My Work – deb ng

The rhythms of life

Last week, I did a casual poll on Instagram, asking “What are the everyday sounds that make up Singapore?”.

A list of the answers:

Cars horning
Children screaming
Grass cutting
Deafening ring of the monotonous mrt pulling in to yew tee mrt, drowning my inner thoughts
Traffic light sound when just turn green man
My neighbour sneezing. I think he needs an allergy shot.
Ez-link card beep noises
Bus tap tap card
Lift “going up” sound
Mothers screaming at their children from the HDB across
Cars honking
The bus exhaling at the bus stop
Train doors closing jingle
Sound of teaspoon hitting the side of the coffee cup when the coffeeshop auntie makes kopi
Clanging at drinks stall
MRT beeping
Sound of spoon hitting against glass when uncles stir their kopi at the coffee shop
Malay weddings
Bird you hear in the morning. Or when you rush for deadlines at 3am
Wet market
Hawker centre
Morning drillings
People complaining
Sound of buses’ engine
Birds chirping nonstop
Train tracks
The sound of the mrt trains “doors closing. Dedededededede.”
Lizard sounds at night
Mum talking
Cooking sounds
Car reversing
Honking
Construction
Random uncle talking loudly on the train
Weird birds
Construction
That morning bird
The existential depressive groans of milennials
That noisy bird in the morning, you know which one
Aunties talking loudly on public transport
The sound of ez-link being tapped on buses
The stupid bird that goes “woooo-wu woooo-wu”
Karang guni man
School bell
Traffic
Neighbours opening their doors
Kids playing sepak takcraw
6am got bird chirping
Karang guni man
Bell from the ice cream uncle
Karang guni horn
Construction noises, e.g. drilling, hammering. Something’s always being built.
School bell!
When you tap ezlink card
People saying “wah lao eh”
Defs the mynahs
Mynah birds
Aunties gossiping

It was interesting going through the responses and seeing many that I could relate to, as well as pointing out similar responses between strangers. It spurred me on to focus on sounds in a local context for FYP.

Our daily grumbles

Appreciating something intangible like the everyday sounds of Singapore isn’t really a typical Singaporean activity. We are known to be a largely pragmatic bunch, with daily grievances that hit us the moment we step outside our homes. Particularly, the country seems to be getting more and more crowded. Despite the government’s efforts to curb population growth (in 2018, population density stagnated for the first time in more than a decade), pushing through crowds still seems to be the norm.

“People may still feel it is equally dense or more dense because they may be spending a big part of their time in their workplace in the central business district (CBD) or industrial areas, which feel crowded,” said Dr Leong, noting how density may feel different depending on which area one is in – at home, at work or in other parts of the city.

“While the statistics may show stagnation or marginal drop, people don’t feel it on the ground, especially during peak hours, when crowds congregate in train stations or on the streets.”

Straits Times article titled ‘Dip in population density, but not in crowded feeling’

Our noisy city

With a crowded city-state, comes lots of noise. Singapore’s average outdoor sound level is comparable with hectic New York City.

A new study from the National University of Singapore (NUS) found that Singapore’s average outdoor sound level throughout the day is 69.4 decibels, which is equivalent to the noise made by a vacuum cleaner.

This exceeds the National Environmental Agency’s recommendation of no more than 67 decibels averaged over an hour, and is a whisker shy of the World Health Organisation threshold of 70 decibels a day.

Straits Times article titled ‘Living with Noise Pollution’

While we can’t control noise pollution on an individual level, we can change the way we think/feel about the sounds we hear.

‘Rhythm and Shifting Our Perception’ by David Alderdice

Ethno-musicologist David Alderdice did a TEDx talk in Paonia, Colorado (USA), where he spoke about how rhythm can be an ally in our daily lives, and how it can be used as a mindfulness practice to get through obstacles in life.

He spoke about how people often come up to him, saying that they have no sense of rhythm. He begs to differ.

We are all musical beings. I mean we all live in this solar system, there’s these earthly rhythms that we all live by. The waxing and waning of the moon. The rising and setting of the Sun. High tides, low tides. Changing of the seasons, and many more.

He also touched on humans’ internal body pulses — an obvious example is our heartbeat. But there are also subtler rhythms like our lungs breathing air in and out, and our blinking pattern. Our daily activities also involve rhythm; actions like brushing our teeth, riding a bicycle, walking, hammering a nail and so on. Rhythms are what keep us going.

