in Assignment 2 – Research & Process, My Work

Design for illustrators: Assignment 2 process

For our second project, we are commissioned to create an illustration for the front cover of bi-annual magazine, “Varoom”. We are able to pick from one of the three themes, style, empathy and obsession.

Choosing a theme:

Here are a few very rough mind maps I did to explore the three themes before narrowing on a final one.

I then decided that the most promising topic that I could work on is obsession, which definition from dictionary.com stated that it is an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person’s mind. Upon being introduced to some strategies for divergent thinking, which aids in developing ideas and creating conceptual links to the theme, I expanded my thoughts for the specific theme.

Thinking of the theme word obsession reminds me of a phrases/metaphors in the word association chart:

Concept 1: Practice makes perfect

Regular exercise of an activity or skill is the way to become proficient in it.

This remind me of how I learnt chinese spelling, multiplication, and numbers during my kindergarden years. Writing and rewriting the words till it is ingrained in my head. There was once in kindergarden I actually vomit during class as I had a headache and my teacher did not allow me to take a break. I guess that was when my hatred for numbers stem from haha.

Concept 2: An aspect of OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

More specifically, the aspect where there is a need for the individual to have items ordered in a certain way (for example, according to color, size, or facing a certain direction). Children and teens with this type of obsession are either anxious because “it just doesn’t feel right” or because of a superstitious belief that something bad will happen (e.g., “if my shoes are not arranged properly, my mom will die!”). 

This is because of how people these days are so obsessed over the idea of perfection.

A lighter take on this topic reminds me of everyday things that just triggers people for the lack of completeness, below are some things that is an example of such:
 How does it feel for you to feel? Does it trigger you?

 

Target Audience

From these two concepts, I narrowed and picked a specific target audience. I believe a key aspect that the TA require is appreciating humour. Moodboard:

Concept 1: Practice makes perfect

Lisa suggest taking a literal approach to my real life experience, by illustrating vomit into the cover, and I think it is such a quirky approach!

 

Concept 2: “OCD”, obsession with perfection

For this, I thought of playing with tiles and illustrate it in such a way that triggers people. For example, not aligning a square with the rest of the tiles, which is quite fun and different!


That is all for now, excited for this project.