Project 1 Updates

My first consultation concluded that I was off track as my initial concepts had no messages behind it. I came up with a few other ideas, and am going ahead with idea A!

A:
Concept: What makes a man
The four jobs: Coursing river, Great Typhoon, Raging Fire, Mysterious Moon
Message: Women can have these qualities too!
Tone: Parody of Mulan’s “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” 

B:
Concept: What makes a housewife
The four jobs: Caregiver, Chef, Housekeeper, Teacher
Message: Housewives / mothers are everything. They are multi-talented, and they seem to be able to juggle everything.
Tone: Cheerful / appreciative?

C:
Concept:  Shortcuts to be rich
The four jobs: Tai tai, Bank Robber, Drug Lord, A Rich Character
Message: Everybody wants to be rich, but is there really a shortcut to it?
Tone: Satirical

D:
Concept: The hidden work behind an animation
The four jobs: Producer, Pre-Production Artist, Production Artist, Post Production Artist
Message: People so easily enjoy the work they see on screen, but most don’t know how much work and time is put into it.
Tone: More serious?
– I am also considering adding a twist to make the above concept more ‘me’ by using ‘Jack’ as my name (ironically). Because of the phrase, ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’, because I am a generalist.

Since this project was more typography based, I thought about how I could make use of types to express the various verbs (swift, force, strength, mysterious). I decided to experiment with using the formatting of the fonts, such as bolditalics, and stuff like that.

Swift as a Coursing River

Hmmmm how to express coursing river? Italics was used in hopes to express movement, like swoosh. I started off with the imagery of river contours in mind, using blue as a base colour, and eventually delving more into using hints of turquoise and teal.

screen-shot-2017-01-23-at-5-04-20-pm

I also experimented with moving the alphabets around, as if they were carried by the water current. However, I thought that it wasn’t expressing ‘swift’ and ‘coursing’ enough as the visuals seemed calm instead of quick.

coursingriver-pg1s
Eventually, I tried to overlay various images of water, and drew some bubbles, attempting to make it seem more like a coursing river, at the same time complementing the alphabets and filling some negative space to make the visuals more interesting and less plain. 

water-texture fastflowingwater

As I was working on this, I also saw this video: https://www.facebook.com/culturacolectivaplus/videos/1583477421669715/

and super loved it. Went back again in hopes of finding some references and inspiration and noticed how effective the use of the oil/ink/soap videos was. Yyyyes, oil, ink, soap imagery is bae.

screen-shot-2017-01-23-at-11-21-01-pm

So I grabbed this one and overlaid it on the existing design, experimenting with different blending options.

ink-oil-soap-experiment-9_zpsd428eda5

More experiments with the movement of the alphabets. coursingriver-pg2s

coursingriver-2overlay2

This one is my favourite so far. I thought the ink helped to represent movement as they looked like the bubbles you would see in the movement of water.

Force of a Great Typhoon

Don’t have much for this yet, except some possibly relevant imagery.

screen-shot-2017-01-24-at-12-41-21-am
screen-shot-2017-01-27-at-5-21-45-pmtyphoon-pg1Thought of using trippy neon colors coming into blend because typhoons remind me of a huge blender that blends everything (represented by a mish mash of random colors) up. The base colours blue and green would represent the sea and land in this case. This is still a mess, have yet to be developed!

Strength of a Raging Fire

fire-pg1The text is in bold because well, strength of a raging fire. Didn’t want to use a typical fire imagery for this and used bold and expressive brush strokes as inspired by the ruggedy-ness in David Carson’s works. Half way through, I thought of how the brush strokes reminded me of Red Indians’ face paint and I did some research and experimenting with that, as Red Indians are commonly known to be fierce and strong warriors. 
redindianpaint

Mysterious as the Dark Side of the Moon

Experimented with hiding the type for this, because, mysterious means not revealing everything easily. Also tried different ways I could hide the types. The drawing of the moon was from an old work. Played around with using different colors and I preferred a dark moon because of the contrast it gives plus it could better represent the dark side of the moon better. The cropping around was again inspired by David Carson’s works.

moon-pg1

Tried to use an image of the moon like this one but it didn’t really work out.moon-texture

Moving forward after the group consultation, I am going to try to think of other possible messages these four ‘jobs’ can indicate as well as how I can better tie my visuals to my message.

