Zine

In this project, we design a printed document, a zine, that we can showcase almost anything we want to, from past works to photography. For me, I chose to display some of my preferred works, ranging from digital works done in 2D modules, to painting done for Foundation Drawing, and even works done before ADM life started.

Initially, my idea was to come up with something like a catalog for a gallery, something clean and classy and minimalist. I also considered to make the entire zine in monochrome, showcasing only my works done in black and white, to further enhance the idea of minimalist and classy. I went to check out several designs, in particular from Apple and Samsung, two big technological giants well known to have been producing classy and sleek gadgets like the Apple iPhone, iPad, or the Samsung Galaxy series.

The Apple website
The Apple website
The Samsung website
The Samsung website

I found out that both Apple and Samsung made their website very classy in similar ways. First, it was the plain white background with very simplistic font, that makes the entire composition very clean and sharp. Next, the subjects – the gadgets and phones, were very precisely trimmed and placed in place with sufficient empty space, to make the subject stand out and have enough empty space to accentuate their elegance and class. However, this point might not be applicable to my design as my subjects were not 3D objects, and tend to have a background, making such cropping inapplicable. Nonetheless, this was a good start in understanding how to compose my “clean” and “classy” zine.

I also researched on the websites of the National Design Centre, and National Museum of Singapore, since I wanted my zine to look like a catalog for a gallery or exhibition, thus this two might be a good platform that is more relevant to my design.

The National Design Centre website
The National Design Centre website
The National Museum of Singapore website
The National Museum of Singapore website

SImilar to Apple and Samsung, they had very plain and light coloured background, which looks clean and classy. Both website also uses very plain fonts, with very neat and orderly arrangement of their elements. I noticed that the logos of this two websites were slightly more unique, with the logo of the National Design Centre incorporating words into part of the logo, and the asymmetrical arrangement of NMS for the National Museum. I thought through how I could incorporate English into Chinese strokes for my cover page, but ultimately giving up the idea to keep things very minimalist. I also decided to use asymmetrical arrangement in some of my layout, similar to the National Museum logo and also in line with a design principle, which talks about repetition and something out of the norm to draw attention.

While shopping, I chanced upon another idea for my zine, after seeing how MUJI, a japanese shop actually has a very calm and “zen” feeling to it. This was another direction I could go for! With shopping physically there and going online to their website, I found out I like their design quite a lot.

The MUJI shop
The MUJI shop
The MUJI website
The MUJI website

MUJI typically uses 2 colours in their entire theme – a dark red, and a light brown. These colours worked well together to give a warm, cosy and comfortable feeling, yet not compromising on its elegance and class. I also like how they use a single Chinese / Japanese word to classify and label their products. I felt that this could be a possible way to classify my works. Slowly, I decided to move my design towards a “MUJI” feel, a slightly more Japanese, cosy and comfortable design, tied in with the classy and spacious feeling of Apple and Samsung.

With these in mind, I started looking through my past works and sieved out some of the better ones that I would like to showcase in my zine. These included 2D projects since semester one like Lines, Rhymes, Ego, Point of View, and also drawings and paintings in both wet and dry mediums, from my portfolio and Foundation Drawing module.

Here is how my zine looks like, as a finalised printout, in page order (borders are only here to define the area printed due to white background):
Page 1Page 2-3Page 4-5Page 6-7Page 8I made use of the dark red and light brown colour combination as a main theme for my zine, giving a warm and comfortable tone due to their warm nature. I then used the “one chinese word” element from MUJI, which in my case, i chose to find them in Japanese. I translated the words I wanted into Japanese on google translate, and tried to use those that could be in Chinese characters, particularly, traditional Chinese characters. The existence of these words in both Japanese and traditional Chinese seemed like a good match to me, as it ties in well with the Japanese style I wanted, and also understandable in Chinese to most locals. As such, I categorised my pages according to a defining type they belong to, namely “composition”, “sketch” and “colour”, which translates to 结() or ()造, ()画, and 色(). I then named the entire zine as 设计, or Sekkei in Japanese, meaning design.

