Author Archives: Felicia

About Felicia

of butterflies and hurricanes

Multiculturalism in Singapore – Creative Response

What comes to mind when you first look at the curated image above? Kandinsky, a renowned abstract painter, proposed a correspondence theory that suggests an association between primary colours (red, blue, yellow)  and shapes. Though it was highly opposed and challenged by many, his argument states that “the correspondence between colours and shapes was mediated by an inherent relationship between the colours and angles of the shapes”.

With relevance to Kandinsky’s theory, I came up with an abstract spread with an aim to represent our local culture’s independent and un-interfered sense of art direction. Singapore has been dubbed as the country “where east meets west”, and with it being a multi-cultural country, we are dynamic and unique in our ways.

Just like the dish rojak, the local design scene focused heavily on the portrayal of multiculturalism – one that embeds on the uniqueness of the ethnic and racial groups. The art scene locally is a sui generis representation that integrated many relatable aspects to represent our nation as a whole. Hence to say, we are the determinator of our own art direction and design sense. 

In the design layout above, while staying true to Kadinsky’s shape colour theory,  the deep pink square in the middle symbolism our nation and the blue circle in the background represents an “uninterrupted design style” which we hold true to. Last but not least, the yellow triangle serves as the recurring trend around the world. I reduced the opacity level of two overlapping triangles and this is to show that we are not swayed by outside influence. 

Art Nouveau – Seeing Patterns

Hello

Drawing inspiration from organic free-forms found in the scapes of nature, this frame caught my attention. It reflects a strong contrast against rectilinear shapes derived from man-made objects in the vicinity. The elegant curves of the vines form an organic composition, similar to the fluidity of human motion – unlike the grayscale landscape in which this object resides. Art Nouveau primarily aims to deviate away from machine-like compositions to focus more on the forms demonstrated in flora & fauna.

Some other interesting compositions that caught my eyes along the sidewalks of NTU – Something I failed to notice amidst my busy schedule.

 

A R T  N O U V E A U  I S  E V E R Y W H E R E

 

 

#XperimentalFashun

 

TEAM #XPERIMENTALFASHUN:

A Social Project by: Bala, Farzana, Felicia and Yue ling

 

General Description, Narrative, Concept:

To break down the whole idea, here are 5 distinct steps as to how the social experiment was carried out:

1) We will be split into pairs to complete a task. Among the pair, there will be an interviewer and a model. The interviewer is required to hit the streets of Singapore and get participants to pick out a whole set of the outfit based on just adjectives. e.g. red, baggy, indie, stripes. While on the other hand, the model will be on the other end of the screen as she takes note and preps herself for the chosen outfit

2) A piece of paper indicating the list the of apparels will be given to the participants to take the pick. Rule: Participants have to be of either different age groups/ethnicity/gender

3) A total of 4 participants will be required from each pair. 2 of each participant have to be found in different districts. e.g. Little India & Chinatown/Bras Basah complex & SMU (It should show a stark contrast between the demographics)

4) Since the participants are only given adjectives and not visuals of the image, they are supposed to come up with the most experimental and mismatched outfits possible through the 5 categories – TOPS BOTTOMS SHOES ACCESSORIES & SHAWL

5) To conclude the game, our models with have to do a fashion runway walk and this image/video will be uploaded on to Instagram for our viewers to vote with a hashtag of #EXPERIMENTALFASHUN

 

We placed a huge emphasis on the idea of DIWO through making use of strangers on streets to help with the completion of our project. Each of the individual strangers contributes to the making of our final work: A Ratchet Outfit (!!!) What is interesting is that we can only anticipate the end result, and everything was beyond our control. This was one huge aspect of our project as we let it free fall and then see where we land.

With the use of the social broadcasting platform such as Facebook live, the whole interview was carried out through with the means of a split screen camera as the interviewers (Bala and I) hit the streets to hunt for some spontaneous locals. Our models (Farzana and Yueling) were on constant standby with their pile of clothes on the other end of the camera.

The highlight of this social experiment is the lack of visuals and descriptions for the participants. They had completely no idea how the clothes looked like, except for 1 or 2 descriptive words to help them piece up the visuals.

Here is the breakdown of destinations between the interviewers – Bala and I

Bala: Sim Lim Square, Bugis Street

Felicia: Bras Basah Shopping Complex, Lasalle College of the Arts, Singapore Management University (SMU), Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA)

As seen from the very contrasting locations, our intention was to reflect the opposing taste/idea on fashion. For example, over at Bras Basah, we expect to find an older bunch of people, whereas over at the campuses (NAFA, Lasalle, SMU) we would rub shoulders with a lot more youngsters. Hence, the expected outcome should reflect the difference in creativity level and safeness when it comes to the pairing of statement clothing.

