The poster is communicating a Pool Party happening on the 18th of October 2013.
The emotions the poster elicit are joy, whimsicality, and excitement.
The poster is captivating firstly due to the use of colour, a large bright pink patch on dark blue. Next the use of the large ice popsicle image is simple and eye catching. The melted pink ice cream further conveys the idea of wetness and splashing of the pool party. It generates interest because it is linked to the idea of refreshing, and fun, like eating an ice popsicle. Readability is definitely there as it is extremely straightforward the date in the ice cream splash and the rest of the details in blocks underneath.
I really like the approach of this poster. It’s different, it does not show anything about a pool or party, but the imagery instantly make me think of fun and joy, the type of party I would want to go for.
To translating my mood boards into design sketches, I did three themes of sketches in order of the mood board I posted in “Task 1”.
This was theme 1 exploring the concept of connection, thus human touch, and the paint strokes, signifying reach out through art.
The second theme, kaleidoscope.
And the third, therapy through nature motifs.
Through the first round of consultations, I was slowly starting to notice how I had to turn my designs more logo=like. Increase the relevance of these design and motifs to suit the theme “art on the move”.
Thus, I continued brainstorming and expanding on the first theme, which was my favourite theme. And upon the advice of Michael
Through the first round of critique and consultations, I was beginning to understand the requirements of this design more and more. I also began to take note of the importance of relevance in the design, How the design should speak “art on the move” in picture format, as well as the need to reduce certain design elements to for scalability purposes.
I decided to expand my first theme which was my favourite. With advice from Michael, I also incorporated elements from the second design into the first design to make the design be more relevant to the “art” part of “art on the move”.
It was through repeated sketching that the idea of the heart formed in my head.
This idea took the outreached “paint brush” hands (reaching out through art) from the first thematic sketches and the craft tools from the second thematic sketches. Together it was supposed to portray a heart as a whole, a symbol of care. Separately, the paint brush hands represent the volunteer’s role in “art on the move”. The curvilinear stroke also provided a sense of movement. The tools increased the relevance of this design.
Two other designs I had the inspiration for was:
I quite like the third concept actually. But I felt the movement was missing from this design.
Finally, after much thought, I decided to stick to developing the first idea. I also simplified the stroke, and make the heart-shape more distinct, by using visual cues as suggested by Michael. Like the bending of the pencil. I think this really cleaned up the design. I also added in the text in a curvilinear format to enhance the round side of the heart.
After simplification and modifiying, this was my final piecce.
Next up is colour exploration:
Through exploring these colours, I learnt how to manage the colours better. Like how to use certain colours at certain areas to bring the heart shape of the design.
Finally, I settled on
This is because, primary colours are very easily relatable. It looks harmonious, yet lively, connoting the idea of play.
The other variation would be
Because of its highly contrasting and eye catching colour combination.
When I went to Chinese Garden, the place that intrigued me the most was the Bonsai Garden. I love how the bonsais are meticulously shaped that set against beautiful Chinese architecture. I was fascinated at how the twisting bonsais were set against differently shaped windows/ spaces extremely aesthetically with good design.
Then I thought about how Singapore was a Garden City, and how the greenery around Housing Estate are also very well integrated into the architecture.
So bringing forward the concept from my previous infographic about “A Piece of China in Singapore”. I decided to juxtapose Bonsais against a backdrop of Singapore HDBs – a distinctively local icon, the way it would be arranged in a Chinese garden against Chinese architecture.
In addition to that general concept, I wanted the zine to also briefly introduce the types of bonsai, in terms of shape and structure.
Here is a list of some bonsai styles:
I was thinking other than portraying an abstract art concept, the zine could also be slightly practical in terms of being that of introducing different basic bonsai styles.
LAYOUT
As I am a result oriented worker, I decided on all the layouts first. Then I chose and picked from the list of bonsai based on shape, which was the best shape to go with which layout. This is because, in a Chinese garden, the arrangement of the bonsais were also based on design of the shape and how well it went with the architecture shape.
ART DIRECTION
I known from the start I wanted the bonsais to be illustrated and the HDB to be in a photographic style. However, I had some problems deciding the colour palette of the entire zine.
