Gabriel's Blog - An amazing blog to read

In fact, I became Gabriel's fan since the begining of this semester. 

It is hard to don't like his work after reading his blog!
And here is the link.
http://nus-gabriel-lim.tumblr.com/tagged/%20nm2208 


I am amazed by his focus on Nintendo. Every source he used is from Nintendo's game characters. And I think that is the reason for him to having a clear brand-driven in both project 1a and 1b. 

I like his application of simple colors and negative and positive space.  He is just doing so well.

storyboard

This is a story about self-identity.

Bunny Daley doesn't know who he is. Because unlike other cute bunnies, he has a big feet. Daley also prefers fish than carrot.

Daley think he is a bunny, but he doesn't behave like a bunny, so he is very confused about his identity.

Until one day, Daley defeated a wolf whom invaded their village! And other bunnies start calling Daley hero!

"A hero? I thought I am a bunny."

After this episode, Daley feels, it may be good to have big feet.

"I am a bunny. I have big feet, I eat fish, and I love myself, too."

I want to convey a self-loving message through this story, as no matter what kind of problem or disadvantage we have, it really doesn't matter. We should always love who we are.

This is my first page, and something that my narrative will be like.

Hope you have a good day after reading this :)

Project 1b - Posters for Muji

When I chose the brand Muji, I hope to do something related with nature. As Muji is distinguied by it's avoidnace of waste and natural design, I believe poserts that make people think about 'nature' will be good. 

At the same time, Muji is distinguised by its design minimalism, so the posters design must be simple. 

'Simple is the best' - This guideline helped my a lot in the designing process. In order to keep image simple and clean, I decided only use 2 elements from my original

 

Poster 1 :

 I think this is a very Muji style picture. A large twig of leaves and a human with umbrella, beside them I have a Muji logo with cute layout. By using 'scale' technique, I enlarged the twig and made the man looks small. This is to remind us that we are always live under the nature power, which we should always protect her instead of destroying her. Also, because we look small in front of the nature power, so we can say that the nature is also protecting us. From this image, I can feel a sense of protection that nature has given to us through out centuries. 

The techniques involved in this poster is scale, repetition (the leaves) and deconstruction. 

Original Sources:

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 Poster 2:

A chair and a bind of planet balloons and a Muji logo. I think different people will perceive this poster differently. Some people will feel that the bind of balloons is taking the chair to sky or to the universe, while other people may think that the is chair is preventing the balloons fly away. 

I view it as the balloons are taking the chair to a trip. It will take the chair to sky, to the universe and to many many places. Probably I am a more romantic person, I want to be taken away by balloons. 

Ok, back to the picture. I think the balloons is representing nature, while the chair is representing human being. It gives us many spaces for imagination. And my understanding is nature can lead us, just like how the balloon can take the chair to my awesome places like the universe. 

The techniques involved in this posters are scale, positive & negative scale, and paper art.

 

Original Sources:

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Poster 3:

 

The 3rd poster is interesting, as both elements inside the poster are nature element. At first I want to put a human's feature in between the butterfly wings, however this design didn't meet my expectation. So I replace it with a Lily flower. And I think it looks pretty cool. 

The nature is flying away. This is my first response when I see this image. Butterfly often represents some fanciful scene, such as dream. So when I see butterfly, I will think that something is leaving. As the Lily flower is taking away by the flying butterfly wings, I feel I can understand the image as we are losing the nature, because we destroyed it. Definitely it meets the Muji's brand theme - be environmental friendly. 

The techniques involved in this poster are: Scale, deconstruction and paper art cutting.

Original Sources:

 

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Magazine?

 

 But this may be better!

Target Media: Subway Advertisement

 

Since Muji's target audience is huge - almost everyone - I think place the advertisement in Subway station will have a good effect. And because all Muji's ads are very simple, it will surely stand out from a very croweded and frustarted palce. 

Yay, feel the nature.

Project 1a - Lonely Island

Original Idea:

The idea of my project 1a is actually inspired by a Chinese Singer‘s album, naming '孤岛'. In English it will be translated as 'Lonely Island'. I was looking at my used images for previous 2208 tutorial works while listening to his songs. And suddenly I wanted to create something representing a image of 'Lonely Island'. 

I always like the metaphor that 'Everyone is a lonely island'. Hence I was aiming to create an image that present this idea.

 

 I don't want any human figures to be presented at my island. Hence I choose the chair and the flower. 

If there is chair and flower, but no one is there, maybe I can create the atmosphere of loneliness. 

 

The Outcome:

At first I applied 3 technique: Scale, Deconstruction, Repetition.

Then I thought it might be interesting to add in Positive & Negative Space. So I have something like this:  

But as the effect is not good, I added the items again. Detail is quite important inside the image, I realized. With the details, it now looks better. And my positive and negative space works well in acting as a shadow.

I concerted the elements on the right side of the paper, and left the left blank. I was intending to using the contrast to create a sense of 'loneliness' - that you have nothing on the other side'

Brand - Muji

On week 9's lecture we learned brand and identity communication. 
In my opinion, Muji is definitely a successful brand, which have a very clear-cut brand image and positive brand identity.

 

The name Muji is derived from the first part of Mujirushi Ryōhin, translated as No Brand Quality Goods.

 

Muji is distinguished by its design minimalism, emphasis on recycling, avoidance of waste in production and packaging, and no-logo or "no-brand" policy.

