Research/ Brainstorming Ideas

The list below are some jobs which I was interested in when I was a kid, or at least I tried to remember.

• Architect
• Archaeologist
• Art Teacher
• Astronomer
• Bird keeper
• Doctor
• Lawyer
• Vet
• Video Gamer/ E-sports player
• Zookeeper

Final Choices: Architect, Video Gamer, Archaeologist and Birdkeeper

Thumbnail sketches 

While trying to brainstorm some ideas I tried to sketch out the layouts in my tiny sketch book while googling for some references.

Here are the sketch developments: 

After consulting Ms Shirley, she mentioned that many people are doing on astronomers hence I should choose another job, which was a bird keeper. 

Video Gamer

The first tryout I tried was for the job, video gamer.

I’ve played lots of video games before such as Far Cry 4, Overwatch, Left 4 Dead 2, etc, but I am not a professional player ??. Even after watching tons of YouTubers playing video games I’m still bad at it but one day I wish I can be as good as them as a hobby. 😀 

I decided to choose Mario as the main theme as Mario was my favourite childhood game and it is extremely popular too. Although I only started out from the DS version, I felt that 8-bit Mario looks aesthetically more pleasing for this design project due to its plain yet saturated retro colours.  

Process:

Inspired by the recent “Mario Maker”, I wanted to use icons from Mario to create my name and background. However I felt that just the coins were not working well in contrast with the background 🙁

Next, inspired by Mario Maker’s advertisement on the top left, I tried making my own name with the same style too. This style really brings out the fun of Mario to the viewers due to the usage of yellow which represents excitement and playful layout of the other characters and blocks from the game. However, I felt that I wasn’t thinking enough and just copying the advert hence I scraped this idea too. 

Trying out again to make use of the colourful icons, I did the above layout. However, the icons were too distracting, and directs the attention away from my name, and hence I decided to make it a plain design instead like the design below. 

Final:

The complementary colours between the orange and blue Goombas makes the overall design less boring. Due to the huge size of the name, the viewers see it first before the other characters at the side which further enhances the theme of the layout. 

Architect 

To be honest, when I was a teenager, I wanted to be an architect because I heard they earn a pretty good amount of money, hahahaha. I had the desire to design and build my own dream house as well, where you get to choose how big you want the bedroom to be, etc. However, my mathematics and sciences were pretty bad in Junior College, hence I did not apply to architecture school. ??

Process:

The first graphic element that came to my mind when I thought about an architect was blueprints. Hence, I went to google for these images as references. I realised that the blueprints have tons of white markings, arrows, numbers and lines against a deep blue background, which I later applied to my design. 

Firstly, I tried creating the static version of my name first like the one of the left, and afterwards the arrows, circles and numbers. Next, I tried shifting and tilting the layout such that the design is not as boring and still.

After having a consultation with Ms Shirley, she mentioned that I should try using the “perspective” tool in free transform to make the layout more 3 Dimensional with more depth. The one on the left was the first attempt followed by the one on the right. The right picture is better due to the deeper perspective that it appears to have. 

Final:

Ms Shirley also mentioned to me that I could use the “field blur” filter to create an even greater illusion of dept. Hence resulting to the image above. This is probably my favourite composition among the 4 due to it looking like it’s 3D. ??

Archaeologist

I was pretty inspired by our school’s semester 1 Art History Lecturer’s research in Northern Cyprus. Professor Michael Walsh shared with us his experience in trying to get the United Nations to notice Northern Cyprus’s historic artworks. Due to the fact that Northern Cyprus is an unrecognised country, its historical artifacts are not protected too. Michael Walsh and his team of professionals went down to one of the churches in Famagusta to restore some of the murals on the walls which were covered in paint/ cement. This project made me curious about historical artifacts and the meaning behind them. Being able to discover them first hand will be an extremely enriching and cool experience which was why I chose Archaeologist as one of my dream jobs.   

Process:

Fossils, brushes and soil were the first things that came to my mind when I thought of Archaeologist.  

Firstly I typed out my initials first using a thick font, in this case I just used Arial Black, since its a clean font which clear cut edges. Next I took an image of a fossil and placed the layer on top of the letter, and create a clipping mask as shown in the top left image. Afterwards I added the soil background and added bevel, embossing, and drop shadows to make the characters more 3D. In the bottom left image, I realised non-capitalised letters looks more aesthetically pleasing and adjusted the arrangement of the letters to make the fonts less boring. In order to make the letters look like it is buried, I duplicated the background with reduced opacity and placed it as the upper layer.

Together with the black/white brush tool and the masking layer, I erased parts where I do not want sand to be. The reason why I used the masking layer is so that I will be able to add and remove sand whenever I want to without being afraid of making a mistake. After I was satisfied, I made the overall image more saturated and brightened up the letters to make them stand out against the sand and added the tools afterwards. 

Final:

Bird Keeper

I love observing birds and I enjoy listening to the different kinds of chirps they make. 

It just so happen that I came across this image on the internet too which reminded me of bird keepers at the Jurong Bird Park. Thus I decided to use this as my final dream job. This characters comes from an old Game Boy Colour video game called Pokemon Gold/ Sliver. The opponent is just well known to have a full team of bird type Pokemons. 

Process:

These are the “events” that bird keepers have to surely face while doing their jobs. 

Using a PNG file of a bird poop, I used it to form the initials of my name and afterwards added the small details of a bird keeper’s environment. 

Lowering the saturation of the large pile of food turns the attention away from it and more on to the words. Ms Shirley mentioned that the dirty poop looks better due to the darker values it has to portray more details in the poop. The white ones looked too clean, systematic and robotic. 

Final:

Lastly, Ms Shirley also commented that the poop size should vary in order to make the shape more inorganic ??

The End ??