Save, Prevent, Kill

Sup niggas I am back with a new entry!! Okay this new assignment is called Save, Prevent, Kill. Basically, create an awareness poster with the words Save, Prevent, Kill, Stop etc.

Initial thoughts:

Create an awareness poster, sounds easy enough no? Yeah, but we had to relate it to the visual principles like layout placement of the photos, text, graphics elements etc. While I found that to be rather technical I knew I had to address those somehow or another. So firstly, just like how one of the last powerpoint slides stated, a good poster is simple, conveys meaning fast like in a manner of seconds and is designed for readers on the go. Like Julian said in lecture, a poster succeeds in its purpose when it gets a person(on the move), to stop and actually view the poster. Hence, I simply thought of making my poster simple and eye-catching first.

Also, in typically awesome Alden fashion, I decided to try to be different and deviate from the norm. I knew for sure others would do typical boring shit like save the earth/whales/trees/water or stop abuse/littering etc. While all in good will and (definitely) has more meaning than my work, I thought it was too boring. I mean come on, our posters aren't going public. EXPRESS YOURSELF YO.

Anyway this is my final poster:

Whoa ho ho Alden has really done it this time. SAVE OUR BABES??! hahaha. [Edit: This is a new one I did after consultation with Siti. I have changed back the font of the title back to the original one. Sorry man, I like this font better. And the caption next to the model is changed to a very simple font that's easy to the eyes.

And speaking of eyes I have filled my girlfriend's eyes up with black colour now. APPARENTLY, hollowing them out was just too scary.

Well it's really not meant to be taken seriously. It's a joke. It's a parody of Dove's real and existing advertising campaign, Campaign for Real Beauty(go watch that video of a plain Jane being photoshopped to look better).

Classmates' comments:

I know I offended and pissed some girl off cause she felt the text was "mean". Again...it's a joke.

Another guy felt the hollowed eyes and the red skin of the model was too scary. Okay I used red so as to represent distress in a girl, and the hollowed eyes too, it's not to scare people. Come on! The girl looks hot!

Siti merely laughed and laughed. Good enough for me.

Okay in terms of visual principles and all that, I merely aimed to make it simple, hence if you see, there are like only 3 colours. I placed the "Save our babes" words vertically so as to complement and parallel the model. I used this font so as to make it big, yet simple. And the background is light and pleasing to the eye. THAT'S ALL. I hope you guys like it. Oh for the text, from this view I purposely capitalized the "you" so as to attract a viewer's attention so he could go like "oooh a big YOU? What's this got to do with me and babes?", so maybe he would stop to read the text, HENCE SUCCEEDING IN ACHIEVING THE POSTER'S GOAL!

Work and effort:

Okay I sort of immediately thought up this theme for the poster right after we were dismissed from lecture. Somehow it just came naturally to me.

As mentioned above, I wanted to make it simple, hence the little use of colours. And the model?That's my girlfriend right there. I am using her cause she's hot and I am going all out to capture attention like how a poster should, this time with an attractive girl.

The following are pictures in order of the development of the poster, with commentary.

This is the original raw copy of the picture. Picture may be taken down as I have not asked permission from my girlfriend whether I can put this up, so if she gets pissed off this picture will disappear. Don't be a pervert ah...

Adjusment of colours to make her...OH NO! A SCARY MONSTER!!! Okay an explanation is in order. I used red so as to represent distress(in a girl). And I wanted to go pass that cliche sihoulette thing of using black and white, like the girls in James Bond posters. And again, only 3 colours to be simplistic.

Adding of font and text. Okay this is the piece I presented to the class. This was where it SCARED some guy. The "Save our Babes" title is put up vertically to complement the model. The text is there and in simple fonts for easy read.

Anyway someone suggested shifting my girlfriend a lil to the right so the text below will not be so close to the title of the poster.

Also Siti suggested exchange the fonts of the title with the text.