On the cover page, the title was along one-third of the layout, while the “Lines” strips were started at the two-third in response to the rule of thirds. The word “design” and the strips were also slightly misplaced left / right to eliminate symmetry. I also added my two main colours into the Chinese words which had similar strokes on one side. The shadows of the strips were also in the same colour, and given that order to not have symmetry as well.

On the second page onwards, the dark red was used as the titles to the works, as it was more eye-catching, while the light brown subtly tells of what medium the work was done in. On the right hand side of every spread, there would be a dark red tab to tell of the category of the works, similar to the one-character design of MUJI. The second page shows the “Rhymes” composition being cropped out and taking a large portion of the page, similar to the design idea of Apple and Samsung.

On the third page, the “Ego” composition was arranged in a asymmetrical way similar to the logo of the National Museum, and the shapes were all round. This gives repetition and something out of the norm based on arrangement and size. The arrangement and size different also brings in something of interest to catch the audience’s attention, and provides more movement in the layout.

On page four and five, the two sketches merges to form “one” person, which I felt was an interesting way to display these two different but similarly styled sketches, especially when these two superheroes are going to face-off in an upcoming movie, Captain America – Civil War. There was also an emphasis on white spaces around them, with entirely nothing else apart from the caption, to bring full attention to the work done.

On page six, the hexagons work together with little gaps in between to show a coherent composition like a bee hive. then, one piece is removed from the composition to have an interesting point, and I felt that the area was just nice to insert the captions, giving the whole page a clean and neat arrangement without being too boring.

On page seven, the two paintings are misaligned such that the top painting seems to hang over the bottom one, having a cantilevered position gives it movement to make the composition interesting.

The back cover shows the extension of the strips from the front cover, as well as details about myself, to give more information and context of what the works are about and who the artist is. Social contacts are also provided so that interested audience could view more works and even contact the artist for queries or request for works.

With this, the zine is completed! I personally found it quite interesting to carry out this project, to look through all the works I have done, bringing back all the good (and bad) memories as well as reflecting back to see progress and improvements, and changes in style over time. It was also interesting to try to understand how to make the layout interesting and make everything aesthetically pleasing, to both the audience and myself.

 

 

Point of View

In this project, I explore how an item is portrayed or seen from the point of view of different objects. This is interesting as I start to think of random stuffs and how they view the same thing differently, which is something that not everyone will do normally.

I randomly picked an item, and came up with “shirt”. In this case, “shirt” refers to not just a formal buttoned shirt, but more of tops in general. After coming up with the main subject of focus, I started brainstorming for other objects that could view “shirt”, and what they felt a shirt might be to them. Here’s the list that I generated, and the six in blue made it to the finals, with a little bit of edits –

  1. A shirt from the point of view of a hanger is a warm embrace.
  2. A shirt from the point of view of a designer is a canvas.
  3. A shirt from the point of view of a fashion mall is money.
  4. A shirt from the point of view of an African kid is hope.
  5. A shirt from the point of view of a bamboo pole is burden.
  6. A shirt from the point of view of a pair of bottoms is frenemy.
  7. A shirt from the point of view of a chair is a jacket.
  8. A shirt from the point of view of the Hulk is a rag.
  9. A shirt from the point of view of a beach-goer is a redundant / wardrobe malfunction.
  10. A shirt from the point of view of a soldier is refreshment.
  11. A shirt from the point of view of a mum is a chore.
  12. A shirt from the point of view of a body is security.
  13. A shirt from the point of view of a model is reputation / fame. / popularity
  14. A shirt from the point of view of a cat is a bed.
  15. A shirt from the point of view of a wallet is depressing.
  16. A shirt from the point of view of a loose thread is farewell.
  17. A shirt from the point of view of a bird is a toilet.
  18. A shirt from the point of view of an interviewer is judgement.