I didn’t want it to be black and white with two colours as in my mind, after visualisation, I found that to be extremely boring. Thus, I initially picked a colour theme of five colours for the bonsai. This is the first bonsai I tried the colour scheme on.
However, after trying the same five colours for a few more bonsais, I found that it still looked too consistent and without visual interest. Thus, keeping in mind a general direction of neon lights against a grayscale background kind of style, I put highly saturated, complementary and contrasting colours for different pots of bonsai.
Here are some examples:
Since I did detailed line work for the bonsais, I did not want to completely fill the shapes in. However, to leave them as pure line-work would not fill the space enough, and would look sparse. Thus, I decided on duplicating the layer, filling one and leaving the other as line-work.
However, as my art direction was sort of neon lights on grayscale, I tried to make the colour brightly vivid and with neon undertones like this bonsai below:
However, I realised when it was transferred to inDesign for printing, the colours dulled down. Afterwards, I found out from Joy that it was because neon colour printing required a special kind of printer, which had a minimum bulk printing. Thus, I had to make do with the duller shades. I feel they still turned out well, because the oriental style is more zen and usually come in more calm and desaturated colours, so the dulled down neon colours are a good mix between the crazy neon lights style I was going for and the non-vibrant calm palette of oriental zen bonsais.
Some inspiration photos:
Next was the background, the art direction was to take photos of as geometric as possible a backdrop so that it’ll act as a good contrast for the organically shaped bonsai trees. Thus, there was a large focus in trying to zoom in on the angular lines of the HDB architecture.
Here are some photos I took:
I then selected them and then edited them increasing contrast, and making sure the shades are kept darker. However, after fitting them into the zine, the photography and illustrations did not feel integrated.
Thus, after consultations with Joy and several trials, I decided to outline the HDB with simple illustrative lines.
This integrates the illustration and photography well. Thus, I decided to use this style for the rest of my pages.
TYPEFACE
I chose the BAVRO typeface for headers as I felt the shape of the font had a slight element of Neon Lights. While I felt the Helvetica font complemented it well.
FINAL WORK
This is the final layout and design of my zine. It is mean to be read from left to right as that was how oriental books were arranged and I wanted to achieve that effect.
I’m pretty happy with how my zine turned out in the end, I loved my concept regardless of its abstractness and the resulting illustrative x photography style. Especially in comparison to my infographic, I think I have come a long way. However one thing I wish I could have done better was the feedback Joy gave me. I think I was still thinking in terms of artist and not so much designer. I would have to think of a better way to let my idea speak for itself, even more so because it is so abstract. This was a timely reminder at the end of the sem for me to further improve and learn for the upcoming year 2.
To conclude, I really enjoyed my time in 2D. I would like to thank Joy for being such an understanding and patient teacher. I know I wasn’t the easiest student to guide with my non-stop sprouting ideas, random artist blocks and non-design tendencies. But, thank you for guiding me through that and helping me see how I could integrate both my love for fine arts and the technicality of design. Will work hard to a achieve both in my works!!
Here are the links to my Infographic and research on Chinese Garden:
Start of the last 4D II project is venturing into unknown fields wew. Admittedly, I am not completely foreign to the concept of installation art, video art, or performance art, as the A’level syllabus has managed to give me some knowledge about them.
To bring forward themes from precious projects, some themes I would be interested in developing would probably be, sexuality, the body and identity. Here are the artist researches that might be relevant to the upcoming project.
MARINA ABRAMOVIC
I know Wen Lei has covered her in class but genuinely and honestly, she’s my idol. I love her works. She is a Yugoslavia born performance artist. Her performance surround themes of pushing the body to extremes, the interaction between the artist and audience. Rhythm 10 is actually my favourite piece of her work, but since it has been cover, I’ll cover another one of my favourites.