I should also be thinking more about helping the type fit in with the designs instead of looking like it’s overlaid.

If all goes well, I can start test printing soon!

Jeunory – Authority

17th May 2068

They call themselves enforcers. I was tortured, even though they know I won’t remember.

Finally, they threw me back into this cell at Bacon Street they call my home, they thought I fell asleep, they thought I won’t remember.

But I will stay awake to write.

 

It was the last day of this memory span and they finally caught me. But the room is still safe, my home is still safe. There’s still a lot to be investigated, but there’s new progress every memory span. Remember to keep track, document, and stay hidden.

Their watch will keep growing tighter.

The map is tattooed on my chest. This note has to stay hidden.

Forbidden.


John read the note stuck onto the mirror as he observed his appearance and traces his fingers along the scars on his shoulders and chest. He turned around to see his back. There were more scars, and underlying were tattoos that are too disfigured to understand. He only remember his own name, and the fact that in this world, citizen’s memories were limited by their memory spans. Was he a fugitive? Did he find out who these people were? What was he investigating? Where is Bacon Street?

He turned to look around the room once more. Attached on the wall was a map with read marks all over, and a red pin marked Bacon Street, along with a note that said:

They put civilians in apartments and houses, so we would wake up thinking that’s where we live. Right HERE is my home – map is tattooed on my chest.

There was a newer note that wrote:

There must be closer surveillance back at Bacon Street after I was caught. Go back once a day so they won’t be suspicious. Be wary of neighbours.

John steps back and glances upon the wall once more, noticing multiple mentions of a “red book”. He turned to the desk and sure enough, there was a hint of a red book, covered by scattered pieces of paper. He picks up the top piece, which read:

4dii

 

Jeurnory – Home

27 December, 2067

 

57 Bacon Street, Apartment 308, San Francisco, CA. Where you live.

John Matthew Dayers. Your full name.

28th September, 2032. Birthday.

Daisy Evans. Mother. American.

Levi Dayers. Father. American.

Wife?

 

Current Memory Span: 45 Days.

Revelation.


<insert image of Caucasian man looking at crumpled note>

As he took a deep breath and removed the entry from sight, John notices another piece of note, which seemed to be intentionally placed where he would see when he wakes up.

“You know how it works. Track memory span.” – The hasty writing demanded.

John sits up haggardly and surveyed the room as if he has never been there before. The room was dully lit and moody, and the air was rather thick. None of the wall paint was visible because the room was plastered with layers and layers of photographs and papers. And at the feet of the walls were almost incomprehensive piles of books and newspapers. None of these made sense to John.

investigationboard2-1

He finally stood up and he picks up the stack of newspaper left on the desk.

The headlines read:

5 January, 2050

An Interview with Cobalt Lynch by John Matthew Dayers.

He glanced at the clock on the desk.

6 January, 2070; 9.02am

“Ah, fuck.” John murmured to himself.

John understood that he was a journalist, but nothing more. It was only the beginning of a new day, but he was already exhausted by the beginning of the new memory span. He found a calendar on the desk and carefully noted on 6th January,

“New memory span start”.

 

 

 

Que Sera Research

For the homework of Week 1, we were tasked to conceptualise / research in our Visual Journal and decide on 4 jobs.

Also, we were to research on any of the following artists: Hannah Hock, DADA and Russian Constructivists, David Carson and some methods such as How to reconstruct; Using unconventional tools; 2D to 3D to 2D; Photomontage and Collage; Paper cut-outs and layering.

So, here’s my research!

  • Hannah Hock
    screen-shot-2017-01-15-at-3-44-17-pmShe is a German Dada artist and one of the pioneers of photomontage.The Dada art movement is that I’ve often heard of but never really got to understand what it is. Apparently, it started with the outbreak of World War 1, where “many Dadaists believed that the ‘reason’ and ‘logic’ of bourgeois capitalist society had led people into war”.