David then performed a polyrhythmic sequence (8:53). A polyrhythm is the “simultaneous combination of contrasting rhythms in a musical composition (e.g. two eighth notes against triplet eighths) (Britannica.com). He demonstrated how the sequence can be enjoyed as a whole, but if you listen closer, you might be able to realise that each instrument was played with differing pulses. He relates this back to life:

The more ways we can see something, the broader our understanding becomes. It’s pretty amazing to be able to really know a question or a problem from all angles, so we can fully get inside of that, understand the beauty within the problem and come up with a true full solution. We really need to see all the different angles, and not just the way that our preconceived notions are pointing us to.

What I’m pointing at here is an interdisciplinary mindfulness practice for seeing and feeling the ways to change our vantage point.

The big takeaway for me was seeing how a musical concept could be applied philosophically to life and how we choose to live it. I also feel that the idea of rhythms that exist internally in our bodies, as well as around the world we live in, is an apt point to hone in on.

4’33 by John Cage

The iconic work by American experimental composer John Cage showed that everyday sounds could be perceived as art. In 1952, in a music hall in New York, pianist David Tudor sat at the piano, seemingly prepared to perform a piece of music. For four minutes and thirty-three seconds, there was nothing but silence. Or was there?

Singer Meklit Hadero discusses this in her TED talk, titled The Unexpected Beauty of Everyday Sounds.

Cage shows us that even when there are no strings being plucked by fingers or hands hammering piano keys, still there is music, still there is music, still there is music.

And what is this music? It was that sneeze in the back. It is the everyday soundscape that arises from the audience themselves: their coughs, their sighs, their rustles, their whispers, their sneezes, the room, the wood of the floors and the walls expanding and contracting, creaking and groaning with the heat and the cold, the pipes clanking and contributing. Even in the most silent environments, we still hear and feel the sound of our own heartbeats. The world is alive with musical expression.

[…] on its own, the environment is musically generative. It is generous, it is fertile, we are already immersed.

[more research to come, on Stoicism, how Norwegians deal with winter blues by having a different vantage point, on graphic notation]

Artist References

Zul Mahmod’s work

Game Over by Gioacchino Petronicce

Graphical notation and composition by Candas Sisman

In light of the new research I’ve gathered, I’ve altered and improved on my goals for FYP.

Aims / Goals

–> to participate in a journey of being present in my surroundings (perhaps specifically in my neighbourhood… undecided). To identify rhythms that exist under my nose.

–> to broaden perspectives on the beauty of everyday sounds, to recognise rhythms as a part of our lives, and how this can help in mindfulness

–> display the concept of polyrhythms as a metaphor for viewing things from different vantage points

Proposed Methodology

An experimental film showcasing rhythms of everyday life, graphic notation displayed in the form of posters, book detailing my journey.

[to be updated]

intuition

illustration by Wu Yi Ting

Intuition
noun

the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning.

The sounds we hear on a daily basis play an essential role in helping us get through the day. But for something so vital, this process of auditory cognition comes to us instinctively — it’s not something we had to be taught to do.

The following excerpt is from a book called Auditory Cognition and Human Performance: Research and Applications by Carryl L. Baldwin.

Being able to hear and understand sounds—auditory processing—greatly enriches our lives and enables us to accomplish many tasks essential to survival. Although we engage in this process continuously throughout our lives, many may fail to appreciate that the seemingly automatic task of auditory processing often involves considerable mental effort to accomplish.

In the book, Baldwin covers fascinating techniques that our brains and ears use to make sense of raw sounds for survival, and to inform our emotions, among many others. She also touches on how certain situations can compromise the mental resource requirements of auditory processing.

Aside from the underrated work our bodies put in, I am also drawn to the phenomenon of hearing a familiar sound or piece of music and instinctively reliving memories that, while ephemeral and fleeting, can also be vivid and emotional.

I’m interested in further investigating and highlighting the magic of auditory intuition.