In 1983, the first directly operated Muji store opened － product range was developed to offer cheap good quality products and were marketed using the slogan “Lower priced for a reason.”

In 1991, Mujirushi Ryōhin opened its first international store in London.

 

Unbranded campaign – advertising keep clean and simple - Multiple print ads show the many products MUJI sells as well as focus on the products itself rather than the brand.

Muji to Go – related to travel – aim to promote a range of quality and functional travel items that make your trip preparation and travel time fuss free and comfortable.

Homework - during wk 7

People People People

Pain Pain Pain

Change Change Change

Response:  
The most eye catching part is the text 'pain'. 
The black and white texts forms a good construction with the color crowd and the astronaut 
 

Description:

There are many repetitions for the word - 'pain'.

Pain Pain Pain Pain Pain

And among the word pain, you can also see the 4 words of 'change', and 2 rolls of 'people'

Below the 2 rolls of people, there is a crowd . 

An astronaut is flying away from the crowd with balloons.

Analysis and interpretation:

The idea I want to express is 'life and people may bring pains, but we always can make a change.'

Just like how the astronaut fly away with his planet balloons. If anything painful happened, we do not have to feel desperate or hopeless. We can always make a change. 

Evaluation and judgment:

The techniques I used are scale, repetition and deconstruction. 

I enlarged the balloons on the astronaut, to create lightening the visual effect. With a bigger balloon, we feel that the astronaut is like flying. 

Repetition of the word 'pain' also creates an emphasize and overwhelming effect of the painful reality. I feel this part is specifically attracting. 

Deconstruction is used in the crowd. How people are presented as a group and as an individual is interesting. 

The Original Sources

The Process :p

Stencil Art and Paper Art

cut the black

 

I find quite it was quite difficult to find a good image for stencil art. By looking at the image, I can hardly think what will the product look like. I tried many times and finally I have found this image of Lily flower. 

I look at it, and I have an idea of how am I going to create stencil art from it. 

Firstly is the outline, After the line exercise, it is not difficult to get a good outline. And I found It is very interesting to decide which part I should left blank and which part I should fill with black. 

So you can see my outcome, and it is quite obvious that this is a lily flower. Congrats to myself :)

cut the white

 

Now let's see my paper art. I choice a butterfuly because after taking look at so many photos, only this picture can provide me a imageination of the outcome. 

The contrast of the original source is very strong. I think that's why it is not difficult to turn it into a paper art. 

The outcome looks pretty and I like it a lot :)

Another try for Scale

As I feel there is room for improvement in the previous scale exercise. Scale is an interesting technique to apply. So I intended to try it again on objects instead of human face. And I believe I will have a clearer picture about the scale idea.

I would like to name this image ‘Every girl’s flying dream’. It is a romantic photo, isn't it?

Design Process:

1.     I enlarged the balloon into a very very big size.

2.     Then I compare it by squeezing the balloon into a very small size.

I found out that the bigger the balloon size, the more romantic the image is.

Abstraction v.s. Reality

Interestingly, although both my scale exercise used the same technique, scale 1.1 turns to be abstractive and scale 1.2 is very shaped to reality. I won't say that this balloon image have some sense of abstraction, in fact, although it is a romantic creature, it is very realistic.

My understanding to this difference is – the more repeated scale elements you contain in your image, the more abstract it will be, as abstraction is shaping something beyond real life.

Positive and Negative Space

Image 1

 

The original resource is a magazine cover from vogue. A very retro like photography. I was attracted  by the use of color of the photo. The women's face on a wall is presented in light color, and as a construct, the passengers standing and passed by are in dark color. This is very interesting. So I choose this image for my positive and negative space. I was interested to see what will happen. 

  

First the woman on left is colored with black. Details are lost. We can now see she is in all black. However we can still tell that this is black shape may use to be a human figure. 

       

Then the male on right is colored with black paint. but we can still tell that this is a human figure. As in the original image, he also contains many black portion. Hence this move didn't create a lot of differences. However with the two human figure colored with black paint, we can observe that woman's face on wall became more outstanding. Her eyes are every outstanding. Because at first we normally don't pay much attention to the black shape in front of the colored part. 

If we painted the woman's face with black. We observed that a mass of black appeared. Again, detail are lost. And it may be a harm for images like magazine cover, as such image always need many detail to attract attention.  

However I love the third piece especially, with the two human figures painted with black, and the lady face on the wall become super outstanding. In this version, probably the text 'VOGUE' will looks more fit in white color.

Now the background is removed with replacement of white paint. A pure positive & negative space image is created. Bascially all the details on the image is removed. By looking at this version alone, we probably can't figure out what is the image about.

The presence of VOGUE text is important as it indicate the meaning and function of the image as a magazine cover.

Image 2

 

The second image is 2 chairs placing above water. And there is a shirt hanged on the brown chair. By looking at the image, looking at the water, looking at the land behind, I felt peaceful; probably it is because there is no human presentation on this image. Sometimes zero human presentation indeed gives me a quite and peaceful feeling.

 

Firstly I removed the 2 chair. So now the chair's space is placed with white color

Then I came to my 3rd image!

 

The original image - My market day. A very fashion image, colorful and complext

 

Rabbit hat turn to black

 One lady turn to black

 Two lady turn to black

 

All the human features inside the image turn to black

 

The result

And I think if you try to do positive and negative space with a fashion image, then I think it will look very funny. 

Cause in a fashion image you will probably have a lot of exaggerate details, and once the importance details are lost, the picture lose its meaning.