    The movement “consisted of artists who rejected ideas of logic, reason and aestheticism dominant in modern capitalist society, instead expressing nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois protest in their works”. Unhappiness was portrayed with violence, war and nationalism by Dadaists.

screen-shot-2017-01-15-at-3-51-19-pm
For reference because this word kept appearing.

So, here are some of Hannah Hoch’s works:

Image result for hannah hoch work
Cut with the Kitchen Knife “Hoch’s title for this piece illustrates her critique of the “bloated and heavy handed” nature of the male dominated Weimer republic and German military.” https://utopiadystopiawwi.wordpress.com/dada/hannah-hoch/cut-with-the-kitchen-knife/
Hannah Hoch: Indian Dancer: From an Ethnographic Museum Hannah Höch (German, 1889–1978)
Hannah Hoch: Indian Dancer: From an Ethnographic Museum Hannah Höch (German, 1889–1978) https://unefemmefap.wordpress.com/feminist-artist/

 

Das schöne Mädchen [The Beautiful Girl]
Das schöne Mädchen [The Beautiful Girl] https://www.artsy.net/artwork/hannah-hoch-das-schone-madchen-the-beautiful-girl
Ohne Titel (Aus einem ethnographischen Museum)
Ohne Titel (Aus einem ethnographischen Museum) https://www.artsy.net/artwork/hannah-hoch-ohne-titel-aus-einem-ethnographischen-museum

Researching on the above works, I read that Hannah Hoch often touched on gender issues. Perhaps this is why many of her artworks are expressed using the juxtaposition of body parts and machinery, to tie in to her feminist agenda.

At a glance, it seems like Hannah Hoch often used complementary colours, such as yellow and blue tinges. It could be related to the limitations or trends in printing technology during that era, but I feel like the contrast resonates with her message and juxtapositions. Juxtaposition and bizarre compositions are also often seen in her work. It feels like she is very daring in her expressions, many times making use of exaggeration.

  • David Carsonscreen-shot-2017-01-15-at-4-40-19-pm“David Carson is an American graphic designer, art director and surfer” widely known for his “innovative magazine design and use of experimental typography”.

It is said that “In 1983, Carson started to experiment with graphic design and found himself immersed in the artistic and bohemian culture of Southern California.”.

When he first started, David Carson was heavily influenced by Hans-Rudolf Lutz, one of his former teachers. Hans Rudolf Lutz was an experimental Swiss designer who, like David Carson, often experimented with typography.

Most of the research below is based on the following interview with David Carson by designboom: http://www.designboom.com/design/interview-with-graphic-designer-david-carson-09-22-2013/

David Carson spoke about his approach to design as “experimental, intuitive and personal”, and trying to “reinforce visually what is written, spoken or sung”. He aims to “connect with people on an emotional level”.

 

It seems to me like most of his designs are bold and telling. Striking and in your face. His layout designs also are also often breakthroughs of traditional layouts. I love this because it is always about doing something different. One memorable example of this would be the following picture:

david_carson_interview_02

As mentioned in his interview, it was a magazine cover that was designed with no cover lines because he felt that the photograph of Keith Richards’ says it all. It turned out to be the biggest selling issue. I also feel like this cover is exactly what David Carson described his design approach to be – experimental, intuitive and personal. Experimental being the risk taking to do something different. Personal and intuitive being how he knew the photograph spoke emotionally, like there was a really interesting story to tell. It is simple, direct and eye catching. I love hahaha.

As mentioned above, in the interview, he also spoke about how “growing up primarily in Southern California [gave him] a somewhat more experimental, liberal and open minded approach to design and life.” This goes to show the cultural impacts and how individuality is brought into design.

At this moment, it seems so empowering because it would mean each individual designer is capable of delivering their own unique designs according to their especial stories and footprints. Perhaps with this, I could be inspired to bring more individuality into my designs, something that is more me, something that speaks more about how I have been brought up. I have never really thought about it this way. More often than not, it was about what looks good, especially since I find that I struggle with abstract concepts.

david_carson_interview_11

David Carson is savage he put the whole article in dingbat because he thought it was boring and so ‘why not?’

david_carson_interview_13

Apparently the outcome of this page was due to something more ‘automatic’, he was working on a concept but saw that “there was somethign nice happening with the 4 single pages laying on [his] studio floor, as they were – so [he] used them in that way.”