G O A L S ( W I P )

to highlight this automatic process of auditory cognition, something that is so intrinsically tied to us, but is also something we hardly think about
to condense and organise the information, creating something visually stimulating to present to an non-scientific audience
to inject a human touch to a scientifically dense topic

L I M I T A T I O N S / C O N C E R N S

As a design student, I don’t possess an great deal of knowledge on this topic. I would be relying on secondary research (and if possible, reaching out to people who are better equipped in the science or auditory realm than me). However, I’m hoping I can use my position as a tool to visualise and make sense of the information that’s out there.
I’m also thinking if I should incorporate personal interviews with people about their memories triggered by sound (in reference to my initial direction a few weeks ago). Still thinking where (and if) that would fit in.

C A S E S T U D I E S

1. MAGMA | Magazine design by Cristóbal Riesco

2. SPACE: ART + SCIENCE by Anna Kuts

3. Staples by Kenya Hara

“We need to think about what we have been eating all this time, the things that have been keeping us alive. We take staple foods for granted but they are also the starting point for human happiness and pride. When you are able to look at things as if for the first time, the world seems to shine and we get a new perspective.”

“… [this installation] is not an opinion or a statement, but rather the presentation of a quiet realisation. When something we know already appears unknown to us, that is the time when our knowledge can advance to the next level.”

— Kenya Hara

* Although the subject matter and desired outcomes are different, I’m inspired by his views towards the ordinary, and it is something I would like to apply to my project.

4. Slack: Communication Without Chaos

I’m inspired by their use of abstract geometric shapes to illustrate information.

Pattern: Sans Soul

PATTERN BANNER

MEDIA ART NEXUS WALL

3840 x 480 pixels
LED 15 x 2 m
Media Art Nexus, North Spine Plaza
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

SWATCH BOOK

Sample of swatches:

Application of swatches:

Digital version of swatch book:

Pattern: reimagining the supernatural

Cover photo artwork by Gillian Wilson

Growing up, my parents didn’t emphasise heavily on the practices of the 7th month and the superstitions involved, so my interactions with the Hungry Ghost Festival have been minimal. I’m also not naturally drawn to stories and myths surrounding the supernatural (perhaps I’m sub-consciously afraid of ghosts and spirits). Despite that, I’m intrigued by society’s fascination with the paranormal.

Because of my disassociation with the supernatural, I’ve decided to reimagine the world of ghosts and spirits to help my brain join the dots. We know the supernatural world for its horror, terror, gore and fright. What if these spirits were portrayed like fun, strange and totally non-creepy beings? What if they felt things the way we do? The idea of imagining an offbeat realm where the non-living displays traits of the living really appeals to me.

IDEA #1: FRIENDLY GHOST

The idea involves illustrating a curious ghost character who is eager to interact with humans (friendly and excitable ghost, contrast from the usually depicted scary and horrifying ghosts). He lingers around when humans carry out traditions like burning paper money, offering food, and organising getai events, but they can’t see him, and it makes him sad.

The banner would be designed to convey a narrative/sequence of events, featuring a series of different repeating patterns.

IDEA #2: IMAGINING A CITY OF GHOSTS

What if ghosts led similar modern-day lives like us? This idea would involve illustrating common South-east Asian ghosts in a typical city scene like the CBD. I’m interested in exploring how they would carry out human tasks like using a smartphone, smoking, or walking about town, coupled by recognisable traits that still make them ghostly. Some interesting ghost characteristics I’ve gathered after researching are:

Pontianak: pale skin, long hair, clothed in white
Ap (Cambodia) or Krasue (Thailand): floating head with innards attached
Diao Si Gui: Meaning hanged ghost. Long red tongue sticking out of their mouths
Jiang Shi: Zombie

ARTIST REFERENCES

I really love Andy J Miller‘s work for its quirky charm. There’s so much to see in one artwork, and each creature is different from the next. I’m inspired by his imagination, and his ability to use a myriad of colours in a tasteful way. His illustrations portray a sense of wonder and goof, while maintaining a somewhat mystical quality. I also like the wavy and fluid style he went for in one of his works (pictured above this para).

I love how Geraldine Sy illustrates human figures, with intentional disproportion. It might be a style worth trying when creating weird supernatural beings for my pattern banner. The mixing of patterns and textures is really interesting to look at, and will help to add interest especially when our banner will be pretty huge. Her landscape illustrations have that surreal, mystical quality that I appreciate, and might help me when creating a background for my pattern to exist on.