Next, was to think of how to carry it out. Usually for 2D projects, I have been doing them hands-on, using paints, paper, or even exploring a variety of materials to play with texture and space, making the subjects 3D. This time round, we were advised to keep it 2D, and thus I decided to explore and improve on something I have been weak at – Photoshop. I am very bad at photoshop as I only started using it in university, and thus I tend to try to avoid using it for projects but to do something that I am more confident and comfortable with, doodling with pens and pencils, making things hands-on instead of digital. I decided to use mainly photography, but making the entire composition black and white in general, then add vibrant colors to enhance the subject, which is usually the shirt itself. This technique is only widely known as color splash, and here are some examples that I have came across –

3 1 2

This technique helps to bring attention to the colored subject immediately, with the black and white subtle background filling in the rest of the details to complete the picture. I find this technique very interesting, and thus decided to employ it in my project. So here’s my final 6 compositions –

A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A POOR AFRICAN KID IS HOPE.

A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A POOR AFRICAN KID IS HOPE.
A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A POOR AFRICAN KID IS HOPE.

In this composition, I placed a topless African kid at the bottom right corner, in black and white to show how he seems to be neglected, his life has a lack of colors, seems dull and sad, but not without realizing that hopeful look in his eyes. I then placed a shirt at the top right corner, disguised as a kite as suggested by the frame and string. A kite seems like a source of happiness for kids, and I wanted to portray the shirt as a form of hope and happiness for this shirtless African kid, thus putting it against a sky that is overlayed with vibrant colors of the rainbow, which slowly recedes to black and white towards the kid. This shows a contrast between black and white as compared to colors, as well as the contrast between the two moods.

 

A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A BEACH-GOER IS WARDROBE MALFUNCTION.

A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A BEACH-GOER IS WARDROBE MALFUNCTION.
A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A BEACH-GOER IS WARDROBE MALFUNCTION.

In this composition, I portrayed a man well-dress in a blazer holding a surfboard. To him, the shirt is redundant and does not serve its function a the shirt will get wet if he surfboards in that outfit. As such, it is a wardrobe malfunction. His blazer is overlayed with a warm pink to suggest the warmth of the beach, yet not too red to prevent stealing all the attention towards the blazer alone. He is placed along one third of the picture, with a horizontally placed surfboard to balance out the composition. On the other vertical one third, 2 surfboarders are placed in the background to juxtapose the difference between being topless and wearing the blazer. This composition was fun to make as the initial portrait of the man in blazer at the beach was a narrower portrait, and I had to clone the background out to make it seem natural and show the vastness of the beach as well. His shadows were extended and the surfboard added in, in place of a pair of shoes he was holding initially. His belt was also removed and I made his tee longer, all to remove the initial portrayal where he looked like a model for a beach photoshoot as seen below.

Initial picture of the subject
Initial picture of the subject

 

A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A CAT IS A BED.

A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A CAT IS A BED.
A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A CAT IS A BED.

Cats always like to snuggle in the shirts of its owner, often curling up on these small cosy areas instead of enjoying the large beds. Similarly to the previous composition, the cat and shirt is placed towards one third of the picture, with only the shirt in color. The shirt is blue to signify a sense of serenity and calmness associated with sleeping and resting, and the shirt is placed on another fabric which is typical of bedsheet and blankets. This shows the emphasis of how the cat sleeps on the shirt, instead of on the bed. In the composition, the sourcing of cats to be in a similar angle of shot as the shirt was key, to make the image look more real instead if incoherence because of different angles. Then, shadow was added to the cat, in a similar way to the shirt’s shadow to have consistency. I also experimented to control the feathering edge of masking the image, to preserve the soft and furry texture of the cat which does not make him look like he is superimposed onto the shirt.

 

A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A DESIGNER IS A CANVAS.

A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A DESIGNER IS A CANVAS.
A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A DESIGNER IS A CANVAS.

This statement works in 2 ways! One, a designer would want to make his/her own shirt, and thus the shirt would be like a canvas to him/her. Two, even when a designer does not make his/her shirt a canvas, very often while painting and drawing, the paints get onto the shirt, making it seem like a canvas after all! In this composition, I put a series of plain white shirts on mannequins and the third shirt is slightly cropped out, suggesting a continuing row of shirts. Then, I put splashes of paint over these shirts, in the basic colors of red, yellow and blue, which overlapped to create areas of purple and orange. The background is a very raw concrete feel to give the “industrial” look which many studios nowadays take after.