[Edit:This is the piece I did up after presenting the above one to the class. I showed it to Siti again who suggested playing with the fonts...again. So refer to the final piece above. This piece has been rejected cause the main title font is too...small. It doesn't really reach out to you like the one above. Also, with such a small font, it makes the poster look plain. My girlfriend however, has been shifted more to the right, so that's good cause it has allowed space for the caption too and it doesn't really clash with the main title anymore.

And this is the piece-of-shit sketch I did before starting on anything.

Final thoughts:

Okay not much here. In terms of visual principles and all that I hoped I managed to achieve that. As mentioned, all I thought about was 1. making the poster simple, 2. make it visually attractive and 3. eyecatching enough to make you wanna stop to look at it.

So the "Save our babes" title was done vertically so as to complement the model by the side. And only 3 colours are used.

In my usual awesome fashion I aimed to be unique. Not to dis anyone else's work, but yeah most of them had typical awareness themes. I can't dis anyway since most of them have brilliant artwork whereas mine is like wtf kinda designs with shitty drawings.

Also, I had a lil trouble with Photoshop this time. Had to spend a while getting the colours right and then shifting the model to the side.

Finally, as I demonstrated to the class, this poster should be attractive enough right? I mean if a person walks by he would be like "Eh this girl not bad sia" and stop to look right?

peace.

Assignment 3: I C what U C

Wassup wassup peeps. Haven't been updating this blog much cause I have a busy and awesome life.

Okay on to assignment 3. The gist? Make a story with a twist at the end with just 10 pictures. It does indeed sound simple enough. Though there wasn't any lecture cause of e-learning week, it was still easy to understand. There were however, lots of things they wanted us to take note of, mainly the different literary elements of a story; from exposition, inciting force, foreshadowing to resolution.

Initial thoughts:

I honestly did not, and still do not exactly know what the aforementioned elements mean, but I didn't really care. I mean come on, make a story, make a twist, that's it, just do it. This is also the first time an assignment forces us to take pictures, which I thought was pretty cool. Also, given my character and natural charisma, I knew even without trying that my story would end up being funny. I was looking forward to see what others had in mind too, since people today like to camwhore. Also, as per Alden, I sought not to aim for awesome plots of awesome looking pictures. I just aimed to make people understand my story from one glance.

Okay without further ado, here's my story. Commentary is at the end so as to not spoil the flow.

So what do you all think?? Pretty cool right? Okay well the story is definitely not original. A friend already told me some girl in her class did the same thing, only difference is mine features ME!! yeah!!and porn

Here is the breakdown:

Picture1: Calender, with exam date(exposition!! urgency has been set!)

Picture2: Me looking serious like "Mmm yeah exam coming, I gotta work hard yo!"(inciting force, foreshadowing?)

Picture3:Me going to Kinokuniya(Rising action. haha I just thought of this. RISING?? Playboy?? get it???haha woo! And it was ensured that the sign of Kinokuniya could be seen).

Picture4:Searching for the book/solution

Picture5:SAT/the answer to the story's problem found

Picture6: Getting it all.

Picture7-9:Bring them home, putting them down, stepping on them.

Picture10:Yes!! We have found the porn!! In your face!(Resolution, climax! It was taken such that the shelf could be seen. I hope that's obvious enough).

Work and effort:

I actually got the inspiration from a comic. A strip from Foxtrot. If any of you read it the strip is about Andy(the mom) telling Roger(the dad) about how happy she was with Paige(the daughter) for finally becoming a studious girl by borrowing a bunch of thick encyclopedia books, when actually she merely wanted to use them as a platform of support to change a lightbulb. SOOOO, I merely used that idea and did the same thing to reach for porn. Yeah, porn. I'd would go all the way to Kinokuniya for porn!!!!!!!!! Nah. Why bother when there's Mikesapartment, or Hankshoneys(Friends told me about these websites, I NEVER went to them before).

