TODAY WILL BE A GOOD DAY // The Journal of an Optimistic Girl

 

To start things of, let me talk about my main inspiration, which was the second project for 2D and 2D II.

Here are the photos for reference!

Untitled-3Nursery Rhymes – She had so many children she didn’t know what to do.

2D PROJ 2 FINAL-01Happiness from the POV of a lover.

The underlying theme for my POV project was rather dark, but I wanted to try pushing the boundaries even further in an even funnier way.

 

I thus came up with the idea of doing a fully narrative book from the POV of the main character. I don’t have a name for her, but my friend said it seemed like me (since i can be rather oblivious and clueless too)!

To work with the juxtaposition of her happy character with the darker theme, I decided to make her a very very veryyyyyyy obliviously optimistic and happy-go-lucky character that unknowingly brought death and doom with her wherever she went. I though the best way to represent this POV narrative was through a personal journal, so that’s what I went with in the end.

(I realised i forgot to take a picture of my initial sketches before i attached them into my sketchbook, so i’ll just be including my digital images)

Process Work

To start things off, I did my cover page first. Since this project was supposed to be an extension of a previous project, I decided to draw a slightly grown up version of the blue-haired girl I had used in my POV project.ZINE OSS POST-02

I removed the black lines and added a nose to make her feel more matured.

I actually had a few problems drawing my characters because i’m not very good at visualising, so I ended up taking a few reference pictures and tracing it with the pen tool on illustrator!

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These were used for the staircase drawing in my last page!

 

One of the bigger issues I had was a continuity issue in the pages. This was my original map in the book:

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To communicate the idea that these places were visited in sequence, i placed the map behind each pages’ illustration.


Map-03

I didn’t like it though, and I thought it made the composition unnecessarily messy.

 

Test Print/Mock-up

Binding:

Binding

I did an elastic-band binding. Basically, the cover page and all individual pages have a cut out at the top and bottom of the page. The front page and back page sits on one long piece of paper and is separated by the book spine. The individual pages are aligned and placed into the cover pages, which acts as a sort of folder. The cover is closed with the pages inside, and the elastic band is fitted into the nooks at the top and bottom. The tension of the band then holds everything in place.

For this binding, it was very important for me to choose paper as thick as possible so that it could withstand the strength of the elastic band.

 

Cover Page

(Left: Front Cover | Right: Back Cover)

Page 2 File_007

My pages were initially two square pieces of paper stuck together with a flap. I realised later on that it felt very clumsy and messy.

 

Final Product

After printing, I decided to do away with the map in the individual pages. As mentioned earlier, I thought it didn’t go very well with the composition.

I then decided to make the place resemble places in NTU, and I think this helped (even just a little) to communicate the idea that these places were visited on the same day, and in sequence.

New Map:

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The ‘Fresh Food’ place is actually Prime, and the pink building is Hall 8. The main character starts at North Spine before proceeding back to her hall.

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The stairs’ and door’s colours were made similar to the ones in Hall 8.

 

Final final finalll product:

I’m sorry I don’t have any pictures of me assembling the book!

Binding took about 1 hour or more to do because I had to cut out all the individual nooks on each page. To give you a better idea of how i layout my pages, here are some pictures!

The extra space at the left of the page is allowance for the nooks and elastic band!

ZINE PRINT (FINAL)-05ZINE PRINT (FINAL)-12The cover page was printed on one continuous piece of paper (within A3). The center space in between the nooks was the book’s spine.

All my pages were single sided to keep in line with the journal theme. The pages are supposed to be added in when something new happens to the character, and it thus doesn’t make sense for the pages to be double sided. Also, the addition of the flap would make it too thick and bulky.

ZINE OSS POST-05

I also changed the way I pasted the flaps on top of my pages. Instead of cutting out a circle on the top page and pasting the rest of the page down, I decided to DIY my own ‘die-cut’, and left enough space on the left side of the page for it to be inserted into the binding.