I feel like David Carson’s work are very liberated and screams design freedom. I find that it is definitely a challenge to be able to have so much creative freedom, but at the same time ensure your design communicates to it’s audiences and have your clients approve it.

I have never really heard of David Carson before this but now I feel more inspired to break out of my design shell, to hop aboard a voyage to experiment more, break boundaries, be more flexible, chill out and less particular.

david_carson_interview_15

He mentioned that “[his] work uses very few software tricks, or even color. it’s about font choice, cropping and basic, often intuitive design decisions, ones that are appropriate for the client, audience, and myself.”

This paragraph is on pointe. I want to be more special.
This paragraph is on pointe. I want to be more special.

When asked about online design resources’ influence on graphic design these days, David Carson said that “it’s made everything less experimental, less memorable, less unique and less effective. its homogenized the work overall and made it easier to forget, with less impact.” – This sounds true. A lot of designs nowadays follow trends, though they look good and receive well, it is less memorable. Once again, on the upcoming projects, I hope to be much more experimental than I was last semester.

david_carson_interview_22david_carson_interview_21

Really no idea what the above posters mean (I think there might have been information too small to be seen in this resolution), but I think they look gooood. I love the use of the colors. I love the colors. It was done for Austin Institute for Graphic Awesomeness spring 2014 conference.

screen-shot-2017-01-15-at-6-58-19-pm

Love.


Speaking of unconventional design tools, recently we painted with our fingers and twigs in Foundation Drawing class and I really liked the outcome of my drawings:

file_001 file_000

OSS likes to rotate my pictures??

But i quite like the outcomes and it sounds out a possibility of expressing better with unconventional drawing tools.

A quick trip to Pinterest and I saw this: https://www.behance.net/gallery/3595975/Milky-Way

Draw with milk..whoa!:

Drawing with milk!

Unconventional tools would probably remind everyone about the mark making nightmare. Anything can be used as an art tool, anything.


From 2D to 3D to 2D totally reminds me of Alexa Meade who does awesome stuff like these:

Image result for alexa meade

Image result for alexa meade

Image result for alexa meade

Which could be considered unconventional tools too?

She basically transforms the 3D world into a 2D painting, and then recapturing them into 2D photographs or films. It seems pretty epic to me because there’s a base 3D canvas to work on, as compared to a flat 2D canvas. It is innovative and at the same time could mean possibly easier workflow and extended possibilities.

There’s my research for Project 1 for now, will possibly do more research on methods while ideating!

Storming A New World

Several mind maps later, I was down to two ideas.

The process of developing a new world started off with an old idea, a dystopian world where humans and animals depended on each other for survival.

Image result for stepan bear
Oh just tea time with the family bear, Stepan.

Much inspired by real life stories of how some men have animals considered ferocious beasts as pets  – only but a distant dream of mine. Popular examples include The Lion Man and Stepan the Family Bear (Russians.).

I thought this world was very much related to The Golden Compass and How To Train Your Dragon. Where you have a ferocious beast of your own, and where the actually docile animals are considered threatening.

Related imageImage result for how to train your dragon

After pitching the idea, I was down to two questions, what makes this bond essential, what or who are they fighting against and what caused the current state of the earth?

I also decided to explore more on a pre-apocalyptic world instead of a post-apocalyptic world. Figuring that they could be fighting against the clock to salvage their Earth from dying.

Googling “Why is the Earth dying” lead me to these helpful articles:

  • https://mic.com/articles/121209/scientists-gauge-how-fast-earth-s-ecosystems-are-dying-and-it-s-not-looking-good-for-us#.N5tBHbxju

    A scientific explanation, complete with graphs, about extinction rates, biodiversity, and possible ways to avert the situation. The ideas referred from this article is summarised in this mind map: 4dii_worldstorming

  • I also made a discovery that “Dying Earth” is a whole science fantasy sub genre on its own and it even has it’s own Wiki page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Earth_(subgenre) that includes numerous examples of the same genre and how the idea of the Dying Earth was conceived differently by different authors. Popular concepts included a dying (or dead) Sun, and time travelling.