Andrew Rae illustrates creatures in a comic style, often with thin black outlines. They are less cute and cuddly than my first two artist references, but it could be helpful to look into a more realistic style. His works have a vintage quality to them, whether it is the way he chooses colours, or the attention to detail.

Media Art Nexus: FLOW

Title of work: FLOW

Medium: Experimental film

FLOW explores inevitable change in an increasingly digital and automated world through the abstract imagery of melting liquids.

We’ve all heard the (painfully cliche) phrase, “change is the only constant”. And for the evolution of human kind, that definitely rings true. We constantly reinvent ourselves, discovering new ways to do things, desiring something harder, better, faster, stronger. The result is a more complex, diverse and chaotic environment, which might not necessarily be a bad thing.

Inspiration/references

When I was thinking of what to create for the media wall, I was mildly obsessed with those oddly satisfying videos on YouTube — most of them being timelapses of things being melted.

Mmmhm look at dat.

Watching something melt in real time is really boring, but taking a video and speeding it up changes everything. And with that in mind, I scoured the interwebs for inspiration.

Initial moodboard, derived from stuff I found on Pinterest

I started out by pinning some cool images of liquids flowing.

Ice Crystals Timelapse by Shawn Knol

This is a timelapse video of ice crystals melting, and the artist achieved the rainbow/oil slick look with with cross-polarized light. I really like that he shot in macro, as this zoomed-in view looks much more fascinating, and we can see every single detail. It gives us a completely different view than if we were just looking at the object with the naked eye.

Pills Dissolve In Macro by Macro Room

This is a pretty simple video, but the visuals look really cool. I like the interaction of colours and different textures that were produced from the melting pills.

I thought about how the imagery of melting objects can be linked to the constant changes in society. Change is not something you can prevent from happening, and although it makes for a more complex, messy and diverse world, it has its own beauty too. I tried to infuse this concept into my film, which involves melting every day items like ice, food colouring, oil and butter.

Process

I started experimenting with food colouring and ice, and also tried more unorthodox objects like eggs, butter, and nail polish. Not all of them were successful at conveying the melting look I was looking for, but it produced interesting textures. I have two previous OSS posts with more behind-the-scenes of my experimentations (here and here).

I tried capturing the visuals in photo and video timelapses, but I prefer the photos because the pixel count is much higher (5184 × 3456), compared to the capabilities of my camera in shooting video (1920 × 1080). Since the media wall is 3840 x 480, I would have to fit at least three video clips side by side to fill up the width of the wall. The dimensions of the photos leave more room to play with scale and position.

Ice + food colouring in oil

I mixed water and food colouring in an ice cube tray, and froze it. Then, I placed the ice cubes in oil. The way the melted ice flowed looked pretty interesting, but after a while, the ice cubes seemed to interact with the oil to form a weird barrier and they couldn’t melt fully.

Ice, salt and food colouring

I saw a Pinterest post about sprinkling salt over ice blocks, and seeing them melt in irregular shapes. I decided to try this out, and added food colouring to show they way the ice melted. Some of the shots look like glaciers, which left me pleasantly surprised.

Butter

Post-production

First, I imported my photos into Lightroom to do some colour correction, then imported everything into Premiere Pro as image sequences.

To work around the unique dimensions of the wall, I placed multiple clips side by side to try and avoid an extremely cropped and narrow view. I masked the clips to blend the edges, making it look like one cohesive video clip.

before masking

after masking

I was also experimenting with glitch effects to incorporate my concept of a digital world, and realised that some of the effects worked better on After Effects.

Because I had never worked on After Effects before, it didn’t occur to me to edit the entire film using the program. I was putting individual clips into AE, applying effects, exporting the clips and putting them back on my PP project. Longfei saw that I was doing a lot of masking and told me that it’s way easier on AE… and it was! Masking on Premiere Pro was horribly laggy, but it was much faster on AE.

I abandoned my PP project and started from scratch on AE.

What my messy timeline looks like.

I found a plug-in for pixel sorting, which I wanted to incorporate into the film because the effect looks like a computerised, glitchy version of melting/flowing. I’ve also been experimenting with RGB split and other glitch effects. I want the glitches to come in intermittently, increasing in frequency in the middle and towards the end of the film.

The film, for now

Music: The Way She Moves by Tenru (used with permission)

Future plans

I’m aiming to finish compiling the clips by next week (week 12), and focusing on final details and minor sound effects in the lead up to presentation week.

