn’t keep to a strict format but just freeform painted with a rough idea in my head of how I wanted to lay out the letters. So here is the first part of my painting where I placed the flowers on my type by layering paint on it, acting as a glue medium for it too. 

This is my final type, but I wasn’t very satisfied with it because I felt it wasn’t consistent and it wasn’t the ‘perfect’ type form that I could create. But I showed Shirley this and she seemed to like it and told me to go ahead with my application. What I learnt from this was that organic forms need not be perfect and you can find perfection from its imperfections. I learnt to appreciate what I created and grew to like it even though I know it isn’t perfect or the best, but it had a very raw feel to it. Furthermore, I was very satisfied with the play of colours and how I mixed the colours to create this colour palette. 

At the same time of this painting, I painted an abstract painting of similar colour tones in case I wanted to use it for any applications of further back my organic type up. I created it but little did I know I was actually going to use it in my application of this type.

This is my final poster. I chose a dark purple background as I felt it compliments the light and pastel colours here. It brought out the flowers and the pop of the lettering.

For my application, I was thinking of labelings or designs for flower tea or tea bags because of the flower theme and original quote, however Shirley suggested a cupcake box or box for food, so I decided to experiment with that too.

I printed out some samples to find which kind of box I wanted, what dimensions were needed to create the actual cupcake box.

I felt this was the best sizing however I also had to alter its dimensions because I wanted a transparent panel where the quote would be shown and I wanted the cupcake box to be standing vertically and not sitted horizontally.

Here, I drew out my own template of the box and adjusted the adjustments which was adapted from the above template. I created a panel to print the quote on transparency to lay over my box so you can see through and see the contents. For the pattern, I colour manipulated and edited my painting to fit the colour scheme slightly better and thus used it for the design of the cupcake box.

Here’s is the final product of the cup cake box with the quote imprinted on the transparent panel of the box.

Here are my other applications:

1, box

2, Flower tea label

3, Make up: Lipgloss and eyeshadow labelling and design

I chose to do a design for for make up because I thought the colour scheme fitted into it very well. Initially, I couldn’t think of more applications but then I thought then since make up is something used constantly and “consumed” externally, so I thought it was an apt quote and design to use on the products. So I used the same designs and layout and created the make up for both the lipgloss and eyeshadow palette.

 

What I took away from this project is to embrace the imperfections and creating type need not be perfect or to have a correct angle or that everything has to sit in perfection. I also learnt to better love things I create and try to find ways to enhance it or love it because it is imperfect.

I had a fun time for this project and I learnt not to stress to much over things that aren’t perfect and learnt to convey my ideas clearly and directly for viewers to see and appreciate.

This is a photo of my presentation print set up in class, I was very pleased with the way the print came out and how the colours turned out. Initially, I used textured paper to print, however the ink didn’t seep or sit in properly even though the colours were nice. I printed it on a matt smooth paper finish and the image was much was much clearer and better, so I decided to present with this paper print instead of the textured one.

Hope you enjoyed the process!!
toodle noodles
xx

TYP0 1 | Project 2b Organic Type experimentation

The in class exercise was to come up with a type based off a chosen quote.

The quote I chose was “I like my tits being out.” With this, I wanted to play with funky representations of using fruits or other forms to represent this boobs idea. I played around with different fruits and vegetable forms, manipulating it to have similar attributes from the shape of boobs.

However, I decided to standardise with a papaya because I felt it would be more consistent and then I started drawing out different cuts and cross sections of the papaya, manipulating it to the idea of boobs and further embellishing it with nipples. Why papaya? Because that colour is close to that of ones skin and would be fun and interesting to shade and colour!

I drew everything out in pencil first and then lined everything with a black pen.

After lining it with black pen, I traced it out on tracing paper, and in order to transfer it to another sheet, I used a black pastel to colour the back in order for easy transfer. 

So here’s what part of the trace looked like, but I didn’t like the final finish and I wanted to experiment more on what other organic types I could create so I pushed further and tried other things which you can take a look at my next post.

toodle noodles
hope you enjoyed this
xx

Patterns | Banner progress

 

From my previous paintings, I manipulated it and tried to find elements to piece together a more oriental background. I play around with colour, adjusting the saturation, hue and contrast etc. I manipulated the shapes, warping and skewing it. Also, I played around with the photoshop laying to try to find the best look to best match the banner. With the addition of the oriental herbs that i’ll soon try to incorporate, i’ll be more complete with the oriental abstract idea. However, the struggle now is that the image is very pixelated because of the extreme crop. But I also like it because of the texture and dimensions it gives to the banner. I’m not sure if I should kee the image of recreate it other forms.

But I hope you enjoy this first draft of the banner!