The main aim of this experiment is to put emphasis on the unpredictable quality of online shopping. Remember when you ordered a piece of apparel from an online store but it came looking like nothing you’ve expected? That anger and rage from the stark difference in quality and fit, the mismatched descriptions and measurements we see from dodgy, substandard websites?

This social initiative aims at highlighting the unpredictability of online shopping, as people pick out and put together their “best intended” outfit for the model but ultimately a complete haywire.

 

How was the Project made:

Pre-production phase: A narrative/an idea is being strengthened by the team so we have a clear heading. Then, the models came up with a series of flamboyant clothing and have them draft in a list.

Production: The interviewers will then make use of the list and hit the streets and grab as many demographics/ethnographic as possible. While doing so, the whole procedure was being broadcasted on Facebook live, making it viewable among all our connections no matter their geographic location. The recorded live footages will also serve as clips/snippets for our 5 minutes’ video edits. During then, the models will take note of the specified outfits.

 

Post-production: The models are required to perform a “walk” in the chosen sets of outfits, these will serve as a teaser on our Instagram account. I then edited the social media contents and have our followers vote for the best set of outfits. A 5-minute edit will also be produced at this stage.

Unexpected elements resulted during the location performance:

There were A LOT of rejections on the streets, way more than I imagined. Despite having a clear agenda, people refused to have their face on a live broadcast platform such as Facebook. It took me a lot longer to fulfil the minimum criteria of participants. Also, our team expected a crazier outcome in terms of the outfit coordination but people on the street took the “styling mission” a tad bit too seriously and went full steam to pick out the most “matchy” combination. This aspect was largely unexpected and was beyond our control at the same time. However, the project still worked since it’s a participatory

 

How was it influenced by Blast Theory and DIWO:

cr: http://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/digitalcities/2016/04/17/urban-gaming-the-future-of-saturday-night-tv/

XperimentalFashun is influenced by Blast Theory’s collaborative framework, in a sense we engaged the public for help to complete a mission, resulting in thoroughly unpredictable outcomes. The project wouldn’t have been possible without each and every participant’s input. Also influenced by Furtherfield’s focus on DIWO (Do-It-With-Others), it is pretty self-explanatory as to how the outcome is highly dependent on the participation of the masses.

In an overview, the result that we gathered showed that the outcome of the outfits differs greatly with the participant’s ethnographic, psychographic and demographic backgrounds. The current Millennial tend to gravitate towards a monochromatic outcome whereas the older generation tends to pick articles of clothing with bolder colours. We can infer that a certain style is accompanied by a specific group of audience.

The curation of our project allows participants to gain full control of the outcome, in which there is nothing the interviewers or models can do to interfere with the end result. Similar to some of the performance artists that employed the concept of collaborative artwork like Ken Goldberg’s Telegarden and Yoko Ono’s cut piece, the final outcome is entirely decided and controlled by the participants – Hence to say, this social experiment tested out the boundaries of social practice and ‘Doing-it-with-others’, by entitling the curator of our art piece to be none other than our audience. This way, every participant is involved in a community that helps contribute to the artistic end product of this piece of artwork name XperimentalFashun.

Play video here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dscw9ljl2ncnhpk/main_FINAL.mp4?dl=0

Zine: Content Development

Hello humans!

Read more about my Ideation and Cover Development before you go on!

For content development today, I will cover the style and approach I took towards crafting my Zine. The area I am covering is Tiong Bahru, and with that, I decided to try a new style – Illustration!!!! We’ll see the outcome further down into the post. And yes, I am equally as excited to share my design journey.

Let’s go

MOODBOARD DESIGN:

LAYOUT – Making use of Repetition and layering of elements to set the foundation of the overall theme.

ILLUSTRATION STYLE – 

COLOUR SCHEME – Blue because it is the colour of the porcelain bowl, a symbolic colour of olden rituals and traditions

INITIAL ILLUSTRATIONS:

My first ever set of illustrations!!! I’m so happy I took that leap of faith and try out illustrating. Have always been more of a graphic design kinda person but having picked up this new medium/skill IS LIFE CHANGING. It has been super addictive – and the feeling of digital illustrating differs so much from graphic art style.

LOVE.

PROCESSED ILLUSTRATIONS:

A monochromatic experience in the making

FAILED LAYOUTS

The initial layout was just mindblowing-ly bad. I then removed everything and started on a new canvas. It lacked visual hierarchy, theme and consistency which irks me 🙁  

This time around, I hope to develop better cohesiveness and unity in my zine layouts, which includes a strong recurring style.

SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENTS

Realise that the strokes and squares lacked meaning, hence I took it out and swapped it for another shape that can better symbolise/represent cats in any way

Really liked this simplistic layout, but somehow, it still lacks layers

Initially, I wanted to settle with a full spread of repetition, like the example below. I asked around for a few opinions and ways I can improve my layout further, and one of the comments was to add in some form of typography, somewhere. So that was it! Typography seems to help add more meaning to a design.

testing out the shades of red

moved on from red to pink, and some repeated typography all over to mimic the idea of a wrapping paper

These are the (sorta) finalised layout, inclusive of typography! Thought the pages tie in better together now, with the use of typography design.

