2D – And another bites the dust.

My last quote to explore,

So, my little Amélie, you don’t have bones of glass. You can take life’s knocks.

This was when Mr Dufayel told Amelie that she would need to get out of her comfort zone to pursue the man she loves. She cannot wait anymore and she can take it because she isn’t made of glass like Mr Dufayel.

Draft 1. The most literal and banal. Literally you are made of bones, the world will knock you but you won’t break. Obviously it looked too simple.

Draft 2, I then explored the idea of knocking on a skull and what better way to illustrate this than a door knocker. It seemed a little too plain, so I added “people” to knock the door after.

Draft 3, I really liked that this work wasn’t as symmetrical as my previous few works and there was interaction and movement to it. I do feel however, it does not encapsulate the quote anymore.

Out of whim, I created a draft 4, which was a wine glass that was made of bones. It looked more like a chalice, but you get the drift. I did this because I thought wine glasses were fragile and that it being made of bones would augment the idea. However, I did not take into account that I need to show life knocking.

It brings me to draft 5. However, this then makes me feel like “Amelie” personified by the bone wine glass is hurting the glass objects when knocked onto it. It then reverses the idea to Amelie being to strong and hurting Dufayel, which is… incorrect.

Draft 6, I then recalled an idea of repetition to show strength and emphasis. I decided to repeat the broken wine glasses around the bone-glass. In the it shows that no matter what, the glass shatters but the bones remain intact. I guess I made my point here.

After consulting Mimi, she said that my chalice looks too photoshopped and I should make it more crafted instead of a human body. I should also make the glasses smaller to make the chalice stand out.

Using segments of a human skeletal system, I re-crafted the chalice to look more like a glass than a skeletal system. I also used the idea of emphasis to augment the intention of strength. Overall I am quite happy how this turned out. It’s not my usual route to do something like this. I would either go full illustrative or full pattern, but this is a simple idea which resulted from me editing concept execution to be concise.

Post-assignment. I really learnt how to be concise with myself. I need to keep doing that so that I can be a stronger designer, balancing ostentatiousness with good design. I think the pit fall of many people is that they want their works to look pretty and grandeur, but their concept breaks apart and their work needs to be heavily explained. The design no longer speaks for itself.

Overall, I want to reach the level in which people get my work without the need of explanation. They get my intentions and they get my designs.

Inspiration for My Strange Encounter

Taken from Q-TA’s website. Click here for website.

Japanese Artist Q-TA uses multiple images to construct images for his clients. These images fit his clients such as Majolica Majorca, and ISETAN JP by demonstrating a quirky and whimsical visual language for their brand. His work captivates through usage of human figures and distortion of form by combining it with elements and colours that fit his intended mood. He mainly distorts perception through the enlarging of his figures and displacing them with a cosmic background or a warped landscape and uses a centred composition to capture attention.

Many of his other works have a fashion focus and relates to the audience by putting the figure at the foreground, creating a ‘breaking the fourth wall” effect.

Work by Amsyar Ashaary. Click Here for Portfolio.

Amsyar Ashaary captivates by storytelling through collages. He uses vintage character images, dystopian landscapes with vector graphics to create fresh settings, in which he distorts the viewers perception of time and place. He also uses a mainly cool colours like purple and cyan that are pleasing to the eye and does not force attention to the audience. While most collage artists would work with found images, Amsyar Ashaary does not hesitate to create his own graphics to fit into his narrative and to expand his image vocabulary. Doing so, it gives him more flexibility in crafting his image to augment his narrative.

Unlike Q-Ta, who has a more fashion focus, Amsyar Ashaary creates with no client in mind, thus it gives him the freedom to create settings that are more odd and unexpected.