Colour – EATME

Tag: Colour

Patched (Part 2 – Final)

7 November 2016 by Siqi·0 Comments

Final Revision

Alright so now I have to come up with my own patterns!

And I’m only left with less than a week to do so!! Ahhh!!!

I still really like the yellow flower pattern that I found on Pattern Jam though. So what I did was to take that motif and tried to replicate an exceedingly similar pattern :p After which, I also combined it with another flower motif I drew myself and added some dots to create another pattern. Hence, my final piece was created using only two patterns. However, I played with scale and colours so that it would still have visual interest.

capture5

capture6

Ta-da!

I decided to leave the square plain and only made it look like a patch for I was afraid that the patterns were already too much on the eye and more designs on the center would confuse the viewers instead. Also because my references tells me that patchwork quilt fabric squares usually looks similiar:

Problems

For all my previous mock-ups, I found that alignment was a huge issue. I had not thought that working with triangles would be so difficult before this project. It really took me till the last revision to finally straighten out my triangles and made sure that they were aligned properly digitally.

The next problem was printing alignment. I realized that even if the double-sided printing came out just a teeny bit off, it would affect my entire card because my designs were strictly triangular and there was no room for any bleeds or errors!

The worst thing was that my previous test prints were all on 80gsm paper which was already the easiest to fold. That had me worrying sick that a higher grammage would be too difficult to fold. One word: STRESS!

Printing

Okay so finally the day for printing has come. I geared up with cutting mat and penknife and 30-cm ruler and headed to Sunshine Plaza. Tried out a 170gsm paper first and it gave me this:

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The paper was too thick so the card did not fold well even after scoring. I then tried a 140gsm paper. This grammage folds well and the card sat really nicely. But :

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So I headed to the other print shop highly recommended by all my friends for their awesome double-sided prints. It was really expensive (double the price), but considering the wonderful finish, I would say, it’s a small price to pay 🙂

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Improvements

Right after the uncle sent my design to the printer, I realized I could have tried printing on fancier paper such as those with cloth/fabric textures. But it was too late and I didn’t want to spend more money :p But it would definitely have been fun to explore the other paper choices.

If given more time I would also like to work a little more on my patterns because I feel like pattern design is a huge thing even on its own and it would be great to come up with motifs and designs which are uniquely mine.

Takeaway

1. It is hard to digitally draw perfect triangles
2. Alignment is affected by EVERYTHING – calculations, paperweight, printing quality
3. Good double-sided printing is expensive but so worth it
4. Scoring requires some thought and folding, some patience

Window of Opportunity (Part 4 – Final)

31 August 2016 by Siqi·0 Comments

Close your eyes and picture this:

A symphony of rustling leaves and silent creaking bamboo stalks surrounds you. A gentle breeze caresses your face as you take a deep breath which smells of damp forest and moss. The rays of the morning sun filter brightly through the softly swaying stalks, casting ever-changing shadows on the lush undergrowth. Coolness is deep within the bamboo grove.

Calmness, tranquility, zen-ness, serenity and peacefulness – these are the feelings associated with being in a bamboo grove, which is the therapeutic element I want to bring to the hospital.

I chose to depict the bamboo forest in a relatively abstract manner because:

1. I believe that the window art should set an immersive mood

– There are already enough distractions along the J-Walk
– Users are just buzzing through; seldom will they take the time to admire the art pieces

2. I thought that I could play with light

– Production of varying shades of green shadows which will mimic a forest undergrowth

As such, I came up with a few drafts using the traditional collaging method. And after some digital modifications, I shortlisted four of the designs but couldn’t decide on which to choose.

So I sent them for test-prints to study the effect of light on each of them. I first printed on tracing paper (substitute for translucent decal) because I wanted to block out, as much as possible, the shadows of the rows of bars outside the windows. However, I found that it restricts too much light.

I then tried it out on transparency. After which, I realized that there weren’t significant differences among the casted shadows and that is when I decided on submitting the last piece because unlike the others, it gives the most sense of depth.

Bamboo is flexible – bending with the wind but never breaking, capable of adapting to any circumstance. It suggests resilience, that we have the ability to bounce back even from the most difficult times.