The elastic band i used was a smooth one with no ridges that I found at artfriend (thanks joy for the tip!!!)

 

and TA-DAHHHHHH THE FINAL ZINEE

 

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Here is the soft copy version with the main character’s musing/thoughts!

 

 

On the left is the happy part (top of flap) while the bottom is the more catastrophic side of events!

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Flaps-01

She reaches the top shelf for her fruit juice but it is instead knocked down and it hits an old lady, killing her. Instead of showing concern, she just genuinely wonders why the old lady would ‘sleep’ on the floor of a supermarket.

 

Flaps-02

She decides to grab some coffee after her marketing errands (as seen by the plastic bag on the table), and muses about how much she loves her coffee. In her dazed mode, she accidentally lets go of her coffee, spilling it over another student’s laptop. The student is noticeably distressed before she spills the coffee, and is in shock as his laptop goes haywire after she spills the coffee. Of course, she is oblivious to all this!

 

Flaps-03

After her coffee, she decides to walk back to her hall since it’s not too far away. She’s glad she doesn’t have to wait and squeeze into the shuttle or public buses to get back to her hall, and is using her phone on her walk back. A student on a bicycle attempts to avoid hitting her and is instead flung from his vehicle. Again, she is completely clueless and is (presumingly?) looking at cute animal videos on facebook.

 

Flaps-04Here, she is approaching her hall room. She is perspiring due to the hot water, but still has a smile on her face because that’s just the type of person she is. She smiles and always chooses to be positive :). One of her fruit juice unknowingly drops out of her plastic bag, and the guy climbing behind her trips and falls, dropping his laptop casing with him. She turns back and is concerned about him. However, she doesn’t realise it’s her fault, and merely thinks he was just taking a short break from climbing the very steep stairs. 

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Despite all that happened, she is still totally oblivious (haha)! She starts and ends everyday with a positive and happy mindset, which is why the back cover says “Today was a really good day”.  I added some extra strokes of blush on her cheeks because she’s flushed from being so happy.  (๑•͈ᴗ•͈)

 

Conclusion:

I was really really happy that I had the chance to do this project! It definitely gave me the chance to further flesh out my ideas and I really enjoyed creating the narrative. I’m glad I got the chance to develop my characters and style and I look forward to more exploration during the holidays!

To end off, I would really like to thank Joy for always being so encouraging! I really learnt a lot this semester, and I feel that Joy’s encouragement and constant feedback really helped to push me further along in my design journey! I had more courage to explore what I wanted to incorporate in my style and I appreciate that so so much so THANK YOU JOY!!!

ヽ(◕◡◕❀ฺ )ノ   ヽ(◕◡◕❀ฺ )ノ   ヽ(◕◡◕❀ฺ )ノ

2D Assignment 2 : Point – of – View

I had a lot of conflicting feelings and thoughts regarding this project when I first stared.

Happiness differs greatly from person to person, and I had a hard time finding the angle from which I wanted to focus this project on. Similarly, it was hard for me to decide on a style that I thought was apt.

I personally prefer darker themes, but I don’t necessarily agree with the colour palette for my own works. The style, therefore, was a huge block for me when I was in the midst of the conceptualisation process.

My personal favourite works were from the Nursery Rhymes last sem, and I wanted to combine these darker themes into my work and subsequent style.For reference:

Untitled-3

 

Trying to create/define my style was definitely something that I couldn’t do within the shortperiod of 4 weeks so for the purposes of this project, I decided to with a quirkier style that hinted at some sort of impending doom.

 

For the following part of the post I’ll be taking you through my process and random drafts I did along the way.

Here are my 6 lines:

  1. Happiness from the point of view of a lover is being one with their other half.
  2. Happiness from the point of view of a introvert is being alone.
  3. Happiness from the point of view of a condom is having a fulfilled life.
  4. Happiness from the point of view of a armpit hair is being beautiful.
  5. Happiness from the point of view of a toast is getting a perfect score.
  6. Happiness from the point of view of a ADM student is sleep.

