Month: October 2015

Project 2: Rhyme rhymes with rhyme!

When I learnt about what I had to do for Project 2, I admit, I was a little afraid and apprehensive. Because I had never done anything related to designing digitally. Mastering photoshop was also a steep slope even though I al had prior knowledge of how to use it. I was very thankful that there was a segment during one of our tutorial that we were taught to use the pen tool and using masking as well as filters. One of the most intriguing point that I picked up during the photoshop crash course was the part where we are to convert our files to a smart object to maintain the quality of the image. It was something that I had never done in my past works, which explained why some of my final works are a little pixelated. I’ll definitely apply what I have learnt into my future works.

With regard to the realisation of the prints in relation to the given rhymes that we need to work with, I found it very fun because I love the process of coming out with a design. I was very intrigued with this especially during my National Service in the Public Affairs Department in SPF. I remember telling my friends in the department who were graphic designers, that I want to do design work just like how they did it in office. I guess, for this project, I was able to get a feel for it. Definitely loved it!

When I saw my work being printed out with the design work that I have put in time and effort into, it was exceptionally gratifying. I never really had the chance to experiment with design work in my earlier phases of education and I am thankful for being able to do so in ADM.

My 4 choices:

Here are the documentation of my designing process.

“The cow jumped over the moon”

I experimented with the use of patterns to show movement –> cow jumping over the moon. The spiral pattern shows the movement of the cows and the direction it’s moving at. There is an overall sense of dynamism in this image and I really love how it turned out. The overall image resembles a sun with the moon as the core and the cows are the sun rays. It is a well-balanced image. 

“All the King’s horses and all the King’s men”

For this rhyme, I experimented with the element of balance and scale along with patterns. I used scale to bring up the significance of “all the king’s men” and repetition with “all the king’s horses” forming the border of this image. I tried to insert a background but it covered the legs of the men, which results in no separation with the background. So I removed some part of the background.

“The dog laughed to see such sport”

I went with a simple design to emphasise the laughter of the dog, very much similar to how we laugh. We don’t simply “haha”, instead we laugh like this, “hahahahahaha”; so the repetition of the laughing dog definitely worked. I chose a simple crystallized background to add a sense of depth as well as a separation from the dog. It also fits my emotion about this rhyme where it’s a little trippy and surreal

“There was an old woman who lived in a shoe”

For this image, I wanted to experiment with a more positive pictorial description of the rhyme along with implied meaning, “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe”. And , I think I did that. I designed it in a way that it shows the old woman doing some chores outside the house, to show she resides in the house (which is a shoe).

“Couldn’t put humpty together again”

This was a simple design that described the rhyme the way I interpreted it. Simplicity is best and I think this example definitely exemplifies it. I used a background with cracked glass and a cracked Humpty to show that he could not be pieced back together again. This was a result of Humpty having a great fall (implied meaning). I love this simple and fun design.

“She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do”

I experimented with the use of leading lines as well as the outward “sun rays” to express shock and despair of the old woman because she didn’t know what to do with so many children. I supplemented the expression with the context of the old woman having so many children through the use of repeated pattern (growing in scale) of many children; who are arranged in line with the sunray lines. A simple use of an old woman expressing shock pieced together the entire interpretation of this rhyme.

Overall, I had a great time and fun working on this project. I look forward to the next project where I get to add colours into my work! 🙂