Anyway I got a friend to help me take the pictures at Kinokuniya. It was I must say, a rather daunting experience. Why? It was like damn paiseh la go to Kinokuniya and take pictures. Oh I was also very chagrined to find out that Orchard Library has been closed forever. That was my initial idea at first, I mean library seems to exude more education, at least to me. Anyhoo we had to make do with Kinokuniya. We sneakily took pics here and there. The picture of me walking in was the toughest, had to take it twice, plus I was afraid of getting caught at such a suspcious pose. The picture of me carrying the pile of books did us in, we got caught and got chased out. Oh well. Seriously, it's not as easy as it looks. It was like Mission Impossible, featuring me doing spywork with my camera. The rest of the pictures at home were taken with the help of my girlfriend. I got the Playboy and Penthouse magazines from the States last year. I could have easily used some old vcds but nah, that seemed so sleazy even by my own standards, plus I loaned them out long ago.

Here are my initial ideas and sketches of the storyboard. Below is the first sketch of my storyboard, which looks retarded.

If you can't see it clearly, the sentences say "characters looking serious and ready to fight but actually something mild" and "Hero ready to fight".

Well, these ideas seemed pretty alright, but I merely wrote them down mindlessly. It just didn't feel great, until I thought of the final one. (My girlfriend suggested taking pics of us looking as if we are doing it, and the twist is that we are not :P).

This is the final draft of the storyboard, "final" being a stretch since it looks so retarded still.

Classsmate comments:

Like my previous assignments, I hardly had any comments. My story was easy to understand. Siti was amused I would go through so much just to get porn when I could actually get the magazines at Kino itself(not true, they don't sell em here in Singapore). Take note however, I went for the class late so I was the second last to present my piece. By then others had to leave for classes and the rest were like half-dead by then.

And below are my newly added photos which I have rejected. I stated why I rejected them.

Top left: I am not using this cause I look fat and stupid.

Bottem left: My expression isn't as serious it doesn't really say "exams...gotta study!NUS rocks!" like the one above.

Top right: The Kinokuniya sign can't really be seen.

Bottem right: I thought this seem okay, but it doesn't portray me searching for the book. It insteads shows that I already found it.

Top left: I felt the final one had a better view of me searching.

Bottem left and Top right: Wanted to add more books, but due to lack of space, I rejected them. They were uneccessary anyway in the grand scheme of things.

Bottem right: This just shows me carrying the books, as compared to the final one where I chose, THEN carried my books, hence looking as if I put in more effort. This one here doesn't accentuate the effort and triumph I am feeling from searching for the books.

And finally, I rejected this one here cause I felt the final one I chose had better effect, specifically the first-person-view effect, which I thought was cooler.

Also, you can't really see the title of the magazine here. And it only has Penthouse here, the final one has Playboy too! So double the goodness!

Final thoughts:

I kinda had fun with this assignment. It did not require me to use Photoshop at all, so that's cool. I didn't think I needed to play with the colours to add effects. They seem alright this way right? Like I said, I aimed to my make my story clear, compelling and funny. I did not aim to have an amazingly awesome plot, I mean how great can it be with just 10 pictures? I found some of the others' stories to be good, but it took me quite a while to decipher them. The best plot I saw was my friend's one, Yong Teck. It involved time travel. But it took me quite awhile to figure it out hah. I mean why suddenly got dinosaur one?? Also, good plots aside, I felt it was kinda cheap to take pictures of toys and what not to make a story.

This is the first time I created a story out of pictures with no speech bubbles invovled. It was cool and satisfying. Amen.

Always rushing

I'll just like to point out that I think it's rather unfair that the lecture is on every friday and that my tutorial is on monday. As such, those with monday tutorial slots have to rush like hell over the weekend for every assignment.

Yeah yeah ya thinking "Oh who ask you take monday class/take this module in the first place", but screw you.