 

 

BRAINSTORMING

Process Work-01 Process Work-02

“Character” Design:

I’m really bad at drawing and I don’t quite have my own style yet, so this was me trying to settle on a character that I could use throughout my 6 works!

Process Work-03 Process Work-04

My “evolution” of characters

Final character:

Process Work-10

My initial idea was to make the female character a harbinger of happiness so I choose bright colours and a quirkier dressing sense for her! I thus tried including her in all of the compositions.


 

LOVER
Happiness from the point of view of a lover is being one with their other half.

 

Initial Drafts:

I actually got this idea when I was watching Leonardo Dicaprio’s Revenant. It was a scene in which Leonardo Dicaprio was stranded in snow, and he carved out the insides of a dead horse so that he could sleep inside of its dead body and use it as a warm make-shit shelter.

My first attempt was thus to draw the female character inside of her boyfriend.

 

Process Work-06Process Work-05

 

I thought this didn’t look very polished or clean, so I decided to change the design to the following:

Final2D PROJ 2 FINAL-01

 

I had a lot of fun with this, and thought it would look nice as a GIF, so I did:

Untitled1

(GIF – Please right click & open it in a new tab if it doesn’t work!)


 

INTROVERT
Happiness from the point of view of a introvert is being alone.

Initial Idea – Suggesting that the female character is there by showing only her face and part of the lines of her robe. Inspiration was drawn from Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak.

Process Work-09

I scraped this idea because it wasn’t very quirky.

Final:

2D PROJ 2 FINAL-03

The idea here is that introverts want to be left alone and have their own private space. The only way this would be possible would be to be away from all sorts of social contact. So space it is!

As mentioned earlier, I wanted a sense of impending doom in all my pieces, and in this image it can be seen through the crack in her helmet. There’s no spaceship in view, and she’s not connected to anything else. Therefore, her eventual fate is death!


CONDOM
Happiness from the point of view of a condom is having a fulfilled life.

Initial Idea:

A phallic looking mini balloon pump attached to a condom, filling it.

Process Work-12Variations on types of pumps to use:

Process Work-11

I couldn’t bring out a sense of doom with the previous composition, so i changed it to a condom in the process of being thrown away after it’s temporary happiness.

2D PROJ 2 FINAL-04

In the dustbin is a condom box, a used condom, tissue papers and the girl’s yellow socks.


ARMPIT HAIR
Happiness from the point of view of a armpit hair is being beautiful.

I wasn’t so sure on how to start on this one, so I just did a few sketches first.

The figure on the left is a copy of Sailor Moon’s transformation. I wanted to make use of a female character that is idolised/considered pretty and wanted to replace the ribbons in Sailor Moon’s transformation with armpit hair (quite gross, i know hahaha).

Process Work-13

Got a suggestion from Leon from the other class (thanks Leon!), and decided to go with Rapunzel since she is know for having very long and desirable hair.

Process Work-14

I initially attempted to keep the background simple so that it wouldn’t stand out too much from the the compositions, but my friend mentioned that it looked more like a well than Rapunzel’s window.

Including the rest of the building:

2D PROJ 2 FINAL-05

Final:

Centralised to fit in with the rest of the compositions.

Included a shine effect and cartoon stars to the hair to make it look funnier. Added it “I am beauuutiful” because it finally feels as desirable and pretty as it’s head counterpart!

2D PROJ 2 FINAL-08 


TOAST
Happiness from the point of view of a toast is getting a perfect score.

I got this idea from a toaster. There’s always that struggle to make sure your toast lands on your plate when it pops out of the toaster in cartoons, so I thought it would be funny if a toast’s life goal was to score a perfect landing once it’s ejected.

My first draft was just of a bread flying out of the toaster, and during consultation someone suggested that I turn the scene into a cheerleading competition instead ( I’m sorry i can’t remember who, but thank you!!)

