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.

Assignment5_Music Festival Postcard

=Design Process=

For this assignment, I spent quite some time thinking about the specific topic. I wanted a unique topic that would allow colors a considerable part in creating not only the visuals, but also the meanings.
One such topic I came up with is a musical event in Singapore featuring my homeland traditional music ( btw, I am from Vietnam =)). I have never knew about such an event in Singapore before, but this makes the assignment more exciting.

The first step is to find some inspiration on the net. Thinking about Vietnamese tradition, there are 2 important images:

1. Ao Dai (our traditional costume)2.Trong Dong (the Copper Drum- a ancient artifact known for its important position in the life of Ancient Vietnamese, and famous for its artistic value which lies much in the drawings on the surface of the drum)



The images are reminiscent of some contrast: the softness of silk, femininity of Ao Dai, and the toughness of copper, the masculinity of the Drum. Both are images of the past, though. I was thinking how to cast a sense of modernity to the postcard in someway.

For now the next step is to create the image of a Vnmese girl in Ao Dai. I want it to be the focal point of the image. So I picked some very bright colors such as red and orange to create her.

This is what I have come up with after 8 hours of work(of which 5 hours were wasted, since Illustrator crashed and I didn't save anything before- a valuable lesson when using Illustrator T____T).

I have to say I like this girl very much. I made her legs unnaturally long, with a posture very rarely seen in girls in Ao Dai(it looks more like a rock star posture for me). This is intended to create an impression of modernity, strength, vibrancy within the traditional image of the girl.

At this point, I still hadn't decided what to do with her left arm though. I wanted it to form something like a whirl wind/circle/spiral that embraces/lift up the title of the festival.


After some trials, this is what I ended up with.
As intended earlier, the sleeve was made to be a kind of flying wave embracing the title in a circular path. This serves to create a sense of harmony with the front lap of her dress, as well as the round Copper Drum behind.

The Copper Drum was put at the top left corner, faded and dissolved into the scene, with its center near top of the head of our model. The shape at the center is actually the symbol of the sun. All other images on the Copper Drum are also moving in a circular path, which is kinda energetic in a sense. So I put my model in a center position relative to the Drum, so that she can "share" some of its energy, and the feeling of dignity also :P

The dissolve effect create a visual reminiscence of sand. This is where the exact wording of the festival came to my mind. The contrast concept I formed in the beginning came into the image in the form of "sand" and "silk"- the rough sand and dust of the past and the smoothness, elegance of silk - join together in a eternal circle of creation and destruction, transformation, etc....and they both fly in the blowing winds...

The words were the last elements put into the scene. Nevertheless, they must join into the flow, add to the work their identities, but in unity with the whole. Conceptual words (indicating some contents of the imaginary festival) such as "history", "culture", "music", "people", "love", etc were put in different sizes on the sandy image of the drum. Some of them were half buried in the dust, some popped out more than the others. All are intended to create the feeling of flow, of moments, of stream... for the concepts.

The title "Silk and Sand" was in large font size, intended to be the focal point. The gaze of audience will be led from the girl, up with the red silky sleeve of her dress to the title, whose end (the word "Sand") was half embraced in the whirling Silk.

Similarly, the text at the bottom "Vietnamese Music Festival"is intended to elaborate more on the event. The event name "Silk and Sand" is written in an elegant font with beautiful circular strokes. The letter "S", which serves as both in "Silk" and in "Sand", is connected with the shoes of our model, contributing to the general feeling of flows and connectedness.


========= Feed back from friend on the last version====================
--The sleeve look funny/scary
--The model might look at the audience instead of looking on her right

---------Correction---------------------------------------------------------------

- Instead of letting the sleeve form the wave, I let the back lab of the dress do it instead (this is also more logical in a sense)
- The model now have normal, visible hands--> no more "scary image of the sleeves without hands =P"

- I tried to adjust the face so that the model look at the audience. However, it didn't look nice (probably coz of my lousy AI skill =.=, so I decided to stick with the original one)

So this is the version adjusted based on feedback from my friend

More feedback came from Facebook. Ms Siti also advised me to make the drum clearer/bigger (she mentioned the fact that the postcards would be small).
So comes the very last version as followed:



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The last step would be putting on this different color schemes.

Assignment4_Active aging

1. This is my grandpa's pix I took 3 years ago in a family reunion during New Year. I love his pix since it shows him looking so happy (and my cousin looks so cute too, doesn't she?)


2. After some Photoshop work, I manage to create this image of him on a motorbike.
The concept is clear. The motorbike, which is associated with youth, health, adventure, serves to stress a healthy, free, upbeat and enjoyable lifestyle.
The road is a metaphor for the journey on life. Behind the character is his past, before him lies the future. He's riding to the future wide open, without any obstacle on the way.

The character is portrayed with a confidant posture and a bright smile. Look at his arms you can see he's old, but very healthy and strong.

3. Now the scene is split in haft. Behind our character is a "jungle", crowded with brown leaves, signifying an active (somewhat hectic) part of his life that is already in the past.
In front of him, however, is all bright pink maple leaves, signifying enjoyments, fun, carefree, etc.

The lines attached to each scenes also say it all: "The rat race is all over" /"Now it's time to enjoy life" [ I initially used "The rat race is all behind- Now it's time to enjoy life"--> more rhythmic. But since there is not much space for the first phrase, I opted for the shorter one in the end.

The poster now looks somewhat complete...


4. The above poster looks quite ok, except the illustration of "Now it's time to enjoy life"-- You know what I mean-- It's look kinda crowded, heavy, and way too bright.
So I decided to simplify a little bit. The crowd of pink maple leaves are reduced to a few scattering one. The font is changed to a lighter, more elegant looking style. "Age actively!" is included to add more weight to the later part (otherwise it would look too light, esp. compared to the upper part)
The color of text is changed to black, except for "Life" which is pink--> more contrast- pleasing to the eyes.
This one has achieved quite a contrast between the 2 parts. The upper part is heavy, crowded, brown (past); the other is light, elegant, simple and full of delight.

2 remaining problems though. First there is a bit lack of balance. Second, the upper phrase seems to be difficult to see.

To solve the problems Ms Siti advised me to try yellow for the upper phrase, and to add "Sponsored by CNM" to the lower part. Can imagine how they work.The final version will be coming soon.