Media Art Nexus – ice salt glacier

Where I’m at for now:

testing out new ways to melt things
colour manipulation, mirroring, masking etc to fit the 8:1 aspect ratio
experimenting with pixel sorting in After Effects

ICE + SALT + FOOD COLOURING

I found a science experiment on Pinterest, where salt was sprinkled over blocks of ice and made the ice melt in a cool way — it reminded me of the uneven shapes of glaciers. So I grabbed food colouring and froze some blocks of ice to recreate the experiment. I took timelapses of these formations with a 3 sec interval.

RESULTS

I tried small blocks of ice first, and shot from top down because I liked the changing colours of the food colouring that came about as the ice melted.

I used a bigger ice block so I could get a clearer shot of the food colouring trickling down. This looked pretty cool hehe

Another shot of the big ice block, where I went a lil crazy on the food colouring.

INCORPORATING INTO 3840 X 480

I played around with mirroring the footage and masking some clips to combine them together, so I could work around the 8:1 aspect ratio. I’ll work on creating new visuals based on the current batch of clips I have (i.e. shift the position of the clip so it shows other parts that are hidden because of the dimensions of the wall).

PIXEL SORTING

I wanted to incorporate some glitching into my film, and decided to try out pixel sorting because I feel like it kinda gives a computerised melting effect. This clips are from my initial experimentation, and I’ll keep working on it. (Ina likes the pixel sorting effect!)

CHALLENGES

By far, the biggest challenge has been filming these melting timelapses. Logistically, it takes some work to put everything together, and the medium I’m working with is quite unpredictable. I’m also quite impatient, and I get antsy about the timelapses and wonder if anything’s changing. Because of that, I’ve stopped timelapses short and missed out on potentially good shots. You never really know until you render the image sequence in Premiere, so it takes some experimenting (and a whole lot of waiting).

Another challenge is packaging the clips into a cohesive film. Since it is an experimental film, it’s probably going to look pretty ambiguous and abstract to the audience, so it’s important to maintain an underlying theme so it doesn’t look like I just threw a bunch of random clips together. I have some ideas for the flow of the film:

Colours — light colours at the beginning, progressing to darker hues
Movement — slow, calm visuals to fast and quick transitions
Form — organic melting to computerised, mechanical melting

~much more editing on the horizon~

Media Art Nexus / Experimenting with macro

I’ve more or less settled on the concept for my project, which is an experimental film about change. It is human nature to be unreceptive to change, but sometimes the chaos that it creates can be beautiful in its own way. This message will be represented by objects melting, solidifying, etc (solid – liquid – gas).

I’m still in the process of working out a sequence of shots that can bring across the idea, but in the meantime, I experimented with some photo and video timelapses just to get a feel of how the film could look. I borrowed a friend’s zoom lens (Sigma 18-200mm Macro) to shoot these timelapses.

EGG

I fried an egg on a pan and let it cook naturally. I like the plastic-y look it has as it is solidifying. Slightly uncomfortable from watching it but looks kinda fascinating too.

ICE CUBES

I experimented with coloured ice cubes in vegetable oil. They produced interesting effects, but the mixture of the ice cubes and the oil created a weird film covering the ice cubes, preventing them from melting all the way.

MILK + COCOA

I heated milk in a pan and added cocoa powder. I really like how the milked bubbled up, but I’ll have to play around with colour saturation because it looks quite dull currently.

Notes from consult:

Ina told me to check out colour field painting, which involves highly simplified compositions with large sweeps of solid colours. It’s a style I’ll research more about, might help with the melting ice cubes.
The shots need to be dramatic so it doesn’t get boring. (storyboarding + planning of compositions need to be done!)
Consider mirroring the video to cope with the 3840 x 480 aspect ratio.

Media Art Nexus / Finding my way around

So far, I’m feeling a little lost (hopefully in a good way). Interactive art / large scale art is pretty new to me, and I’m interested to see what I’ll end up creating this sem. We were asked to come up with some ideas of what we’d like to make to go on the media wall, and I came up with two. Both of them are intended for the theme of ILLUSION.