2D PROJ 2 FINAL-07

Dressed up for cheerleading (ノ≧∀≦)◞✹2D PROJ 2 FINAL-07

Final:

Added in soya sauce, sriracha, salt and pepper as audience/judges.

Toast getting into a cheerleader formation and getting a perfect score of 10. 
2D PROJ 2 FINAL-06

Gif:

TOAST

(GIF – Please right click & open it in a new tab if it doesn’t work!)


ADM STUDENT
Happiness from the point of view of a ADM student is sleep.

If you’ve noticed, the female character actually kiiiiiind of resembles me (hair), and I did this on purpose. In the first part of my post I mentioned that the female character was supposed to be a harbinger of happiness, and I wanted the last frame to be a sort of end to this whole series.

In short, I initially wanted all the other characters to be a part of the girl’s imagination and that she can finally sleep (and be happy) once she stops thinking about these sort of weird ideas (cause assignment is submitted!!!).

Buuuuut, I decided to abandon this idea because it didn’t sound very fun. (I originally wanted to make the last image different in composition and colour the whole A5 page to show the change!)

Final:

An ADM student (hinted at because of the macbook) is seen wearing a polar bear onsie with eye bags under her eyes, ready to hibernate and sleep off her exhaustion. Calender states 17 March because that was our submission date for this assignment.

2D PROJ 2 FINAL-07


REJECTED IDEA – CLOUD

Happiness from the POV of a cloud is relieving itself. 

This was one of my original ideas, but i felt it was the weakest idea out of the rest so I decided to exclude this during presentation:
Raining

(GIF – Please right click & open it in a new tab if it doesn’t work!)


With that, I conclude this post.

This assignment was really fun as I got a chance to figure out what I liked and what kind of direction I would like to take for my future assignments. It was challenging in that sense and I definitely spent a lot of time on the design of the characters even though they are all pretty simple. I wouldn’t say I am 100% satisfied with it because I feel it is still lacking a lot, but at least it’s a small step forward! 🙂

 

Project 2: POV (Initial Research and Sketches)

Hello!

 

I had a few ideas about what do choose as my object, and I eventually settled on the idea of happiness.

The idea of happiness varies a lot depending on each individual and I initially thought it would be interesting to tackle it.

For example, happiness to a beauty queen would be eternal beauty and youth whereas happiness to a businessman would be status and money.

However, for the purpose of maintaining a unified theme/look, I decided to scrape the idea because I felt the ideas would be too diverse and look too different.

So instead, I decided to look at the idea of happiness from different objects:

  1. Happiness from the point of view of a cloud is peeing.
  2. Happiness from the point of view of a ghost is companionship.
  3. Happiness from the point of view of a feet is freedom.
  4. Happiness from the point of view of  boobs is freeing the nipple.
  5. Happiness from the point of view of armpit hair is being untamed.
  6. Happiness from the point of view of a introvert is being left alone.
  7. Happiness from the point of view of a star is recognition.
    1. Happiness from the point of view of a artist is recognition.
  8. Happiness from the point of view of a dirty dish is being washed.
  9. Happiness from the point of view of a cat is doing whatever it wants.
  10. Happiness from the point of view of a comb is smooth hair.
  11. Happiness from the point of view of a vain-pot is looking ideal.
  12. Happiness from the point of view of a former beauty queen is eternal youth.
  13. Happiness from the point of view of a weirdo is being ok with being weird.
  14. Happiness from the point of view of a goth is being full black.
  15. Happiness from the point of view of a bimbo is being full pink.
  16. Happiness from the point of view of a lover is being with their partner 24/7.
  17. Happiness from the point of view of a fashionista is being in trend.
  18. Happiness from the point of view of a ADM student is graduating.