Marina Abramović and ULAY. Imponderabilia. 1977/2010 Performance. Reperformed continuously in shifts throughout this exhibition for a total of over 700 hours. Courtesy Marina Abramović and Sean Kelly Gallery
In this work, Marina and her partner Ulay stood opposite each other, stark naked at an entrance to an exhibition in a way that people entering the exhibition had to squeeze through them, unable to avoid physical contact, and had to choose who to face. This particular work is about confronting the idea of the audience actively participating in the performance space, and being made aware of the human touch and their own bodies through the need to come into contact with a stranger. I think this work is relevant to my research, as the exploration of nudity, human contact, and the body is something I am interested in.
2. VITO ACCONCI
An American designer, landscape architect, and installation and performance artist. This artist I’m interested in particular one of his works called “Seedbed”. I though it was brilliant as it was a hidden performance art and more of sound art. The extremely disturbing and voyeuristic nature of the work is also rather amazing.
Vito Acconci. Seedbed. 1972 Medium: Super 8 film transferred to video (color, silent) Duration: 10 min. Credit: Gift of the Julia Stoschek Foundation, Düsseldorf and Committee on Media Funds
View the work here: https://archive.org/details/ubu-acconci_seedbed
In this work, the viewers entered a room with an empty ramp and unknown to them, Acconci himself is lying underneath the ramp masturbating. He would do this intermittently, while he was doing this he would speak out about his sexual fantasies, based on the movement of the visitor’s above. The tension between public and private was overwhelming.
Found on the Museum of Modern Art Website:
“The following text, which documents and transcribes Seedbed, was published in Avalanche magazine in 1972:
. . . I’m doing this with you now . . . you’re in front of me . . . you’re turning around . . . I’m moving toward you . . . leaning toward you . . .
Under the ramp: I’m moving from point to point, covering the floor . . . (I was thinking in terms of producing seed, leaving seed throughout the underground area).
I’m turned to myself: turned onto myself: constant contact with my body (rub my body in order to rub it away, rub something away from it, leave that and move on): masturbating: I have to continue all day—cover the floor with sperm, seed the floor.
Through the viewers: because of the viewers: I can hear their footsteps, they’re walking on top of me, to the side of me—I’m catching up with them—I’m focusing on one of them: I can form an image of you, dream about you, work on you.
. . . you’re on my left . . . you’re moving away but I’m pushing my body against you, into the corner . . . you’re bending your head down, over me . . . I’m pressing my eyes into your hair . . .I can go on as I think of you, you can reinforce my excitement, serve as my medium (the seed planted on the floor is a joint result of my presence and yours). You can listen to me; I want you to stay here; you can walk around me; walk past me; come back; sit here; lie close to me; walk with me again.
Reasons to move away from a space: there’s no need to stay—I’ve left something there, outside, that used to be here, inside—I’ve left something there that can grow, develop, on its own.
Reasons to move: I can move with an easy mind—what’s left behind is safe, in storage.”
This artist would be useful in my research as sexuality was a strong theme in my previous works and I would like to explore this theme again.
3. MONA HATOUM
Hatoum is a Lebanese born Palestinian installation and video artist. But the work I’ll be speaking about would be “Homebound” an installation art piece arguably sound art as well.
Mona Hatoum. Homebound, 2000
Kitchen utensils, furniture, electrical wire, light bulbs, dimmer unit, amplifier and two speakers , dimensions variable
“Homebound” is a piece of work consisting of pieces of homely furniture laid out across the room. Wires are placed intertwining the entire work, with live electricity current running through them. The buzzing sound of the live current with occasional crackle and pop as different objects light up disturbs the quietness of the gallery, making it rather unsettling. I like this piece of work, as the tension between the familiar “home furniture” and foreign and dangerous “electricity” current leaves an interesting feeling in the viewer.
I this this work is relevant to my research as tension is one of the methods to immerse the audience in an installation art or performance piece, and I think Hatoum did so really well in her work.
The clip is supposed to represent a metaphorical death, death of a person’s senses. My soundtrack is not narrative based but more of an emotional transition. The first part has indiscrete chattering, coffee-making machinery, and laughter. These represent the daily emotive way of living. However, along the way, the emotive sounds turned more and more odd and rather disconcerting. This is followed by a form of destruction, a shattering of one’s beliefs, a snap in the persona’s head, and the persona is plunged into a state of emptiness. There is a struggle to fight against the waves, but the persona eventually gives in to the calm stillness of the water.
CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT/ RESEARCH/ CHALLENGES
I developed the concept purely based on interest. I was more interested in trying to create sounds that conveyed a certain idea rather than ambient sounds. However, I needed to create sounds that had emotions. So I started recording some of the places I go to, and some conversations I had, my laughter, to evoke the sound of happiness. Then, I proceeded to record generator sounds for an empty alienating effect, and dunked the recorder into the pool to create underwater sounds. These were the sounds I felt represented a lack of emotion.
Throughout the entire clip, there was a consistent rhythm of my breathing, initially extremely calm and slow, after the plunge, became faster as the persona struggles to hold on to life. Finally, the persona gave up and embraced the silence.
An artist that has inspired me would probably be AquaSonic, a band that produces underwater music. Check out their music video:
The main challenge I had for this project is that I couldn’t imagine the soundscape in my head, unlike being able to visualise a design before completing it. Therefore, even when I had the concept, I had trouble trying to create a clip for the concept. I also had trouble manipulating the different clips as I was unfamiliar with the program used.
Another thing is how I love music and use it as both inspiration and an outlet of emotions, but we cannot use music to represent our emotions, which is one of the hardest thing I was faced with.
To conclude, I think I tried my best to create the soundtrack for such a concept. I had fun doing this project and I look forward to the last one.
Credit for royalty free music:https://www.freesound.org/people/13FPanska_Cerny_Jan/sounds/379008/
https://www.freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/344265/
After doing site-research and exploration, I decided to focus on elements that made a garden a Chinese one for my infographic. It was something I found extremely interesting as I could distinctively identify Chinese Garden apart from Singapore’s many other garden’s and park regardless of them sharing similar objects.
In my class presentation, I started off by giving a brief timeline of Chinese Garden.
And the various landmarks of Chinese Garden. Some of which I have mentioned in the previous blog post.
Next, my infographic:
My infographic is a dissection of the four elements of Chinese Garden observed in Singapore Chinese Garden. This piece of dissection is then presented as a piece of “China” brought and pasted into Singapore, represented by the red and white MRT and HDB blocks surrounding the dissection.
A closer view of the dissection. I split the explanation into four elements: Architecture; Plants, Flowers and Trees; Rock Decoration; Water Element.
For the architecture, I decided to illustrate the building design I saw in the Bonsai Garden of Singapore’s Chinese Garden. Similarly for the Bonsai Plants. For the illustration of the rock element though, I illustrated it using one of the many rock table and chair sets I saw throughout the entire garden, which I found really interesting. Lastly, the water element, modelled after a pond of Koi fishes I saw in one of the Pavilions.
Final thoughts, challenges, and reflection:
For this infographic, I faced challenges of colour scheme and visualisation. My initial visualisation was just mainly the dissection zoomed in the presented. However, to make it more Singapore site specific, as it was too generic, it would be better to place it within Singapore landscape. I struggled a lot in trying to visualise how to do so. I also struggled to incorporate the information into the illustration. I think if given a chance to redo this project, I would have changed the style of illustration, and not do such colouring, as it does not reflect as well as a bigger picture.
To move on from here, I’m looking forward to the zine project next, and hope to develop my graphics and style while presenting the Singapore Chinese Garden in a creative way.
So that day I made a trip down to Chinese Garden to do some primary research. I used to go there a lot as a kid during mid-autumn festival where they would have light decorations. I was too young to remember clearly though.
History of Chinese Garden Singapore
Chinese Garden was founded in 1975 by the JTC Corporation. It is designed by Prof. Yuen-chen Yu, an architect from Taiwan meant to showcase traditional Chinese imperial gardening landscaping.
So I went there and visited the different parts of the garden.
Firstly was the Pagoda.
I found the entire architecture really interesting. The geometry and shapes of the windows were extremely beautiful.
Second, the Garden of Abundance.
The garden has statues of the twelve zodiac animals as well as small bridges here and there.
Next was the Stone boat and Tea Garden.
Then the Main House which was next to the main entrance. But I did not enter from that entrance as the MRT was located at the other entrance instead.