 

INDIVIDUAL SHAPES AND WHAT THEY MEAN:

 

The powerpoint slides (the same one I pitched) that come together with my lil‘ design booklet as seen below:

 

cute lil flip book i did but the file size is way too huge to upload onto OSS 🙁 so this small little thumbnail would suffice.

 

ADM YEAR 1

YOU’VE BEEN AMAZING(LY HECTIC).

Signing off now with my final ciao,

CIAOS!!!

ZINE: Book Cover Development

Hi guys! This post will be featuring my design process for the cover page.

 Artist/Layout Inspiration:

For the cover, I was aiming to create something that is wholly simplistic, one that can perfectly speak to my target audience – The Millennials. I was looking through Behance & Pinterest for an interesting looking design, the kind of design that is worth stopping by and picking up while we’re on the go.

Since my zine primarily consists of blue as one of the main colour, the best possible way for the book cover to translate the idea/theme is for it to be blue too.  I came across a few interesting typeface arrangements which are unlike the typical layout > 

A quick draft of how my overall layout should look like –

Making use of Pattern and Repetition to create a sense of rhythm across all 6 pages (excluding cover and back page)

Moodboard: Layout, Typeface, Color palette 

An overview of the sense of design direction I am heading towards > Monochromatic (blue), Sans Serif Typeface, an old-school yet modern layout

Notice how the type arrangement gave the layout so much more character? I love it! I decided to give it a shot and see how it will progress and these are my attempts:

this one lacked something I can’t describe. perhaps it is too dead centre? will try to spice it up in my next layout!

It has more dimension now, but it looks like an eatbook instead, so no go for sure 🙁

went to consult this layout with Mimi and she raised an interesting point: are there too many ‘Tiong Bahru” all over? so I decidedd that I would amend the logo from Tiong Bahru to a name that represents a magazine series

 

Overall, I want to keep the cover’s type and colour design to a minimum as the content of my magazine are pretty visual heavy, so a simple cover (front and back) can better balance out the visual weight!

Not forgetting to mention, the magazine series (top typography) is read as Zhou Chu, which means ‘In the Initial’ and ‘Picturesquesly, Tiong Bahru’ is the volume’s title (with it still being Volume 1 at this point).

I imagine having a series of location documentation in the ‘Zhou Chu’ series, with the exact format of a magazine series like 8 Days & Teenage magazine. So there will be Vol.2, Vol.3 and so on in future – This is the possible prospect for my Zine series.

 

 

 

 

Final layout for Zine! I left the textures out since the papers I’d gotten from RJ is off-white.

Fitting in the elements:

Logo Design & Exploration for my Zine series:

Here are a few of my tries on the creation of a logo for my zine series. These Chinese characters represent my publication’s name. The different character shows my experimentation with different shapes and forms and how they look when they are pieced together.

Then off to RJ Paper!!!!

Got a couple of samples and variety for my print, might want to keep a couple of booklets for myself! The type of textures I have in mind is – Munken Pure Rough, Wudii,  and a few others I can’t recall. I love that natural off-white colour and speckled dust effect from some of the 160gsm paper.

These are some of the A3 sized papers I got. Ranging from pure white to yellowish white – That is to see how it will turn out in print! The pure white one didn’t really work out eventually, so I stuck with the off-white coloured ones. Per print was $4 and it was the colour payoff was on point too! Really recommend ‘Colour De Something’… I really cannot recall at this moment!!! Will get back to it later.

 

Up next: Content Design Process

See you there!

 

 

Jumaji Ready – Process & Outcome

Hello everyone. 🙂

MATERIAL SOURCING:

On this day, I set out on an adventure to Chinatown to source for my materials. Was told that Chinatown will be a good place to hunt for old, vintage shops that cater to my needs for rattan. After hours of walking and googling, turns out, there was no one shop in the vicinity that sells what I was looking for. 🙁 I looked up on google and finally, after several calls made to different rattan selling shops, I FINALLY FOUND ONE THAT SUPPLIES THE TYPE OF RATTAN I NEED.

So lo and behold, this was the shop that saved my *** –

All the way at Geylang Bahru!

Really loved the whole aesthetic of the shop – Super old and rare, almost hard to find these days in our modern landscape. The shop owner was really nice, he knew I was here for my art project and he urged me to capture as many photos to my heart’s desire. And so I roamed around, taking my own sweet time to take my pick among all the available rattans!