Inspirations:

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Mrzyk & Moriceau:

 


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91c341fed2a3bcf642f48acc1b215b1c a12835c66b2f909ae17e0f37b31402a8


 

Ultraaviolets:

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Nimura Daisuke:

His works are really weird and funny but I love it HAHAHA

6006103072249614fc2059c33acc7a89d6237ad0d11e1702e9b50f975f9935acedbc11af8a0b35dee5615ecafd04802a26bb1128f9dd3f806afcbb50269d8891

This is so wonderfully weird and I love it!

 


 

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Some of my sketches:

 

File_000 (2)

 

As someone who can’t draw well, I wanted to challenge myself this time round to see if I could cope with using a more illustrative style. It’s something I’ve always liked but never really attempted (simple vector art on AI is the furthest I usually go) so hopefully all goes well and I don’t kill myself halfway through?

2D: Typographic Portrait (FINAL)

Hello!

This will be my final post for Project 1.

To be completely honest, I got really lost in the midst of doing the project. What exactly is typography? Is it the type itself, or is it how it interacts with background and context to present a set of information/ideas to its audience? Different people interpret typography differently, and I definitely struggled with finding out what typography meant to me.

After much thought, I pushed through with the project.

I’ll bring you through my 4 artworks and other ideas that i discarded along the way.

 

TRAIT #1: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

This might not apply to be as strongly as it did when I was younger, but I identify with being shy/introverted. The irony here is that people closer to me know that I am very outgoing and loud! In short, I wanted to portray myself as someone who might appear normal and forgettable but is actually very vibrant and colourful on the inside.

Before I show the picture of my final artwork, let me show you some of the works I did in the process! One of my initial ideas was to play with the size of the font:

All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-10 All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-11

I made the font as small as I could, and used an additional element (the magnifying glass and “look here”) to hint at the audience to take a closer look. I decided this didn’t convey the idea of more than meets the eye very effectively, and scraped the idea.

I also wanted the audience to take the approach in discovering the inner me, and I thus wanted to design the type in a way where it would invite the audience to interact with it. After some brainstorming, I settled on the idea of using die-cuts.

I purposely chose to use the Helvetica font. It’s an excellent font that’s good, but it’s also very common. I wanted to make use of its common usage to represent the idea of being normal and blending in (and almost becoming forgettable). To play up the idea of the font being almost invisible, I used illustrator to create a ‘shadow’ of the font and cut out the shadows. All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-09The eyes are said to be the windows to our soul, and I thus turned the O in JO into a window that could be opened by the audience. The next step was to then decide what colour/patterns to use. I decided against using solid colours because I felt it would be too flat and 1 dimensional.

output_OdIvxP

I thus explore the idea of using marbling:

File_001 File_003 File_005

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I still wasn’t satisfied with the results, and finally decided to use watercolour instead. I also decided to have some watercolour leak out/escape from the window so as to hint to the audience that there were more things underneath! This was done through stamping some diluted paint on the paper with my paint cap, and using a straw to blow the paint outwards.

Final Artwork:

output_s5J68u

 

TRAIT #2: FEMININE AND TOMBOYISH

Like mentioned in my previous post, I grew up rather tomboyish. My initial idea was to simply have letters and flowers embroidered on a mesh surface.

My attempt at plotting my letters and flowers on illustrator before starting on the actual artwork:Embroidary 1-01-01

The two below were the results of my initial tries.

File_001(looking a bit… grandma-ish?)

 

After some consideration, I realised the mesh and thread still seemed very separate, and I thought of ways to make the thread interact with the mesh even more. That is how I arrived at the idea of playing with negative spaces:

File_002(2)

Final Artwork:

Girlish & Tomboyish

 

I liked this much better than my first 2 tries.

I created a negative space using the flowers, and this negative space spelt out the words JO. I thought method displayed more interactivity between the two mediums, and this represents how I wouldn’t be JO without both elements present. Without the flowers there would be no letters forming the word JO, and without the mesh the negative space created by the flowers would be boring and nothing interesting.

