que sera, sera
WHAT WILL BE, WILL BE
Y1S2 PROJ 1 JAN-FEB
PROCESS
With the floor plan, I had two main options - to fill my alphabets with the floor plan design or to have my alphabets be formed within the floor plan. I opted for the latter because it marries the background with the text naturally, but the challenge would then be to ensure the alphabets were obvious and not camouflage into the background.
I tried to avoid the typical monochromatic line-drawn floor plan style simply because it was boring. These coloured floor plans attract my attention because of the colors themselves, and the dark lines created by the walls lead my eyes on to wander around the entire image and examine the details of each room, such as the different furniture and textures. Therefore, I chose this as the predominant style of reference.
Notice that there are obvious traces of sketch marks and construction lines, and even the colors have not been applied in an extremely controlled manner. I decided to retain these elements in my own image because they are exactly what hint at the interior designer’s job of planning. Killing two birds with one stone, I decided to have some fun with the content of the floor plan - I made this a plan of my own dream house✨! Isometric drawing was also something new to me, but I’m pleased with how the image ultimately turned out.
Killing two birds with one stone, I decided to have some fun with the content of the floor plan - I made this a plan of my own dream house✨! Isometric drawing was also something new to me, but I’m pleased with how the image ultimately turned out. My illustration was initially done as a water-colour sketch. In my first draft, I received feedback that the alphabets did not stand out enough, and it was really hard to tell what word they were even forming. I addressed this by digitally making adjustments to the position of the alphabets within the image as a whole, as well as lightening certain lines to my others stand out more. This process made me realise how important colors are in an image - of course they’re what attract the viewer’s attention, but they can also greatly distract. I ended up having to tone down and desaturate the colors a lot more.
INITIAL
FINAL
For the model piece, I went for a more editorial-esk look as i felt it was appropriate for the nature of the model’s job. It’s a field that has a lot to do with image.
I chose a typeface that was iconic to Vogue magazine — didot. I made adjustments to each individual letter to further enhance the sophisticated, elegant and arguably flashy aspect of the typeface, to mimic the look of a fashion model — tall, long legs, good figure etc. I had to take note of cropping and framing in the process of creating this, ensuring the text remained the main focus of the image and that the background was not too distracting, but still gave enough to hint at the context.
A significant takeaway was the realisation that less design is indeed good design; it’s about wisely choosing and pinpointing the exact symbols that would be enough to suggest the context. You don’t need a whole load of details and decorations. In this case, the choice of typeface and having a very simple background with important elements (runway stage, lighting) was sufficient to set the context.
I also learnt to use more tools in photoshop as well, mostly to create shadows with the gaussian blur filter. In collaging the text in the background, the skills i previously picked up from the Forrest Gump project certainly came into play.
Fruit ninja.
Fruit ninja.
Following my reference image, I wanted for this to take on a similarly minimalist look, a fruit against a plain white background. I selected my fruits according to a primary color palette, and was initially going to use a red apple, green pear and yellow lemon, since these three were nice and bright and would stand out well against the plain background. However, I eventually picked up a kiwi and I liked its texture very much, both inside and out. I knew I definitely wanted to use it, so I ended up changing the other two fruits to better accommodate to the overall color scheme. I then cut the fruits in a similar way to that of my reference image to form the letters.
As for the ninja aspect, Shirley highlighted to me that I likewise really didn’t need to incorporate too many different elements and that the minimalist approach would still work. As such, i strategically selected a katana (japanese sword used by ninjas), mask and japanese daggers, all of which a generally often associated with ninjas. With photoshop, I digitally manipulated found images and overlaid them on the text. I also realised how big a role shadows can play in making collaged objects look way more natural, almost as if they were originally part of the image.
I’m not extremely satisfied with the final result of this, especially with the placement of the shadows. I feel that more can be done in terms of observation and digital manipulation in order to capture all the subtleties that can greatly contribute to letting the image look even more natural. I suppose these technical skills can be polished over time through practice in observation and foundation drawing.
I chose a more straightforward method of execution this time - digital illustration, which is fortunately and unfortunately within my comfort zone. The reason I chose to stick with digital illustration is because it was most apt for creating the bright colors and backgrounds of the muppets. To make them recognisable as muppets and not just plain puppets, i paid attention to the elements that made the muppets uniquely them. For instance, their huge white eyeballs which typically stick close to their nose, furry/felt-like texture and bright colors. These are things that are iconically muppet. I also chose to include the hands of the puppeteers and the black rods that control the muppets to hint that i was specifically trying to describe the job of the muppeteer and not the muppet itself.
For the background, i initially wanted to show the set as it is, with the lighting equipment and green screen and stuff, but Shirley pointed out that when audiences see the muppets they see them on the street or wherever the muppets are, and not on set. And so it would be more difficult for the audience to decipher the setting. Hence I ended up depicting them in a street background.
Another aspect of the muppets or actually a puppet show in general, is the narrative. The puppets are characters, so in my typeface, I arranged the muppets to look like they are interacting with each other just to make it a little more dynamic.
I took this to another level by making (a sloppy and quickly and not very well animated) gif, which is not part of the presentation, but i felt like this supports the concept, the fact that the muppeteers are whom bring the narrative to life through actually performing and moving the muppets.
FINAL THOUGHTS As mentioned earlier: I realised that when the occupation chosen is one that is very straightforward and figuratively onedimensional, it is naturally more susceptible to being presented as such because you don’t have as many items/objects/elements to play with. “I’m a doctor, so I’m going to form my name using clinic tools”.
SEMIOTICS are sometimes fixed, and it is necessary to keep your audience in mind. A seemingly more unique symbol may not necessarily be an effective one because when you select a symbol that is obscure, your audience may not have the contextual understanding of it and this is where the communication fails.
Striking a balance between what the artist wants to communicate and what the audience is able to comprehend has not been more apparent to me in any other project. I’m not able to arrive at a fixed answer as to how this balance can be found, but it highly depends on the boundaries of the project. In this case, since we’re allowed to present the work with a text that clearly states the meaning, we’re given more allowance in selecting the elements and generating the semiotics in our images.
However, this may not always be the case in the industry. It is also worth highlighting that a sophisticated execution, where the elements of art, color theory and composition all matter, is extremely crucial because that’s what gets the viewer to look in the first place. Overall, I’m happy with what I’ve produced in this project but certainly more happy with what I’ve learnt with regard to design.