Love

Yo yo wassup yall it's time for another awesome entry in this awesome blog!

Okay this assignment we had to create a card related to the theme of love. Simple enough.

Initial thoughts:

Honestly the first thing which entered my mind was a condom. In typical Alden fashion, I would do something unique, so I had this idea of drawing a condom and then making it about sex...and somehow make it related to love la. That was my initial idea which I did not act upon. Also, I was pretty sure the whole damn world would make it about something cheesy cheesy love, like you know, i love you u love me (yawn). So what did I actually do? Read on.

These are the final pieces of the cards I made up:

I did this shit up in 3 minutes. I took this picture in Las Vegas last year( the hotel with the Paris theme, so that's why there's an Eiffel Tower there). Then I used photoshop I put in the text. Well, I thought it was pretty alright, quite funny no? Yes, it's a cheesy I love you u love me card, so it sucks. I wasn't proud of it. Siti and the class weren't really impressed either. So I scrapped this shit.

Ahh yes. This is my final piece. I am loving it yall. It says "Love, Unity, Passion". If you want a summary of what Hip Hop means, that's it. That's all you need to know.

This is the culture I live with and for. I love it and I can go on and on explaining what it means, but that's for another time.

This is the back of the card. The figure below is a picture of an American Bboy(breakdancer to you) who came down to judge a competition in 2006. So I took his picture, photoshopped it and drew him a wing. I think the entire image suits the theme of my card. Obviously, a cupid angel wearing diapers doesn't belong here, so screw him! It's a great play on the company's name I feel :P

Above it states "Keep it real always". It's not just a cheesy line you hear black people say in movies. It has meaning.

Well to me keeping it real means believing in yourself, sticking to your roots, yet realizing what's going on around you at the same time. So in relation to my theme of the card, I think it goes pretty well here. Like "Keeping it real always" and then you write in what YOUR heart desires.

Note:The back never changed since the point of creation.

Work and effort:

Okay so I scrapped the first idea of the Paris card since it sucks. It was just too simple and not something I like and it did not require much effort from me. Oh just doing the initial two cards for class was a major pain. I never felt so helpless for this module before, I am serious. Let's see why.This is the damn ugly attempt made by me to draw out the words in supposedly graffiti-looking font. I drew this shit with a pencil from looking at some graffiti works I have. Then I used colour pencils for colour. Yes it sucks, totally pathetic. It looks like some cartoon shit a kindergarten kid drew, but worse.

Anyhoo I told the class my idea was actually having a brick wall at the back, and the words were SUPPOSED to look like spray-painted graffiti art. Seriously, I hated how this turned out and was kinda upset.

Siti then told me if my idea panned out it would be good. SOOOO, I persevered and decided to bring out my real idea; for the love of my culture.

Note:Graffiti is one of the elements of Hip Hop. I am telling you my work is loaded with meaning yall!

So after all the trial and error with photoshop and playing with the fonts. This was what I came up with for presentation.

Again, the back was done once and was the same throughout.

Okay erm, since I am a bloody goondoo who can't even resize my card properly, I decided to make my card A4(making the love bigger yo!). I mean inbetween the space behind you could like write so many things! Wow!

So well Siti didn't like it and she told me to make it smaller...like a real card.

Someone suggested using the brush tool to create spray paint effect for the words. I liked this idea and went with it. Spray paint effect would bring out the graffiti aspect of my card.

Also, since it's obviously not a cheesy i love you u love me card, it was more of a postcard for the general audience. The same guy also suggested making the final card square. He also taught me how to use the brush tool, so my thanks to you, you're now honoured on this awesome website.

So this is the final product! (Refer to above for a raw digital view). The card's like 10cm by 10cm, yep about there. What's more! It's on glossy paper AND laminated! wow! For the design I applied everything the class suggested. Yep. I like it, I hope yall do.

Oh in terms of colour and visual principles and all that crap. Well. To me I used the three main and basic colours, red, green and blue for what I call a simplified unity.

Red was used to show love, you know, red for fiery love and all that. Green was used for unity cause I felt green was a easy colour that represents peacefulness. Lastly blue was for passion. Yes red may be an appropiate colour for passion too(fiery passion), but I used blue to complement the other 2 colours. Plus well, with red and green there, it is then that blue has its way out, to be the passion that drives the first 2. Can't really put my finger on it but you guys get the idea. Besides just say it to yourself "Red, green, blue" they are so common and easy so people can relate to the colours.

The words have a lot of meaning to me, and I wanted to use these 3 basic colours to represent unity on its whole. I took a picture of a simple brick wall and made the words stand out.

I like my angel behind too. It's so cool! I mean everyone else were using like the fat baby who shoots arrows into people. But look at my! Its wearing a cap man! Does yours?!? No yours wears a diaper cause it's still immature!

Final thoughts:

I'd just like to say I did have a lot of trouble coming up with the initial two. The drawing attempt was just pathetic and the Paris one was just something so I can show something to the class.

Again, I wanted to be different, none of that I love you u love me cheesy crap. Love, unity and passion are what sums up the hip hop culture. I think it's more important to have love for ourselves and our fellow man. Yes i love you u love me is important and romantic, but I just wanted to make it a big, like love at a larger scale know what ima saying?

(Contact me if you wanna know more, I will be willing to enlighten anyone. Heck, for the sake of it all I will be willing to make the card for anyone interested, no charge.)

Yep so that's it for this assignment.
Peace.