TRAIT #3: SMALL BUT LOUD

I’m often told that I’m very loud for my size, and I thought that was an interesting trait to represent myself with.

Because of how small I am, people sometimes hear me before they see me (that’s because i laugh REALLY loudly sometimes HAHAHAHA). If you hear random explosive laughter echoing within ADM, the possibility of it being me is pretty high!

I thus tried to come up with a design that would place an emphasis on the fact that people usually hear me before seeing me.

I thought the most straightforward way to show loudness was to have straight lines being bent out of shape by sound waves created by a loudspeaker.

All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-13

I wanted to create a hierarchy where the audience’s eyes would go to the warped lines. This would then be followed by the loudspeaker and my name. I thus decided to go with the last loudspeaker design where the font is much less obvious.

Final Artwork:
All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-14

The bright orange colour draws attention to the form of the loudspeaker rather than the typography itself. I did this so that my name would be the least noticeable thing in the image.

 

TRAIT #4: I LOVE FOOD

This was the most straight forward concept of the 3. As mentioned in the previous post, I wanted to make use of an exiting slogan/catchphrase and modify it to fit my trait so that people would be able to relate to it more easily.

This was what I settled on:

Pokemon Reference

I briefly contemplated using the fighting scene but later decided against it and I felt using the slogan would be a stronger and more relatable way to convey my message.

All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-05

Font: I downloaded a font off the internet and further tweaked it so that it would look as close to the original pokemon font as possible.

Draft 1:

All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-03

I decided to use Lickintung for my 2nd attempt because i felt its long tongue would fit into my concept more seamlessly versus other pokemon. The way it stretches its long tongue out of its mouth also made it look more greedy.

Evolution of my lickintungs:

All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-06

 

Final Artwork:All Drafts-Ideas (Cleaned Up Version)-04I thought this was a very straight forward design that made use of the audience’s contextual knowledge of Pokemon and its slogan. The ramen was chosen because it’s japanese (like pokemon) and I loooove ramen!

So those were my final 4 artworks!

Here is a another idea i toyed around with:

Hi I am JO INNG and I am multi-layered:

output_FZR3tMThis was inspired by the Kueh Lapis. I wanted to bring across the idea that I was multi-layered and that there are many different layers to my personality. I decided to use Kuek Lapis because I thought it was more local and relatable. I thought this was pretty similar to my ‘More than meets the eye’ trait, and thus decided not to use this.

 

 

So to end of this loooong post, here are my 4 final works once again!

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Untitled-4-02-02 Small but Loud-03 Love to Eat-04

 

 

That’s all! Thank you! 🙂

 

P.S. I’m not sure why but I can’t really get my pictures and text to align properly. When it is aligned, the GIF files don’t work. I’ll check back on this space tomorrow and see how to fix it, so I’m sorry if the presentation’s a bit messy for now!

Hellooooo world!

 

I’ve done some drafts since my last update!

 

#Trait 1: More than meets the eye

I decided against the russian dolls idea I mentioned in the previous post because I decided it didn’t fully bring out the meaning of more than meets the eye. I changed perspective and decided to go with a design that was there but ‘not really there’.

These was one of the concept I came across while trying to assemble a mood board:

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Here is a draft I did using a similar concept:

Screen Shot 2016-02-14 at 11.02.48 pm

However, I still felt that it didn’t manage to convey the message I had in mind. After some more thought, the following phrases came to mind:

1.) Your eyes are the windows to your soul

2.) Never judge a book by its cover

Screen Shot 2016-02-14 at 11.08.52 pm

While the rest of my name would be almost invisible, I wanted to make the O in JO a window that reveals my inner self.

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The only challenge left now is figuring out how to make the inner design really pop! I initially played with the idea of using red, but decided a solid colour would be too flat. I wanted something more fluid that is an opposite to the exterior text.

Moving on!

 

#Trait 2: Girlish & Tomboyish

My childhood was spent with my younger brother, where we would often host tea parties where both barbies and bionicles were invited. I’ve been kind of tomboyish since young, and friends usually complain about how chor lor (translation: rough) I can be. Still, there are times when I can be more feminine and like being more feminine. It’s a contrast that I’ve grown to love about myself.

So when I saw some wire mesh lying around in my hall, I had the idea of combining two very different mediums to portray these two contradicting traits.

I decided to try embroidery/cross stitch on wire mesh.

In my opinion, embroidery is something very feminine that demands a lot of patience and skill. I therefore picture someone extremely meticulous and well, feminine.

Screen Shot 2016-02-14 at 11.31.40 pm

Artist: Ana Teresa

I stumbled across this artist on pinterest, and loved how the flowers looked on top of the black and white photograph!

I decided to go ahead with embroidery on wire mesh. To bring across the contrast and contradiction between the two mediums, I will be ripping parts of the wire mesh to make it more rugged.

Work in progress:

Testing out stitches and strings:12746513_10207729797796517_1628170819_n

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#Trait 3: Live to Eat

I DEFINITELY fall under the group of people who live to eat! In my previous post, I mentioned using pac man to illustrate the concept.

However, I thought I could push the idea further and I wanted to tweak an existing slogan/catchphrase/game to fit my concept.

The first slogan I thought of was “Gotta catch them all” from Pokemon.

Screen Shot 2016-02-14 at 11.42.30 pm

It’s something that everyone is familiar with since the majority of us grew up with Pokemon.

Soooooooo –

Since my determination to eat as much as I can may even rival Ash’s determination to catch all the pokemons (lol), I modified the catchphrase to the following:

Gotta catch them all = Gotta eat them all!

 

Screen Shot 2016-02-14 at 11.45.20 pm

Because the Pokemon text is so easily recognisable, the design became pretty straightforward and easy to understand.

After the group consultation and getting some feedback from my classmates, I decided to push my concept further, and decided to strengthen the concept through the words alone (and not the background) :

Screen Shot 2016-02-14 at 11.45.28 pm Screen Shot 2016-02-14 at 11.45.35 pm

 

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That’s all for now! 🙂

 

2D Typography Progress (1)

To be completely honest, I have a bad habit of being very fickle-minded.

As such, my ideas tend to change very frequently, and the updates I post weekly might not be the most up-to-date version of my plans!

Listed below are all the traits I came up with:

  1. More than meets the eye
  2. Outgoing Introvert
  3. Meticulous but easily distracted / Fickle-minded
  4. Work in progress
  5. Food monster
  6. Optimistic / positive outlook
  7. Hoarder
  8. Procrastinator
  9. Coffee Lover
  10. Different / Non-basic

thumb_IMG_1953_1024

Most of my ideas were very 3D, and Joy mentioned rethinking these ideas from the point of a editor.

 

After the consultation, I reorganised my thoughts, and came up with some additional ideas:

Trait: More than meets the eye/shy

IMG_1947

I initially attempted to create 3D letters from different materials. I tried to create lightly tinted letters that would look translucent at first glance, and I wanted to mimic the iridescent sheen bubbles have. The goal was to bluff viewers into thinking the letters were almost transparent, and they would only realise how colourful/dynamic the letters were upon closer inspection. The materials I used in the image above are clear PVC, paper and tracing paper. During the experiment, I realised finding the right material was a challenge.

While I am still exploring the idea and thinking of how to perhaps transfer it into photoshop or ai, I came up with an alternative plan:

Russian Dolls!

Russian dolls often have a lot of hidden layers and open up to reveal multiple smaller dolls inside. I thought this would be a good representation of how you don’t see the many layers to my personality unless you spend more time with me, and you never know when you’re going to discover another part of me. This is something I’ve yet to try, so i’ll be updating soon!

Trait: Different / Non-basic

Basic is a term used to describe people who are very mainstream – they listen to whatever’s popular, eat whatever’s popular, follow the latest fad, etc, etc. I’d like to think of myself as someone who doesn’t necessarily follow this lifestyle, and I try as much as possible to maintain my individuality.