Final Thoughts:
It is indeed pressuring for the weekend, but it does lift the burden over the week. Still, we do have less time to work on our assignments. I guess this works for me somewhat since I am a bloody slacker who actually believes in doing last minute work. Why? If you do work last minute, the less prone you are to changing things, which may potentially screw things up.

Reflections on assignment 2- Needful things: Making images talk

Okay so for the second assignment firstly we did some weird shit in the lecture which I don't really remember about. We were supposed to create iconic and indexic representations of an object.

So on the left as you can see, I chose a shoe. Why? It was easy to draw on the spot. I just had to keep looking at my shoe and traced everything out. That's the iconic part. For indexic(not sure the exact definition, but it's kinda like a part of the object I guess), I just drew out the shoelace. Looks like a black slug ya? But who cares, Julian said it was fine so screw yall.

Regardless of this meagre assignment, I found the lecture more interesting compared to the previous few. Man the last few were about really technical shit like pixels, picture quality etc, all of which I found boring and unecessary since there's not gonna be an exam for this module anyway.

Anyway moving on the brunt of assignment2. This assignment was great cause it was held during e-learning week and so that meant I didn't have to go school at all but instead just upload your work in the forum for people to see. Again, I am not gonna waste your time describing what the assignment was about.

So here it is. I chose the Xbox as my subject. And those drawings are the sequential abstraction of the console itself. And the picture which I chose to be the last one where it starts to lose its meaning was the 3rd sketch. Why? The 4th sketch looks like an evelope or package with an X in the middle, and the last one is just an X in a box.

Okay okay for the people who don't know ya just have to choose an object and then break it down slowly with 5 different drawings, then choose one where it starts to lose its meaning.

My thoughts at first:

I felt this was gonna be a way easier assignment comapred to the first one, especially since everything was done at home. I didn't really take long to think of what I wanted to use. A clock was my first choice actually. Then I had this idea of taking a picture of my face then breaking it down to becoming a smiley face at the end, but that would just be too hard and shameless of me. I just headed on the first-gen Xbox. When I thought of it, I immediately thought ," Hmm, it would be cool to have the Xbox, to be merely an x in a box at the last point of abstraction, and nobody can surely recognize that shit". So yep, I did the Xbox. I thought it was unique and would surely stand out somewhat as other students may typically use boring shit like...clock...book...or watever. Also, as I mentioned in my first post, I focused on the point of the assignment again and know I mustn't fall in love with my design and start going nuts with Photoshop to make it as pretty as possible.

Work and effort:

Not much here. Took a picture of the Xbox after digging it out of the old boxes at home. Sat at the table and started drawing for like an hour. I used Photoshop to arrange them in that order and also type in the name of the console in the middle of all of them, just for clarity's sake.


Above are my initial(which became final after much erasing) sketches. I know, they look almost exactly like they are in the final prototype, but that's my point anyway. I never bothered going nuts on making things pretty(unless it's a girl! oh!!), just as long as I stayed focus on the point of the assignment.

Also, as mentioned earlier, I liked my idea of the last abstraction which was just placing an X in a Box. So I had that in mind already, hence these sketches were merely trying to figure out how to fit them in between the original picture and the last.

Forum participation:
Okay so everyone had to upload their shit on Ivle for people to comment. I got quite a few comments, mostly good ones. Some liked my "x in a box" idea too hah.

"I like the last picture of the abstraction. That's a X in a Box definitely!"

Some didn't even know what an Xbox was. Go find out la.

I also liked the idea of class through the forum. It was quick, convenient and easy. Others had nice drawings. Not really sure about how we will be graded for this assignment, but I distinctly remembered Julian or Siti saying the last 2 abstractions had to be completely unrecognizable from the original. I am glad I achieved that.

Final thoughts:
Not much. This assignment was way easier compared to the first. Lesser workload means more fun for me, so I am happy. Things have definitely been a lot easier since I learnt how to use Photoshop.