Spent hours before I finally took my pick – One that is soft enough to manipulate, and one that fits the design aesthetic of my bag prototype. This is how it looks like:

THE CANE RATTAN

Was told to soak this bunch in the water before the making of my rattan bag as it will help to soften the material. So here we go!

WORK IN PROGRESS

I have to clog up the sink to stop the water from running 🙁 The evenly spaced out hole on the bag resembles a fishing net – which will be in sync with the needs of my target audience. (Will be revealed later in the post)

“SOWING”

And so, the weaving begins! One fast and effective way I learnt on how to secure the ends of the cane will be by twisting them around the loops and inserting them into another overlapped cane. This will prevent the cane from coming loose, really saves me a lot of time without having the need to use hot glue guns which can be time-consuming.

THE “FISH SCALE” INSPIRED SPIN

It was such a chore to twist and bend the rattan while having to keep it submerged in the water most of the time (to prevent it from becoming too stiff to alter). Overall, it was fun experimenting the type of shape I want on the bag.

 

My inspiration derives from something interesting I saw on Pinterest:

 

I realised how repeated patterns can form a really interesting visual, hence, I decided to employ this design and see where it goes!

Finally settled on the placement of the circle elements! Does it look a lot like fish scales?

 FINAL PROTOTYPE: JUMANJI-READY

Carry this and it will ensure that all beasts, no matter the size, will surrender at your toes. This, is the magic of the bag, for it has been blessed only by the best.

And the structure of it reflects beautiful patterns on the wall! It can serve as a lamp if you’d like, it can light up your way even during the darkest of night. Beyond just that, it makes a great statement piece too.

Also, I have personally sent a parcel over to the Jumanji Crew, and its safe to say she loved it!! I am guessing you will see it in Jumanji 3? We’ll see!

Here’s a picture Ruby Roundhouse sent:

Alright, this is all. Thank you for reading and joining me on my very ordinary adventure in this rattan bag making process. I hope you like it as much as I do!

This is, in fact, my very first bag making attempt, especially dealing with materials as raw and unique as rattan. I wanted to deviate away from cloth and set the challenge a notch higher, so I thought a rattan makes the cut since it is harder to manipulate with its stiff and brittle nature.

Ciaos!

Jumanji Ready – Prototype 1 Process

Hello everyone!

This will be a documentation of my pre-rattan bag brainstorming process. This is made to test out the length I could go to weave the structure together in place.

First, a wire model is made so that it acts as a “skeleton” to my bag construction. Then, a string is threaded throughout the circumference. In order to weave in a convenient manner, I had to tie the prototype up to a string and have it attach in midair to that I could interlace in and out quickly and easily.

In this picture, you see a knotted out which acts as the base of the bag.

The in and out weaving method:

Finishing up with the stringing process:

 

 

The end product of Prototype 1:

Made entirely with wires and brown strings/paper to satisfy the whole neutral aesthetic of the bag.

 

Click here to view the final prototype.

See you in part 2! Ciaos!

Pushing the boundaries of Experimental Fashun

 

The above are some of the ideas we came up with prior to finalisation. Eventually, we settled with #2 since we felt it has the highest potential to push the boundary of DIWO between 2 people through the use of social broadcast via Facebook. The title of our final project is named as “EXPERIMENTAL FASHUN“, which means accessing and testing the perimeter of fashion in today’s society.

 

To break down the whole idea, I will now come up with steps as to how the social experiment will unfold:

1) We will be split into pairs to complete a task. Among the pair, there will be an interviewer and a model. The interviewer is required to hit the streets of Singapore and get participants to pick out a whole set of outfit based on just adjectives. e.g. red, baggy, indie, stripes. While on the other hand, the model will be on the other end of the screen as she takes note and preps herself for the chosen outfit

2) A piece of paper indicating the list the of apparels will be given to the participants to take pick. Rule: Participants have to be of either different age groups/ethnicity/gender

3) A total of 4 participants will be required from each pair. 2 of each participant have to be found in different districts. e.g. Little India & Chinatown/Bras Basah complex & SMU (It should show a stark contrast between the demographics)

4) Since the participants are only given adjectives and not visuals of the image, they are supposed to come up with the most experimental and mismatched outfits possible

5) To conclude the game, our models with have to do a fashion runway walk and this image/video will be uploaded on to Instagram for our viewers to vote with a hashtag of #EXPERIMENTALFASHUN

 

WHO WILL WIN THIS CHALLENGE? YOU WILL FIND OUT SHORTLY.

🙂

 

The main aim of this experiment is to put emphasis on the unpredictable quality of online shopping. Remember when you ordered a piece of apparel from an online store but it came looking like nothing you’ve expected? That anger and rage from the stark difference in quality and fit, the mismatched descriptions and measurements we see from dodgy, substandard websites?

This social initiative aims at highlighting the unpredictability of online shopping, as people pick out and put together their “best intended” outfit for the model but ultimately a complete haywire.