IDEA #1: Moving Memphis Patterns

Memphis was a design collective started by a group of designers who did NOT hail from Memphis, Tennessee, but instead from Italy. The name came from Bob Dylan’s song, “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”, which played repeatedly during one of their meetings. The movement came about as a rejection of minimalist design in the 70s, and traces of Art Deco, Pop Art and 1950’s Kitsch are consistent with the Memphis style.

I’ve been in love with Memphis patterns for a while now, and thought of creating my own patterns inspired by the Memphis style, and animating the patterns to bring them to life. The bright colours and moving geometric shapes could look interesting on the media wall.

An example of animated patterns (and a questionable pairing of music).

IDEA #2: Solid to Liquid to Gas

I was thinking of using film as a medium for this project, because I’m more comfortable with it than programming/animating. While looking around Vimeo for inspiration, I saw a timelapse video of ice melting, and thought it looked pretty cool. There’s something oddly satisfying about watching a sped-up video of something morphing and changing its state.

The idea of objects changing state (solid to liquid, liquid to gas etc) can be a metaphor for impermanence and the transience of life. Still trying to further develop this concept.

I really like how the ink reacts with milk and creates this marbling effect.

The glitching and fast cuts are something I would like to incorporate in my project.

Art History ACM visit

Artwork: Baby carrier with image of a mother and child and Marie Biscuit tin logo

This artwork was produced on a piece of cloth, which is about the length of an average adult. It is intricately designed, featuring various animal motifs painted in the Indonesian batik dotting style. In the center of the piece, there is a motherly figure who appears to be sitting or leaning, holding a baby in her arms.

The facial features on the mother and child were quite simplistically drawn, and lack colour. Much more details are found in the mother’s dressing, with hues of muted blue and brown that are consistent with the rest of the piece. The posture of the two subjects resembles that of Mother Mary and Jesus, which may or may not have been intentional.

Along with the Eastern artistic style, hints of Western influences can be seen, like the intricate border, Victorian-like chandeliers, and (misspelled) Marie Biscuit logo. As this is quite intricately painted and quite large in nature, I think this piece was made to be displayed. The nuances of Western influences could have been the result of flourishing trade in the Southeast Asia region, with trade ties between nations developing since a few hundred years ago.

Not a selfie...... but good enough I hope — Not a selfie…… but good enough I hope

2D II: Typographic Portraits

Task: Create typographic portraits by using your name (or part of it) to describe imaginary professions and/or affirmations.

Before fleshing out any ideas, I came up with a list of personal traits, professions or objects I felt reflected my personality.

I AM INDECISIVE
I AM A DAYDREAMER
I AM TIMID
I AM IDEALISTIC
I AM A CUP OF EARL GREY TEA
I AM A COMFY OVERSIZED SWEATER
I AM A PERFECTIONIST
I AM A WRITER
I AM A MEDIATOR
I AM A SLOTH
I AM AN ORGANISER
I AM A PEACEMAKER

With my list, I started to think about the traits I would be able to portray or capture visually in an eye-catching way. I initially wanted to stick with a main theme so that all my pieces had a unifying factor. I was inspired by the works of Kyle Pierce, an American illustrator who layers photographs with hand lettering and illustrations, producing a raw and candid feel.

I wanted to implement his style into my pieces by placing transparency paper on top of a supporting image, and writing my name in different styles on the transparency sheets. Later on, Shirley pushed me to think further — just by looking at the font, how could someone guess what personality trait I was trying to portray? I needed to communicate my intended idea solely through the font. With this in mind, it was harder to come up with ideas, but also pushed me to go beyond the surface. Breaking down the meanings behind the personal affirmations I chose was helpful, and served as a guide that I could look back on at every point of the project.

I AM A CUP OF EARL GREY TEA

Meaning: When I think of something that brings me peace and calm, I think of a cup of earl grey tea. I am quite serene and calm most of the time, though if you knew what was going on in my mind, you’d think otherwise. I often strive to keep a level head, and keep calm in all situations, so emulating the personality of earl grey tea has become my inner mantra.

IDEA #1:

I decided to play with food typography for this composition. I’ve always loved what people can create out of everyday food items, and was inspired to try it out. Tea is often associated with elegance and class, so I was thinking of using a serif font. I wanted to make the first letter of my name out of loose earl grey tea leaves, resembling a monogram. The ‘D’ would be printed on transparency paper, and underneath, I was thinking of a plain texture, like white sheets, to keep the royal theme. I rejected this idea later on because I felt it wasn’t dynamic enough.