 

A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A FASHION MALL IS MONEY.

A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A FASHION MALL IS MONEY.
A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A FASHION MALL IS MONEY.

Who doesn’t know shopping malls make a huge load of money out from your pockets, with the cost of shirts being really low overseas and the prices being ridiculously high here? Yes, to fashion malls, a shirt is money! As such, I used a photograph of a display window with several mannequins, then cropped out their shirts and underlayed with trademark american dollar bills. The dollar bills are then tinted with the 3 basic colors of red, yellow and blue, with green added in between. This is to show like how this shirts are made of money, OUR MONEY.

 

A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A MODEL IS FAME.

A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A MODEL IS FAME.
A SHIRT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A MODEL IS FAME.

Last but not least, this is one of my favourite compositions, as it has a very trendy and local feel to it. It is also probably the most tedious composition in this project. To models, it seems like their #ootd, or “outfit of the day” is very important to them, as it in turns determines the number of “likes” they get, their reputation and fame. Sometimes these #ootd shots are also advertisements or sponsored apparels, making it even more important to ride on their reputation and fame. To begin, I took quite a number of #ootd shots of a local model, and then rearranged and repeated them in tiles in the background to create a messy yet homogeneous backdrop. I took screenshots of these #ootd shots from instagram, then had to crop them out, and arrange them neatly in squares before duplicating, flipping and rearranging them so that they look slightly different. Then, I put over a transparent layer of a facebook’s “like” button, before adding colors of the rainbow to this button to make it stand out from the black and white background. This composition is also tricky in that the size of the tiles mattered, as they had to be small to be subtle as a consistent background, yet big enough to tell the subject in the background, which is a focus of #ootd shots with a shirt. As such, it was fun experimenting with different sizes, overlaying with different colors and trying to see which is the nicest, to me at least.

With that, Point of View project is done, so what’s your point of view of a shirt?

Typographic Portraits

In this assignment, we were supposed to portray our names using an object or description.

First of all, I started by listing out a list of objects that I could be, things that were representative of me. This list included being a log, a goldfish, a sponge, being chubby, being heavy (whale? whale-son?), being boring (linking back to being a log?), being easy-going (water?), being stubborn (rock?), a radio, and also a vase.

After which I started coming out with random doodles that came to mind from this list of words.

Initial ideas
Initial ideas

After that, I shortlisted 6 of them (log, goldfish, vase, rock, sponge, and water) which was the initial assignment deliverables. After the requirements drop to 4 pieces of deliverables, I decided to drop the idea of goldfish and water.

 

Here are the completed pieces, as well as some of the more interesting processes.

The first one would be the vase. I chose to portray myself as a vase because when people call you a vase, they mean that you are a bimbo and have no substance. On the contrary, I believe I have substance and would want to show it, thus making a vase to play with its meaning.

My name is Wil, and I am a Vase.
My name is Wil, and I am a Vase.

This was done by painting ultramarine blue watercolor onto white paper, before cutting them out and sticking them onto black paper. This idea of using chinese ceramic designs came to mind immediately upon thinking about vases, probably because of learning Asian art history in another module.

A Qing dynasty pottery.
A Qing dynasty pottery.

After my painting was done, I added a layer of transparency sheet (those used on OHP in primary schools) over the vases to give a glossy effect, secured by tiny little pieces of double sided tape as it would be visible if attached using glue or bigger pieces of tape. This makes the vase closer to reality, also bringing out the contrast between the white vases and black background, the glossy vases and matte background.

Transparency sheet to add gloss to the vases.
Transparency sheet to add gloss to the vases.

 

My second piece would be the log. I chose a log as for several reasons. First, I sleep like a log, I can easily sleep more than 12 hours a day without getting woken up by anything. Second, I’m a “block of wood” like a piece of log, I don’t get hints easily and am kind of oblivious to things sometimes.

My name is WILSON, and I am a Log.
My name is WILSON, and I am a Log.