    Eventually… I decided to put a pause to developing this world as I wasn’t that impressed by this idea anymore, though it could possibly work. Also, somewhere in-between research, I came across a short film that referred to a goldfish, and how they’re known for their 7 seconds memory.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-giWsa49Xgs&t=322s
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-giWsa49Xgs&t=322s

Ok, so, what if people only had a day’s worth of memory? Maybe that’s a bit far fetched and the world wouldn’t be able to function. So.. What if people had limited memory… according to the years, either

  • According to the years they lived, or
  • According to the years they have to live

memory

I decided that the latter (1 year left to live = 1 day of memory) was more interesting because it would mean that there is a potential of their memory days decreasing every year, and a possibility that memory days could be influenced by lifestyle choices. Will the people of this world know the numbers of years they have to live? Or will they eventually forget?

Maybe, people could have partitioned memory, with default memory capacity to remember the languages they spoke, and perhaps their name.

I found this idea rather fresh and worth developing, and with some Googling, I landed on this page https://hitrecord.org/projects/2423578/highlights

Where there is a existing concept about “Future Memory” and how memory could become a form of trade and commerce, how memory is tangible. In the same page, there are also other users’ contributions on how a world like this would work. I thought this page was useful and relatable for developing my world.

At this point, I thought the main storyline would be a main character investigating the truth and system behind the memory of this world. Still no idea who is behind all these. But the possible conflicts would be a race against time, to accomplish something before you forget. There would be a possible villain behind all these, and a possibility of people forgetting how things work in this world because it’s been forgotten as it’s washed down generations after generations. Or, maybe one day, the main character suddenly has a much lesser memory capacity and he has to save himself from dying.

I was reminded of West World, where artificial intelligence started recalling their past lives.Image result for west world

Next, was researching about films related to memory.

Here’s a page that seems pretty useful: http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/21479/1/the-most-mind-bending-films-about-memory

The first film, Momento, is about a guy that’s basically like… Dory from Finding Dory. He has short term memory after an accident and he is unable to make new memories. He has a system of polaroids and tattoos to help him as he investigates his current situation. I envisioned a similar system in my world.

Image result for film memento

I think I am more drawn towards the memory idea. I might just write two stories. But for now, I think I need to talk to people about the memory idea to see how feasible it is and generate more discussions and ideas.

 

Hello! My name is…

nametags

Hey there! My name is Shi Teng and I major in Animation.

It’s the beginning of a new semester and as an introduction to ourselves, we were tasked to create three name tags that were tagged to a personality trait of ourselves.

It’s an impromptu project and these are the name tags I came up with.

I started in a mind map (included in my visual journal) and picked up three personality traits, namely:

  1. Chill
    I guess I could be pretty chill most times, albeit still hardworking when it comes to work. I quickly thought of waves. Waves are spontaneous, impulsive, splashes! I thought that represented me pretty well. Not to mention, it is all shades of blue. I had intended the words to be outlined but there wasn’t enough time for watercolour to dry for proper outlining. This alternative choice landed me in a more comic look and hey, I am from animation after all.
  2. Awkward
    Haven’t been seen that awkward for some time but this epithet has stuck by me for awhile. People also sometimes call me ST (or to be more atas, Estee), hence @awkwardst. Random awkward shapes and colours are somehow fitting in but still… sort of awkward. And the choice of mostly muted colours with a tinge of surprise (or an apt clumsy accident). An accurate representation of awkwardst, placed in a random space (just like this 2D class).
  3. Straightforward
    To the point. Ain’t it? Other than being that, I’ve also discovered last semester that a lot of my designs are more literal. For once, I chose brighter colours because I thought ‘point’ should be jarring.

So there goes my first post! It’s going to be tougher this semester and I do hope I stay inspired, with an open mind for more experimenting, for my last shot at this module. (: