GRAPHICFORM | locale infographics

I wanted the style of the information presentation to be more 70, 80s Chinese style magazine, and thus referenced this:

advertising set | Shanghai Memories Real Estate Campaign in China
Image taken from https://i.pinimg.com/564x/1f/47/97/1f47971cf74d0ffb4507b5948d9ad0a9.jpg

I had some background information of Haw Par Villa, which I feel was necessary for the viewers to know, and relevant to my USP (Unique Selling Point).

There are also some images of Haw Par Villa in the past, showing viewers for how Haw Par Villa has come, and the revamps that has been done.

Images taken from Haw Par Villa, by me, was put in, but with the main focus being the Ten Courts of Hell. For the Ten Courts of Hell, I’ve added in descriptions of each court, the punishments and sins involved.

Secondary research was also put in, for viewers to gain an insight of others’ perception of the attraction, alongside quantitative and qualitative data.

As the USP I wanted to portray about Haw Par Villa was the Ten Courts of Hell,  I added in information from my online survey – regarding the surveyors’ personal perception of afterlife, and its relevance with Ten Courts of Hell’s.

Lastly, I added in quotes I’ve taken from the interviews and surveys, and placed it amongst the presentation pages.

Feedback from Classmates:

Feedback from Joy:

Good focus on 10 Courts of Hell
Survey tied in well with the focal point
Ideas to explore/further develop for zine:
1. Motifs pertaining to 10 courts
2. Effects of 10 courts (Visuals that can come out)
3. Scale (realistic & big) – talk about it being life-sized.

Personal Reflection:

Overall, I felt that the presentation did convey to my classmates my perception and journey at Haw Par Villa. However, within a constrained timeframe, I was unable to go into more depth and context, and had to quickly brush through it. Haw Par Villa is indeed a very interesting place to venture on, and it’s unlike most tourist attraction, which is a huge reason why I loveee this place! It was really spectacular walking around the park and looking at those huge statues, and with the aid of descriptions, it taught me more about Chinese Culture. But as I was working on a rather large tourist attraction, it was difficult for me to focus on one specific part as the USP (Unique Selling Point). Ultimately, I chose the Ten Courts of Hell as I personally had a connection with it, as I feel that the concept is very realistic, due to being a believer of the afterlife and retribution. Although, I got to admit, it was pretty scary entering that place, due to its dark, creepy environment – especially when I went in alone to take more photos and videos!! Nonetheless, I enjoyed working on this unique location in Singapore, and I can’t wait to create my zine with perception of what I feel about this place!

And that’s it for the Part I of Assignment II!

Till then,
Flazéda!
jamz
x

2D | pixelated ego

Before starting on my 8bit work, I researched on Pixel Art.
Pixel Art, is a digital art created via softwares where images are edited on pixel level. 8-bit works are usually done for video game consoles.
The term was first published in 1982, and some types of cross-stitching are very similar to pixel art.
Even Hama beads looks like it!

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/de/28/ac/de28acee2b9a96be455a7620943b1ab9–pearler-beads-fuse-beads.jpg

8-bit is a style used before technology advanced, when all we had was just low resolution digital. So, why not we go back in time and have some 8-bit artworks for Ego?

Although it is uncommon to be using pixel 8-bit style for art illustration nowadays, there is also a tinge of fun factor and aesthetic to having it in 8-bit as compared!

Here’s an example done by Blake Reynolds, of him showing the different styles of illustrated art.

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3691924/pixel24.0.png

Isn’t the Yoshi pixelated cute?!

The colours used for original 8-bit styles are simple basic colours. Most arcade games in the past used 8-bit style, like Pac-man and Space Invaders, games I’m sure everyone knows!

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/F8lHL2admUQ/hqdefault.jpg

Till now, some game interface designers still adapt the style, and improvised it! Games like Minecraft is a prominent example, and also Crossy Road – a mobile phone game which I used to be really crazy about!

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Out73NMtuMY/maxresdefault.jpg

Moving on from video games, I’ll be talking about artists that does 8-bit/pixel art.

The first pixel art artist I will be referencing is Ivan Dixon.
He is a Melbourne-based animator, pixel artist, illustrator and game maker. Having co-directed and produced pieces for The Simpsons, Fallout 4, Cartoon Network, etc, he also co-runs an animation studio, Rubber House.
Check out his works here!

Winnie the Pooh.

Cuphead.

Look at all these cute pixel animation! I love how having it pixelated there is an essence of quirkiness in there.
And imagine the hard work they put in for the animation though! Each and every pixel has to change, wow. JUST WOW.

Another artist I found is Michael B Myers Jr. A freelance artist from USA that does pixel art, character designs and also illustration. Check out his website here!

http://cromeyellow.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/star_wars_michael_b_myers.png

His pixel art style is minimalist – simple and nice! The usage of colours he used ain’t like the old day video games colours, that are bold and bright. Instead, he used neutral and muted colours. Seeing his works makes me super motivated to try out my own pixel art too!

http://www.drawsgood.com/block-destroyer-gamedev-animations

Another of his work, he created an animated character out of pixels! How cool is that?! Adding on, he used different tonal values of blue to form the character, what great colour play of monochromatic colours!

When deciding the colours to use, I choose to use more muted, neutral and some pastel colours, as opposed to the original bold bright colours of old day 8-bit. Reason being, I want to have reference of old days pixel art, but also wanting to keep up with the trend – showing that despite moving on forward, previous art styles will not be left behind! Also, pastel colours is the hype of the younger generation now!

Stay tuned to my next post on my research on colours!

Till then,
Flazéda!
jamz
x

 

2D | forest gump artist references

For my various quote designs, I referred to some artists and their past works, and incorporating their styles into mine.

The first artist that influences my work is Salvador Dali.
A surrealist artist, I’m sure he is well-known to many.

Related image
Getting influence from his work, The Persistence of Memory, I incorporated his surrealist style into my Quote 1 Design, through the squishing of musical notes.
In this artwork, he melts the clocks, with them not being in its original form. I used that technique to the musical notes, deforming them to suit the quote.

Another artist that influenced my artwork is Patrick Caulfied’s work
Black and White Flower Piece, 1963

This black and white artwork, focuses on the main object in the middle, a vase of flower, with a grid background of black base with white lines. Despite having a grid background, it still primarily focuses on the vase. Instead of pulling the focal point away, I feel that it brings more focus to the main object.
I decided to incorporate this art style into my Quote 2, to bring out the focal point of the main object.

And that’s it for my artist reference!
Till then,
Flazéda!
jamz
x

2D | mark-making IV | artist reference

Jackson Pollock


A very famous abstract artist, Jackson Pollock is a familiar name in the art industry. He was well known for his unique style of drip painting.

Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh is a Dutch post-impressionist artist. In many of his artworks, he used very expressive brushwork, which contributed to the foundations of modern art.

I was very inspired by his art works and how he used his brushworks to evoke emotions. I wanted to follow his style of doing, but I didn’t want to use a brush. Thus, I used a fork instead. I dripped white paint on several spots on the strip of paper. Next, with the fork, I took some black paint, and started applying strokes of it on top of the white paint. To me, it looked a little like latte art, just more expressive. It turned out better than expected, and I used it as one of my emo lines.

Gestalt Principles

Gestalt is also known as the “Law of Simplicity” or the “Law of Pragnanz” (the entire figure or configuration), which states that every stimulus is perceived in its most simple form.

Gestalt theorists followed the basic principle that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, the whole (a picture, a car) carried a different and altogether greater meaning than its individual components (paint, canvas, brush; or tire, paint, metal, respectively). In viewing the “whole,” a cognitive process takes place – the mind makes a leap from comprehending the parts to realizing the whole,

We visually and psychologically attempt to make order out of chaos, to create harmony or structure from seemingly disconnected bits of information.

The prominent founders of Gestalt theory are Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, and Kurt Koffka.

Gestalt Principles – Closure

The satisfaction of a pattern encoded, as it were, into the brain, thus triggering recognition of the stimulus. This can involve the brain’s provision of missing details thought to be a part of a potential pattern, or, once closure is achieved, the elimination of details unnecessary to establish a pattern match.

  • Closure is the effect of suggesting a visual connection or continuity between sets of elements which do not actually touch each other in a composition.
  • The principle of closure applies when we tend to see complete figures even when part of the information is missing.
  •  Closure occurs when elements in a composition are aligned in such a way that the viewer perceives that “the information could be connected.”

I wanted to apply gestalt principles to one of my strips, by the usage of negative and positive space to evoke the emotion between it. For one of my emo lines, I deliberately used tape to keep the negative spaces, and then painted the rest of the positive space.

2D | mark-making III | paper marbling

Paper Marbling

Paper marbling is a method of aqueous surface design, which can produce patterns similar to smooth marble or other kinds of stone. The patterns are the result of color floated on either plain water or a viscous solution known as size, and then carefully transferred to an absorbent surface, such as paper or fabric. Through several centuries, people have applied marbled materials to a variety of surfaces. It is often employed as a writing surface for calligraphy, and especially book covers and endpapers in bookbinding and stationery. Part of its appeal is that each print is a unique monotype.

I was interested in experimenting with Paper Marbling, as one of the mediums/technique to use for my lines. I did research online on the various techniques of paper marbling and there were several. From a website, https://www.homesciencetools.com/a/two-marble-paper-projects, there were 2 methods on how to do water marbling. The first method was to use shaving cream with food colouring/paint. The second method was a little more complicated, to use mainly cornstarch, water and paint. After researching online, I found that many artists use the second method more. A variety of colours was also used, and it looked very whimsical.

2 artists I found that did paper marbling was Heidi Finley & Robert Wu.

Robert Wu, is a paper marbling artist from Toronto whom used traditional techniques to create marbled paper. His prints are all one of a kind, and cannot be replicated.  He manages a website, www.studiorobertwu.com, where he sells his prints.

Heidi Finley, from Sault Ste. Marie, sells marbling supplies on the Internet and also conducts workshops whereby she teaches paper marbling.

From the research, I realized many did paper marbling with a variety of colours, made the design on water and then dipped the paper in. I felt that the design of the usual marbling was too messy and complicate for the emotion I was going for, as I wanted to just experiment with black and white.

Thus, I decided to use only Chinese ink and water to create the design. I first dropped a few drops of Chinese ink into an aluminium tray of water, and it naturally formed a random marbled design.

I then took a strip of paper and briefly slid through the water, just enough to get some marbled effect. The first few strips turned out surprisingly nice, but was very complicated as there was a lot of marbled details. I wanted to show ecstasy in paper marbling. After a few tries, I churned out the most suitable paper marbling emotion.

Till then,
xoxo,
jamz