IDEA #2 (chosen):
I decided to make a calligraphic font out of the tea leaves, as I felt that it would look less static than my initial plan to use a serif font. I tried to bring out a laidback and gentle vibe with stray tea leaves, a mason jar and my kindle.

Inspiration

Process

First, I wrote my name many times on a piece of paper, varying the flourishes to get my desired look. Then I arranged the tea leaves with the help of a spoon to clean up the edges. It took me a REALLY long time for me to get the font exactly how I wanted it, and I initially wanted to do my whole name, but realised my tea towel wasn’t big enough for it to fit. I was cool with leaving it as ‘Deb’.

Final

I AM TIMID

Meaning: I don’t like admitting that I’m quite a timid person. It’s probably because I often over-think things, and although I don’t suffer from anxiety, the worrying does get in the way sometimes. I tend to get myself out of situations or hide from things when I feel uncomfortable or afraid. On a separate note, I often find myself in awe of Mother Nature’s wonders, I’m also quite afraid of natural disasters and things than man can’t predict or control.

IDEA #1:

I initially wanted to emphasize the desire of hiding when I’m feeling timid, so I thought I could use layers of paper with leaves and flowers painted on them, and have part of my name peeking out in the corner. Another method was using layers of clothes to symbolise the desire of hiding under many layers. This idea didn’t work out in the end, because I was using visual aids to communicate the idea, and not utilizing the font to tell my story.

IDEA #2 (CHOSEN):
I wanted to play with the idea of feeling small and withdrawn when I’m scared, so I cut out a rounded font using paper that I crumpled and rolled slightly, and placed them behind roots and leaves, as if the font was hiding from the elements. I set it down on the floor to emphasise how small I feel. I also put it amidst to symbolise my fear of Mother Nature’s wrath.

Inspiration

Jon Gray

Process

(PHOTOS OF PAPER TEXT)

I printed out my name in the font Montserrat, a nice rounded typeface, then traced it on drawing block and cut the letters out. I attached the letters on satay sticks so they would stay up, then brought them down to the park to get some shots. It took me a few tries to get the position exactly right, because I wanted the text to be hidden at some points, but I didn’t want it to look too forced.

Final

I AM A COMFY OVERSIZED SWEATER

Meaning: I am a fan of anything that keeps me comfy, and that means beanbags, cold weather, and above everything else, soft oversized sweaters. I also like giving people hugs.

IDEA #1:

I have quite a lot of old clothes lying around at home, and I was thinking of finding interesting fabrics, cutting them up and pasting them on an A5 base. On transparency paper, I would write my name, partially hidden by the fabric layers. I was trying to portray the idea of being a creature of comfort who likes being bundled up and comfortable. I rejected this idea because it was pretty similar to my ‘timid’ composition.

IDEA #2 (CHOSEN): To highlight the oversized-ness, I figured I could make the font look like it was so huge that it didn’t fit the frame. I would use pastel colours to accentuate the comfy aspect, and also because I love pastels.

Process

This composition was done digitally from scratch. I started with a clipping mask of the texture, then used the brush tool to add the fur along the sides, then blended more and more to achieve a more natural look.

Final

I AM A WRITER

Meaning: For a long time, I was pretty sure I was going to be a journalist once I graduated with my Mass Comm diploma. I worked as a beauty/lifestyle writer for almost 1 year and I loved what I did. It was intriguing to me that although my name must have been seen by many people, almost noone would know me personally, or even want to know more about me. The story always comes first, and a good writer doesn’t do it for the fame. As a writer, you’re sort of hidden behind the words you write, for better or for worse.

IDEA:
I decided to use negative space to communicate the idea of hiding/residing behind the words.

Inspiration

Process

I first created the paragraphs with InDesign using lorem ipsum text, then used the text wrap effect so the words would “avoid” the huge D E B letters. Then I brought it over to Photoshop, adding a vignette effect, some brushes and a crumpled paper effect for interest.

Final

Reflection:

This assignment was really enjoyable for me, because I’ve always been fascinated by typography and its versatility in evoking different meanings and themes. I’m glad that Shirley pushed me to think harder about how to make the fonts convey exactly what I intended, and I hope the audience can relate to what I’ve created.