Category: Graphic Form – G5

Inspiration, research and Process 

*Due to the truly unfortunate circumstance of the trusty macbook pro dying on her, Yuolmae has very regrettably lost many of her process files. However, she has managed to recover a few from backup data.

There was a very big hindrance for me when i started to do my drafting. Mimi said thats we could design either our full name or parts of our name; such as nicknames, initials or even half of our names.

The letters of my name YUOLMAE had a strange percentage of being straight or curved. The letters YL in YUOL are undoubtedly straight, while UO are curved. MAE can present itself as a straight text when in capitals, and curved when in its smaller case. It made no sense to have an uneven intersplicing of irregular blocks and curvatures in my name, thus I decided to split my full name into YUOL and MAE.

Illustrative purpose

F00D idea 1

I was always interested in in jobs in the food sector. Because my name YUOLMAE in korean means “small fruit” (No joke.), I decided to become a fruit seller. I chose to use MAE because of their curvy nature when in lower case. After doing a vector shape for “mae” on illustrator, I felt that the san-serif “mae” was very reminiscent of the roundness of fruits. I halved the fruits to allude to the natural shape of fruits while also showing the letters concisely. The “e” is depictd as a vine attached to a fruits to give some sense of mystery.

At first, I there was no flag on the fruits, thus making the situation awkward as viewers were left to guess for themselves whether I meant to represent a fruit seller or a farmer. I felt that I needed additional tools and background images to convey my occupation as a fruit seller, like a signboard staked behind the fruits denoting the prices. However, Mimi said it was too distracting and image-reliant. Thus, i changed my idea into a more subtle one, placing a price tag on one of the fruits. This did not create a huge distraction from the painting, and also illustrated my idea well.

F00D idea 2

I wanted to bring out the very nature, sentiment and attitude of the job. Thus I chose a job as a fast food server, where the fast paced lifestyle creates a stressful, underappreciated environment to work in. I chose a more zoomed in crop of the composition originally, to show the narrow-minded nose dive into the job, where servers can only focus their attention on such a small area at a time so as to not screw up.

However, following Mimi’s feedback, I created a more zoomed out composition, for greater clarity. The textures and splotches mean to represent the frustration and errors of the demanding job. Due to previous feedback that the “e” is not very defined, i closed the gap and uncertainty by placing a ketchup splotch at the corner of the e.

“Doctor, Lawyer or Surgeon“

The surgeon is always a profession I had been deeply inclined towards. I have always been intrigued by the cold, calculative profession which provided so much knowledge and insight to the mysteries of the human anatomy.

My initial draft was a mixture of a realistic sketch and a render, which was immediately rejected by Mimi due to the lack of cohesiveness. In addition, the lack of harmony is further exemplified due to the contrasting natures of the straight YL and the curvy UO. Thus, I changed my concept to be a fully vectorised render, working with curves to link the entire design together.

My first sketch attempt played with gestalt in the shape of the stetoscope, linking the Y, U, and O together.

Inspiration

I later changed the color scheme as it became too stark and contrasting. I chose a warm flesh-toned palette and created contrast using the cool grays of the surgical knife, showing the nature of the profession, where hard mechanics and solid skills work on moving, soft human flesh. I added the vignetting to simulate how the surgeon’s job is to go into the body, just like how vignettes pull viewer’s eyes into the painting.

When there’s trouble, you know who to call~

Civil defense is an important part of keeping Singapore safe, and one of the professions I truly respect and admire are Firefighters. They rush into the situation fully prepared to face the worst, with the danger of self-sacrifice looming ever behind their heads. But they don’t look back.

I realized that my surname, ANG, represented a triangle, a rectangle and a circle, much like the symbols of harmony in art. The differences in the geometric shape made it an interesting challenge to tackle. I made the rectangular N into a burning building, connecting the two blocks with a fireman’s ladder. Out of the negative space of A, I fashioned a firefighter. The roundness of the G made it perfect to be a fireman’s hose.

However, my greatest issues were with how the color scheme did not match at all. Even though i decided to use a tetradic color scheme, the colors did not work well at all. I suspect that it was because purple was used, and purple was one of the most difficult colors to be paired with. Below shows different attempts in creating a harmonious color scheme

At last, I settled for a black and neon color scheme. Against the black background, the vibrancy of the purple and oranges used sprung to life but did not threaten to drown out one another. The sense of peril in the job is also heightened with this contrasting color scheme.

Final 

For my final presentation, I created 3d versions of the fruit, and propped them up on a yellow board. Viewers thus saw the clearer image of fruits sold on a display, highlighting and emphasizing the job of being a fruit seller.

Feedback:

Feedback from peers was mostly positive, with people liking the 3d effect of the fruits and the textures apparent in the fast food server piece.There was also one comment liking how the name was placed off center for the fast food server piece and the fruit seller piece.

There was a negative comment saying that the fast food seller piece would’ve been better if its background was on a fast food tray.