The first mini-project we had to do for this class was to design three name cards, of sorts, modelled after the name tags organisations like Alcoholics Anonymous would give out.

Instead of my name, I chose to use an attribute (well, two, actually) to represent myself with. They are ‘quiet’ and ‘reason’, as I am a very solitary person who values silence and personal space, and also (I believe… I hope) a very logical and rational person who is not very impulsive or prone to doing or accepting things ‘just because’.

Typography

20160124_184705

All the letters are written in lower case, without any flourishes, in fact without any serifs at all. The letters are also small and spaced out quite far from each other, and the background is completely bare. This is to bring across the feeling of solitude and silence, and the letters are presented as not shouting, but more like whispering. The extended neck of the ‘n’ at the end mirrors the tail of the ‘q’ in the front, a way of neatly closing the text via symmetry so that it looks more self-contained. The ampersand in the centre is written as its original Latin form as ‘et’ (meaning ‘and’), showing how I don’t like to take facts of life, such as they are, for granted, and am instead interested in reasoning out and investigating the origins of things.

Abstract

20160124_184719

I attempted to convey the idea of ‘quiet’ through the use of diagonal lines, as a symbol of moving from ‘high energy’ to ‘low energy’. The middle diagonal is absent as I felt that its presence made the scene too crowded and noisy, and it is for this reason that the background is likewise left blank. The use of lines in this manner is inspired by electron energy diagrams and reaction energy diagrams. In the centre is a circle, an enclosed and self-contained line. The curvilinear lines from the base or the card seem to grow up and around it, representing my desire to investigate both the origins and consequences of phenomena. The upwards growth also seem to be cradling the circle, a reference to this (in)famous book cover. Although the biblical apple of Eden is often used as a representation of forbidden romance/sex or more generally as temptation or sin, the fruit in the bible was actually from the Tree of Knowledge (of good and evil). Hence its presence here is a symbol of my desire to search for truth and knowledge (and damn the consequences, maybe).

Conceptual

20160124_184805

For my conceptual piece, I chose to use the image of a cat. Cats are stereotypically solitary, independent, and anti-social (not really true, as any cat-lover will tell). They are also (mostly) night hunters who hunt alone (actually true). The solitary cat, with its enlarged pupils representing the night, is hence symbolic of my preference for the aloneness, solitude, and quiet of the night. The cat, with its keen senses of sight, smell, and hearing, as well as its sensitive whiskers, enable it to see clearly and hunt effectively in the night, representing my desire to ‘pierce the illusion’ (to quote a certain game) of ignorance and ‘hunt’ for the logical truth. The tabby patterns on this cat are stylised on the forehead to look like an open book, another symbol for scholarly/logical pursuit. Additionally, the stripes near the eyes make it look like the cat wears spectacles and the spots above the eyes look like the letter M. These are normal tabby cat markings that only incidentally symbolise me (I wear spectacles and my name begins with the letter M).