Reflections on Me, Myself and I

Okay I am not gonna waste time explaining what we are supposed to do for this assignment cause I am pretty sure everyone knows what it's about. I know I am late here, but I think it's better I do everything in single shot for each assignment, from the first lecture to it's completion.

So anyway in the lecture spearheading this assignment we were told what to do. This is the part of lecture I enjoy most since I am really not listening to anything Julian says when he's talking about the technical design terms and this is the only part I get to apply myself.

It didn't take much time for me to think about what I love and hated. For love, I chose drinking. One look at me and you will probably think "Yeah...this guy probably loves drinking".

This is the first sketch I did out of pencil. If you can't see clearly:

The first is merely my name drawn out with bottles...which obviously turned out to be a hilarious reflection of my art skills cause they look like screwdrivers. This one was used in tutorial for critique. I told them I had this idea of using beer bottles of different brands to spell my name. It was a good idea cause it was easy, and there's a wide variety of brands I can choose from, all of which when put together would combine to be a really colourful product, seen below!

The 2nd are stick figures holding drinks each, I thought it wasn't all that bad. It was supposed to literally reflect drinking and people having a good time, but it seemed like a risky idea cause it may show I love socialising and partying instead.

The 3rd....is cans spelling my name out.....looks dumb too, and they looked like torchlight, and cans don't really the love for drinking. I mean when I say drinking, I mean drinking alcoholic drinks. Cans kinda make it seem that I love soft drinks.... or that I am a poseur who drinks Jolly Shandy and then tell people I can drink.

The last is champagn glasses......go figure, ugly i know. Not very well drawn plus they look like ice-cream.

For hate I chose noise. Well, who loves noise? It gives me a headache and it pisses me off.

Okay for the first one I was inititally really reluctant to use it cause I felt it was extremely cheapskate, merely using the word 'noise' to spell my name out. However, I liked it in the end cause it was easy, and it represented noise in excess, a clear reflection of what noise is. This was used for critique in tutorial. My fellow classmates had good suggestions like using sound effects"you see in comics to spell out my name, you know like "POW! BAM! OUCH!" in Batman and stuff. Hence, I chose this idea to work on.

The 2nd is musical notes spelling my name out. I thought it was a good idea. I tried to show that it was noise and not music by making the lines jagged, but it didn't even look like musical notes in the end. Plus this idea seemed rather common and easy.

The 3rd has got to be the ugliest piece of shit I ever drawn. They are supposed to be construction drills....but damn they all look like screwdrivers again, version 2 of just now. And it make mistake people into thinking I like tools or gadgets.

The last one shows speakers with the sound effect wave things, to show that it's loud. NOW these look like cans.

My thoughts at first:

I knew from the start of this assignment that I would have trouble drawing and although we get to use computer programmes like photoshop for it, it would still be a daunting task for me cause I did not know how to use them at all. However, like Julian taught(I listen SOMETIMES), it was easy to always fall in love with your original design. Sorta reminded me of when I was in primary 4 and I drew this ugly thing for art class. I was so proud of it cause it was really the first time I came up with a decent(or so I thought) piece of artwork only to be graded badly by the art teacher. Furthermore, with the help of photoshop, it was easy to go nuts with it and start sprucing up your designs and hope that your fellow classmates would love it as much as you do.

So, I just kept focusing on the point of the assignment. I was gonna make it really clear on what I LOVE and HATE. So what if my artistic skills are like shit? As long as the message went across.

And ta dah! this is the final prototype of what I love. My name is Alden, and I LOVE DRINKING. All I did was tutorial was this. I hung up the picture and said "Obvious? Any comments? No? Thanks". I walked back to my seat. I mean come on, look at it, isn't it really obvious. PURPOSE FULFILLED.

