Multimedia Artist and Designer
At the end of the project, I was really glad with the results and how I was able to create something digitally and reproduce it faithfully using analog media. The animation and the interactive experience of playing with the postcards really complemented the concept that I was trying to convey.
Here are some images of the process of assembling the final postcard. I created a plastic sleeve with the moiré screen and the text descriptor printed on. The actual frames of the animation were printed on a separate piece of paper that was inserted into the sleeve. The movement of the slip inside creates the animation.
The last and final postcard was going to created to represent three-dimensionality. Of late, I had been working more and more with digital 3D techniques and I wanted one of these postcards to reflect that. Continue reading “Postcard Four (3D Modeling)”
The third postcard was meant to explore the contrasting relationship between analogue and digital. For this design, I wanted to show my tendencies in working with digital mediums as opposed to print and traditional materials. However, I wanted to take a reversed approach with the execution of this design. Instead of using code to create a work or design, I wanted to create something by hand first, and then convert it to code. Continue reading “Postcard Three (Coding)”
For the second postcard, I wanted to address the brief more directly and take it on from a typographic angle. As a designer, I am always looking around and paying attention to the typography that I see around me. I also have a habit of taking photographs of interesting type that I come across on the streets. For this design, I decided to look back to a series of photographs that I had taken of type in Tiong Bahru. I really feel a particular connection to the place as I have personally spent quite a bit of time hanging out in the cafes and places along the location. I also had the good fortune of being able to work on the branding of one of the cafés there – The Dispensary. I also felt that the way the old and the new live seamlessly in Tiong Bahru, is representative of how I tend to incorporate a harmonious mix of traditional and digital media in my works. As such, I felt that it was only appropriate to include the typography that was representative of this place, to represent me. Continue reading “Postcard Two (Typography)”
The brief of this assignment called for us to create typographic responses to a facet of ourselves. This particular design was intended to show how “I am a multi-disciplinary artist” by being able to work with and create ideas across disciplines with visual and sound based works. As such, I wanted to work around the concept and imagery of sound. The only ‘issue’ with this idea was that there was nothing bringing me back to the brief where typography was involved. It was at this point that I decided to explore the iconographic nature of typography. Most people associate typography as the design and arrangement of letters. In reality however, there are languages that exist to this day that don’t depend on letters for communication. Typography may also involve pictograms and icons. I decided to play with this idea further. Continue reading “Postcard One (Sound)”
Seeing as to how animation would be the constant in all the designs, I needed to carry out some experimentations into how the moiré animation technique really worked. I have previous experience in digital and stop-motion animation and I found that this was useful in understanding the technique better and working faster.
I spent some time thinking about the multidisciplinary pairings for my final four postcards and come up with the following. I will also cover the possible processes that I might be taking to complete each of the post cards. All the cards will share a starting point of moiré (slit) animation. Continue reading “Conceptualizing the Final Works”
Now that I had my direction and descriptor, I had to decide in what ways I am going to push the brief and the series. I had already decided that all the postcards will share the same descriptor. As such, I had to figure out four unique ways to demonstrate various aspects of multidisciplinary. While digging further into the crossroads between interactivity and op art, I got reminded of moire animations. In particular, I really love the works of Rufus Butler Seder. He has been working with optical illusions and animation for quite sometime and has a few patented techniques such as Scanimation and Live Tiles.
In my previous post, I discussed how simply pursuing a particular aesthetic and execution style was not helping me come up with any compelling compositions, ideas or directions to push this brief towards. I also mentioned earlier that I usually have difficulties creating works that were introspective in nature. At this point, I started looking around at what kind of directions my fellow classmates seemed to be gravitating towards. I noticed that most of them were using each post-card design to describe one particular aspect or facet of them. In a bid to both be different, and to also really narrow down and focus on my direction, I decided to pick on particular aspect of me to expand into.