As such, I thought of how to convey the idea of breaking out of the mould.

punch-out-model-art-kits

The picture above shows some toy model kits – something that follows preset measurements and is mass produced. I thought it would be a good idea to illustrate myself breaking out of it!

 

Trait: Food Monster

I wanted to revisit the game concept I used for the “Hello my name is” card, and thought of pac-man.

Pac-man

I thought this would be much more relatable since it’s a game everyone is familiar with, and I could illustrate the food that pac man eats!

 

That’s all for now, but I’ll be sure to update this space once I have more concrete ideas!

 

Hello, my name is _____!

Typography

Typography

Qualites Expressed: Meticulous, detailed but spontaneous

Although I’m not very organised or systematic, I like to plan ahead and set down some groundwork when it comes to doing work. However, I also tend to be very indecisive and I realise the best ideas come to me while I’m already in the process of doing work. It is from there that I become more spontaneous and abandon whatever I had planned before hand to do something that may be completely different. That being said, I feel uncomfortable working without any sort of pre-set guidelines, and I like working within this sort of controlled spontaneity.

To bring this contradiction across, I started off by drawing grids on my name card. Similar to a graph paper, these grids allow me to mark the exact points of the words so that it may be connected in a neat manner. I then proceeded to fill in the lines with paint. To bring across the idea of me being spontaneous and deviating from my previous idea, I became more careless with the paint, mixing in more water so that it would seep outside of the lines.

 

Conceptual

Conceptual

Quality Expressed: Love for Food

Some people eat to live, while others live to eat.

I definitely fall under the category of those who live to eat. I love eating and have been told that I have quite a big appetite for someone my size. My friend sometimes comment on how I’m a combo breaker since I tend to eat very often and in large quantities.

This was what sparked the idea for this card. Much like a game where the goal would be to get as many points as possible, my ‘goal’ in life is to eat as much as I possibly can. To illustrate this point, I drew a simple game consisting of 3 horizontal lanes. The mouth/player would then have to move up and down to eat the burgers while avoiding the yucky green goo that is floating around as well.

I thought this was a quirky way to represent my eating habits and was a better representation of my care-free and fun personality.

 

Abstract

Abstract

Qualities Expressed: Work-in-progress

People wear makeup for different reasons. Some people may wear it to impress others, while others wear it to empower themselves. Either way, the one thing each makeup user has in common is the desire to put forth the best version of themselves.

Much like mixing paint, there are hundreds and thousands of different shades that lipsticks can be mixed and made in. As such, it is always a challenge to find that one perfect shade that complements you perfectly. I related this quest for the perfect colour to how I have yet to find the best part of me that I can be proud of and show off to the world. I go through different phases and seasons, but I have yet to find a colour (both in life and in design) that best represents me, my strengths and my ideals. As such, I continuously imprinted and whipped away my lipstick prints. This is to signify how i’m unsatisfied with the marks I have left in my life and in others, and how I am actively experimenting and seeking for improvement.

 

 

Typography

Hi everyone, this is Jo! 🙂

I’ve always been interested in typography, but have never properly explored it. After doing a quick search on google and pinterest, I found a few that I liked:

 

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Although 3D mediums sometimes make the type hard to decipher, I find myself leaning towards 3D and handmade typography because it comes across as thoughtful and interesting.

image_11_versatilimage_08_maricar_maricorimage_01_maricar_maricor(delicious)

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I also came across images where the surface on which the type was placed on played a key role in the overall typography. I loved how the respective artists played around and experimented with the medium/surface and used it in a way that very effectively enhanced their message.

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All in all, I realised there are endless possibilities when it comes to typography. Besides the actual design of the words itself, there are a lot of additional factors such as the placement, juxtaposition, medium and surface that plays an important role in creating the overall typography as well.