Some other publication designs throughout the years

Some of the print designs I did for a variety of projects (which one way or another survived the major hard-disk crash 2 years ago :))

1. Info Panel - Project One Coin One Brick, 2009
The result of this project is a class room model certified by Singapore Guinness Book or Records as the largest display of 50c coins. It was auction off to finance the building of 2 classrooms for needy children in rural Vietnam.

2. Banner - Free Sticker Campaign, 2009
This project won the 2nd price in X_Stigma National Marketing Competition, Singapore. Nice memories :D

3. Black&White Vietnam Entrepreneurship Handout - ASEANPreneur Exhibition on Entrepreneurship, 2010

It's the wordiest design I ever did! (exclude the booklet for Career Networking Day). However, consider how this design provides solution to deliver a lot of info at a very cheap price (b&w printing on A4 paper for an easy-to-carry trifold), this one is quite a decent job that has achieved the objectives.

4. Event Booklet - Career Networking Day Singapore 2011
An over-night work :D

Assignment 6.2 (cont): Storybook

The last post for this blog, marking the end of NM2208! "Sweat and tears" for a semester. Couldn't say exactly if I love or hate this module. Probably both =P.

2 weeks. 5 people. 1 story. 31 pages. Here it is



BUT wait, why boring thumbnails again for this very last post? Let me end this post with 2 vids I made for the storybook. Got nice music. Turn on the volume and enjoy!^ ^

Assignment 6.1: Individual Story

Before embarking on the group's storybook, each member was to propose one story idea. Mine is alight story about family love, life cycles, and how each member takes care of each other.

Synopsis: Memories of grandma's lovingly helping Kate in her first steps flashed back as she now, in turn, is helping grandma taking each small step around the hospital bed. The story does not have a rich plot, but intends to use poetry and imagery to get its message across in a gentle way.

The story is suitable for children from 6-7 years old.

1. Intro of character

Once there was a little girl called Kate, who lived with her grandmother in a household of four.

Her father was not usually at home. He's on his business trip most of the time.

Her mother was always busy, finding her way back home tired and moody.

Big brother studied far from home; he only made a phone call back once or twice a month.

Only grandma stayed at home, did all the housework and took care of Kate.

2.One day after school, Kate came back to find nobody at home.
3.Grandma had been taken away, on an ambulance to a hospital nearby
4. After a long fight, grandma was alright, able to sit up, but had to learn how to walk again.

5. Kate was entrusted with helping her grandma take each step around the small bed.

----Scene 6 to 10: Kate came back that night on a bus. The rain started falling hard. She looked out of the window; everything was blurred in the rain. She started to remember the nice days on the seashore, where grandma took her every fine morning, and helped her to walk her first steps on the seaside. -----

6.

Looking out the bus window, what did she see,

The rain was so heavy and the sky so gloomy

Around her, people were sitting,

With their own thoughts that each of them were pursuing,

Or perhaps nothing

What was in her eyes ,

Closer than the gloomy sky,

And the heavy rain, the wind's cry

7. A beach, a peaceful sea,

On whose gentle waves the sun places its kisses

8. With her tiny feet toddling on the seashore,

In clanging peals laugh our little girl

In excitement, or perhaps in fear

9. But what's the difference?

When beloved grandma was standing behind,

Holding her tight and helping her to try

Her very first steps

On the seaside.

Assignment 1- Me Myself and I

Though the first assignment, this one is probably the most challenging assignment of the whole lot. The first reason might be that I was not yet familiar with Illustrator, which made the process a real struggle.

-----My initial concepts ----------------

- I love playing chess rough 1.1


I love playing chess rough 1.2



2.I hate being sick

Rough 2.1.
The hate for being sick is expressed through illustration of medical appliances.


Rough 2.2.


This second rough somewhat follows the first’s idea, however, develop it to a higher level whereby the “atmosphere” is infused more into the illustration, highlighting the discomfort one endure when falling sick.

-----Refining Process---------------------------------------------

For the "I love playing chess", the general comment from Siti and the class was that it's more of manipulating the letter to produce the image. The assignment was supposed to be the other way round: using the image of objects to form the letters of the name.

Since I couldn't really think of a way to make this idea look good, I decided to pick another concept, which is "I love autumn leaves". The prospect for this is brighter, as I could come up with several ok-looking illustrations as below:

- I love autumn leave_Rough 1:


I love the scene falling autumn leaves, and the calmness, mild happiness and tranquility such a scene induces. The posture of the tree, the leaves gracefully falling with the wind, and the warm colors of the leaves are some elements used to create those feelings.

- I love autumn leave_Rough 2:



Autumn is the season of memories, especially memories of highschool years for me. The notebook says Autumn 2007, which was the time I and my peers in Vietnam entered our last year in high school, before departing on our own very different path later on.

The notebook, the red and yellow leaves and the purple inks with the words convey a feeling of something treasured, kept dearly, and loved.

====Final products===========

From the roughs I was able to choose 2 ("I love autumn leaves"'s rough 2 and "I hate being sick"'s rough 2 to brush up for the final products. The results are as followed:

- I love autumn leaves


- I hate being sick!

Assignment 2- Make Image Talk

Design Process:


After considering several choices (from the Fountain of Wealth to Haw Par Villa (near my house)), I decided to choose Paranakan Museum for this assignment.


I visited the Paranakan Museum in May while hosting a bunch of friends from HongKong Uni around Singapore. The first impression about the museum was how small it looked, more like a big house than a museum in my imagination. The decoration outside was beautiful: not too complicated, but still able to convey a sense of grace and elegance to this cultural site.

I started the process by tracing the photo (1) to create a simpler black and white image(2).
Next, I used the pen tool in illustrator to painstakingly replicate the image of the house (3).





From (3), I start to gradually omit the details, layer by layer.

(4) was created by trimming the curtains.

With (5) the balconies and glass squares on the doors are omitted.


(6) has the top and bottom layers (the decorative balcony on the top, and the slope/stairs at the bottom) trimmed.



(7) no longer shows the lines separating different floors, as well as the embossed rectangular around the windows.

(8)- the last image abandons almost everything but the outermost outlines.




(6) is chosen to develop into the symbol for Paranakan Museum, since at this point the image is free from unnecessary details, while still have features that make it recognizable as the building itself. The complete symbol is (6), with the name "paranakan Museum" added on top, in typeface similar to that of the building logo.

Assignment 3- You See What I See

The story start with a scene of a girl apparently examining her fridge to see what she's gonna to cook for dinner.
She decided to pull out a box of eggs

and a bowl...


She breaks one egg

another egg...

She starts to whip the raw eggs..There are still more eggs waiting in the box....

She still needs some more eggs for the dish....

Now the scene zoomed out to see the girl reaching out to an all-egg audience.

The real story is actually about a horror movie night in an egg's world.