This was made mainly by using blu-tac. First, I pressed blu-tac onto a piece of paper outlined with my name. The blu-tac is pressed hard to make it thin so that it will not be too heavy, and then after that pushed along the sides using a ruler to make sure the edges are clean.

Pressing blu-tac onto paper.
Pressing blu-tac onto paper.

The bark of a tree have texture of long and short lines, deep and shallow. I decided to simplify these lines into straighter lines, which is carved onto the blu-tac by pressing the width of a metal ruler on it, and also scratching with the corner of the ruler. My research on recreating tree bark only showed how to do so using wall paint and clay, as well as epoxy, which were either difficult or heavy, thus my choice of blu-tac.

Tree bark texture
Tree bark texture
Recreating the texture
Recreating the texture
Texture on close-up, at an angle
Texture on close-up, at an angle
The colored texture under light
The colored texture under light

After the bulk of it was done, I painted acrylic over them, using a mixture of burnt sienna and black to make it a darker brown which is less red. I also brushed in patches of sap green over some areas to simulate algae, but is not obvious unless viewed very closely. I then cut them out, stick on a piece of transparency which is rolled into a semi-circular cylinder to allow it to stand out like half of a log. The background is painted randomly with watercolor to allow the transparent layers of leaves to overlap. The entire composition revolved around the use of yellow to brown colors to have a more harmonious color scheme.

 

Next up is a rock. I chose to portray myself as a rock because at times I tend to be very stubborn, unwilling to budge just like a rock. Once I set my mind on a decision, it is unlikely for me to change my mind.

My name is Wil, and I am a Rock.
My name is Wil, and I am a Rock.

This too, is done mainly using blu-tac. This only required pressing the blu-tac only a piece of paper, but varying amounts of blu-tac were used across the words to give differing thickness and uneven surface, just like rocks. Some parts were pressed harder onto the paper, while some parts were pinched to give a sharper ridge.

Initial layout of blu-tac
Initial layout of blu-tac

After which, white and black acrylic were jabbed onto the product while the paint was wet, creating varying shades of grey and black. The border of the rocks were initially left out because the brush could not reach them, but turns out to be a good way of bringing out the words to make them clearer, thus left white. The jabbing of the brush with stiff bristles also created more texture on the rocks as the bristles made the blu-tac rough and also caused the paint to be in spots instead of strokes.

Texture of rocks
Texture of rocks
Close-up on my rocks
Close-up on my rocks

 

Last but not least, a sponge. I chose to be a sponge as I tend to learn things quite quickly and enjoy learning, like how a sponge can suck up water very quickly and efficiently. I also wanted the idea of adding blotches of colors to bring in the notion of being an artist and also learning more things, adding colors to my life, or also the notion of getting tainted by bad influences as I grow up.

My name is WH, and I am a Sponge.
My name is WH, and I am a Sponge.

I used my initials, W and H, to show 2 faces of a cube of sponge. I used white sponge on white paper to make it very plain and continuous, so that colors added on it will stand out. The sponge is made by attaching 2 layers of sponges together, then cut into a cube, then cut diagonally to half. Then, the W was carved in, before carving in the H, thus both sides could be seen.

The W
The W
The H
The H

I wanted to drip watercolor onto the sponge and allow it to smudge and blossom by itself to have a soft texture. Unfortunately, the magic sponge was not very porous and did not allow the water to flow freely. The drop of color stayed where it landed and did not move. Thus, I had to manually paint on every part, and added water to blend some of the colors. I used primary colors of Red, Yellow and Blue, as they were the basics of colors. I wanted to show learning from basics and also felt that this 3 colors were very harmonious together, with the ability to form many other colors. I then painted parts of the background like colors splashes to allow the sponge to stand out, adding more dynamic movement to the composition as though the sponge is diving into the paper or emerging from it. The downward flowing “drips” were also painted in to make it look more natural and sort of give a more carefree and unintended feel to something which looks neat and well-planned.

Watercolor onto sponge and paper
Watercolor onto sponge and paper

 

With this, my 4 pieces of typographic portraits are complete!