hello friends! FINALLY i have reached the pinnacle of my design module! we had to design and come up with a storybook for our final project. this baby is the work of norma, charm, bev and i. click below on the cut to check it out :D

the objective of this assignment was to learn proper usage of type and content organization, developing skills in defining visual treatment specs and understanding the process and importance of creating design document.

bev and norma were in charge of the story while charm and i took care of all illustrations and layout. the specs for the storybook were 8.5 (width) by 7 (height) inches. it is a hardcover book.

( the travels of beth the butterfly )

here's our rough storyboard for our storybook! basically, we wanted to show Beth travelling around the world in a geographical order from Asia to Europe! the storyline is pretty simple. she wants to explore the world and feels that her home is too small, so she flies off and explores the taj mahal, mt fuji, pyramids, sydney opera house, big ben and eiffel tower. we decided to only do 6 places, although we also shortlisted statue of liberty, leaning tower of pisa, great wall of china, because too many pages would make the story really long and we don't want the storybook to be confusing either. we chose these monuments firstly because of their fame and secondly because of their aesthetic appearance. the taj mahal, eiffel, sydney opera house and big ben were obvious candidates because they are national monuments as well as very pretty structures. the pyramids were put in because they are one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and mt fuji was selected next because of selection and elimination. we did not think the statue of liberty is very aesthetically pleasing or appealing to a child, we did not want another monument in europe because we wanted almost equal representation for each region, and we thought that the colours and look of the great wall of china on photoshop would be boring and bland.

lastly, we wanted to show Beth obviously feeling sad, so that the story could convey a sense of missing home, so that the moral at the end would be "home is the best place to be".

stay tuned for my group's completed storybook (:

here's a sneak preview!

a presentation done by charm and i (:

this time, the assignment is to see the use of gestalt principles in posters, and to pick out one good example and one bad example to showcase.

( gestalt catapult! )

the idea this time was to come up with 3 simple images that would convey one gestalt principle each. we could only use three simple shapes, and i decided to use the conventional circle, square and triangle, as they are after all more straightforward than a rectangle, oval, parallelogram.

i must admit, my favourite principle is closure. i like that with closure, the viewer is invited to supply any missing pieces with his or her mind, encouraging interaction.

there is this amazing organisation called good50x70. basically it is an organisation that invites designers from all around the world to create posters for good causes. it has been running since 2007, and i think the submissions are really amazing. it makes me wish i had been able to think of those ideas when i was doing assignment 4! ):

you should totally check the website out here.

i shall post some of my favourites here, credits go to the artistes and designers that contributed to good50x70.



i am going to select my good poster example for assignment 6 from here :D
in fact, some of the humanitarian rights posters have inspired to make a new one for assignment 4 ...... haha. we'll see.

so this assignment is to design a greeting card for either christmas or the new year, and i chose the new year. the aim of this assignment is to convey the theme 85% throughout use of colours and 15% through choice of words, design etc.

so i decided to redo my poster. not that i don't like my previous one - i actually like that one alot as well. however, after looking at the good50x70 website, i was so inpired by the multiple uses of symbols and strong emphasis on simplicity in some posters (which is really the type of poster i like and admire), i decided to redo my poster. first reason was because i thought there were too many details and too few colours used, so the viewer would be a little overwhelmed as to where to direct his or her attention to, and so it was not as striking as i had intended it to be. second reason was because the idea behind the poster is so much more loaded and multi-layered, and so i was able to convey just as much detail as the first poster but condense it so it doesn't look as cluttered. third, i thought of a better tagline that carried the emotional appeal of the first poster's copy in one line. the first poster's copy was too long, and i felt that that might make ppl hesitate to want to read it.

( save the children )

this assignment was to produce an A3 sized poster that would effectively convey its theme. the theme is meant to be influential (read: influence ppl to take some sort of action) and i did mine on genocide, after much consideration. the others on my list of finalists for my theme were: save electricity (boring), save the trees (also boring), stop domestic violence (too complicated).

genocide wasn't exactly a very simple theme either, but i feel very strongly about it so i went with it. i'm not so sure i love what i've come up with, but let me know ur comments! (that is, if anyone reads this blog... hahahaha)

( stop genocide )

basically, i wanted my cause to be "stop genocide". i want my poster to carry lots of emotional appeal. i want it to have impact at the first sight, so for the left rough, i was aiming for an overwhelmingly detailed poster, showing a refugee camp in the background, and a sad woman and child in the foreground. for my right rough, i was aiming for something simple but had heavy use of symbolism. so one is straightforward and has many details, while the other one is simple-looking but is multi-layered in its meaning.

i shall do up both posters and see which one is best, but for now i am leaning towards the left rough, because if the poster comes out good, i think it'll be very impactful.