The ticketing counter suggests that this was once a profitable attraction that require entry fees.
Then the Bonsai Garden.
During my trip there, the things I found myself drawn to where the geometric patterns of the architecture and the organic patterns of the nature. The two contrast upon one another created an extremely interesting visual language. Especially, how the architecture was built to make full sure of the windows to frame the surrounding nature.
This research I’ve done is primary research in form of site research.
I haven’t exactly confirmed that I would be doing purely on Chinese garden or include a bit of the neighbourhood. So my next steps from here would be to conduct more in depth secondary research online, and maybe more quantitative research data as I observed that Chinese garden no longer attracts crowds as they did in the past.
As for ethnography, the study of culture, since Chinese garden, the garden itself is not really a living area, I think it might be a bit hard for me to colect such data. Therefore, I’m thinking of expanding my research base.
Time to do some more research!
Ethnography: The systematic analysis and study of people and cultures, and the presentation of empirical data of society after usually participant-observation records.
Primary and Secondary Data:
Primary data is collected through first-hands sources like collecting surveys, first-hand observation, interviews, focus groups and case studies. While secondary data are second-hand sources, information collected by others in form of books, internet, newspaper, statistics, just to list a few.
Quantitative and Qualitative Data:
Qualitative data is something that cannot be measured in numbers. Such data are like diary entries, interviews, questionnaires, observations. While Quantitative data is data that can be put into ranking or categories used to construct statistics and graphs.
Infographics:
A form of content marketing and presentation that appeals to the viewer through images. Usually they turn complicated and mundane information into visually captivating and simplified, easy to view information.
An example of an infographic, the most basic form.
The overall theme for my Project 1 is that of Taboos in Society.
In my message, there is no sense of defiance or calling to go against society by bringing up these taboos. All I wanted to conveying is a form of inquisition, a questioning of “Why not?” Why not accept these taboos topics that as such an big, integral, and most importantly natural part of life.
The jobs I have chosen act as vessels to represent each taboo topic I have chosen. They are Seamstress to represent Sexuality; Crow woman to represent Feminism; Wanderer to represent the Unknown; and Time keeper to represent Death.
Firstly, the seamstress. Here, the medium of embroidery is used to convey the idea of the seamstress. The unfinished embroidery with the needle carefully stuck in place suggest movement of the sewing in progress. The motif of the red “A” is a reference to Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I chose to use this reference as within this piece of literature, the theme of sexuality vs society is widely discussed and questioned. Thus, I felt it was extremely appropriate to use that to bring out my taboo topic of sexuality. With the scarlet letter, I included the floral motif of white lilies, representing innocence and purity, to contrast and bring out the bright red sexuality of the “A” more.
Next, the Crow woman is portrayed by the use of black feathers as a patterned print covering the entire blue background, reminiscent of sky and flight. The idea of feminism here is brought across through the medium in which the feathers are made. The feathers are made of metal sheets, and thus, even though at first glance, viewers might be fooled into thinking the feathers are soft and fluffy, they are actually strong and stiff. This mirrors the way society expects and often portray women as fragile and weak characters, they are actually resilient and dominant in their own right.
Thirdly, idea of the Wanderer is portrayed through the extremely abstract and textured surface of the background and the metallic type. This abstract background suggests the unknown the wanderer is exploring and the metallic reflective “A” acts as a window of opportunity and encouragement for the viewers to enter this world of foreign things and changes. Thus, the concept of both the unknown and the wanderer is portrayed as a whole in this composition.
Lastly, the Time keeper is presented in the medium of metallic embossing and foil sheet, evoking the imagery of gears, machinery, and in turn clocks. The roman numerals within the type is a combination of numbers of my different death dates and timings calculated with online death calculators, and thus, they suggest the topic of death. Furthermore, the numbers add to the imagery of time and clocks.
The format of my final presentation. In whole, I really enjoyed exploring these new mediums for this project even though they were really time-consuming. I met many challenges in time and skills, but I learn to be flexible and handle each problem correctly. I am proud of what I have achieved, and am glad to have completed this project. Looking forward to Project 2!