Work and effort:

This was where I started learning how to use photoshop on my own. It was a major pain in the ass. So how did I learn it? I got some friends to teach me, through the phone, through msn, through face to face, you name it. That's how I do things, just wack all the way and whatever obstacles come along I just try to overcome it with whatever I can. I did not want to go for Adi's photoshop workshop cause I knew I wouldn't be listening...like how I did not in his Illustrator workshop.

Anyway I took bottles of beer, took pictures of them, cut them out in photoshop and arranged them to form my name. Yeah I got access to these beers from my old workplace plus some of them are my own.....I am not an alcoholic. Cutting them out was okay,I had a friend teach me that over the phone. The most ironic part was figuring out how to rotate the damn bottles. I thought it was really simple so I tried to do it on my own to no avail. Eventually a friend told me all I had to do was press crt+t. I was like wtf is that all?! Indeed, a simple thing really can f**k you up. Oh this is where I learnt how important layers are in photoshop. It was hard at first but once you get the hang of it it's quite a breeze. I used Curlz MT for the font cause...I like it. It seems very party-like, much assosciated with drinking.



Now this is the final prototype of hate. My name is Alden and I hate noise. I thought doing the hate part would be trickier cause you gotta do it in a way to show that you hate it. Hence, it wasn't just a matter of spelling my name out with whatever elements cause that could be mistaken for me loving it....or that I am a noisy person...which I am.

[Edit: This is the new final prototype. Siti suggested I change the font of the text to suit the drawing. So here it is. I am using this font cause it seems more playful, and I think this suits the drawings better.]

Work and effort:

Yeah this is the first drawing I did myself by hand for noise. Everything was done with pencil and erasor only.

I took the suggestions of my classmates and used the comic sound effects, plus adding in a few doodads I thought of myself, like the "LOL!" on L and "Ding Dong" on D. I had to draw everything out on my sketchbook, scan it in my computer and touched it up with photoshop. Okay so this is where I started to use simple tools like pencil, erasor and brush in photoshop. It wasn't that easy cause of the problems with layering. I nearly resorted to just using Microsoft Paint. Anyway in Photoshop, I added colour, touch up the edges, made them sharper and adjusted the contrast.

To accentuate the message of hating noise, I drew two stick figures there as you can see. One of them going nuts from the noise and one at the end shouting "Shut up!". Also, I drew an uncomfortable smile along with two dots as eyes in the letter A. And to make it even more obvious, if you look carefully below, I spelled out "noise" under some of the letters haha.

I had to pass this around during tutorial cause it was kinda small. Anyway my classmates liked it and had no comments on it. Yeah so I am happy.

Final thoughts on this assignment:

Like I mentioned before, I thought it was really easy to fall in love with your design and go nuts with it with the help of photoshop, making it as pretty as you like. And this was dangerous cause it could make you forget the point of the assignment. So thank goodness my drawing skills suck to the max. I felt other people in class caught this disease, cause really, I thought all their designs and art were really good, but more often than not I couldn't tell what they loved/hated or even their names were.

I guess I am happy to have finally gotten the chance to use Photoshop and see what's the big hoohaa about it. It is quite a useful programme indeed, no wonder so many girls like to use it make themselves prettier(so they think).

Hi

Yo wassup anyway this is my blog for nm2208. I gotta admit I was rather apprehensive towards this module cause of the workload especially since it's design-heavy, something I have literally no prior experience in. Also, I hate attending lectures since they are mostly boring, but this module forces us to have "88 PERCENT" attendance or else we are screwed. I am more of the skip-all-lectures-and-study-textbook-at-the-end kind of student, so yeah I felt rather cheated that I had to constantly apply myself for this module throughout the semester. Pfft, non-examinable module therefore very attractive? I am chagrined.

I thought this blog thing was intidmidating at first but after going through the first assignment Me Myself and I, things do seem to be looking up.

Anyway I just created this blog since it's due tomorrow. I welcome anyone who wants to give comments on my work. I shall be posting up pictures of the first assignment soon.

Peace.