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.