SEM 4 oishee sen | gdug’13
SEM 4 oishee sen | gdug’13
acknowledgements My fourth semester here in NID, as a student of Graphic Design has been the most enriching yet. We learned so many things integral and indispensable to our craft that trained us to be better observers, decision-makers and designers. For this, needless to say, I have a lot of people to thank. I am grateful to Dr. Tridha Ga jjar, Mr. Tarun Deep Girdher, Mr. Anil Sinha, Mr. Immanuel Suresh for being the inspiring people they are, and constantly guiding us young ones to do great things. I’m also indebted to my batchmates and my seniors for their spirited feedback and inputs whenever I needed them. I want to especially thank Mr. Arjun Gupte, under whom I did my Poetry and Comics elective. No one ever made me work as hard as he did in those two weeks! He imbibed in me this sheer want of learning and taking failures in my stride. Lastly I would like to thank my project guide, Mr. Rupesh Vyas, for showing me perspectives, previously unheard of, and for letting me explore to fullest during the last two months of this semester.
contents intro to theatre print production
colour 2 image making
typography 2
design project i
poetry & comics
print production
// 1 week // Bharat Suthar, Tridha Ga jjar
In our print production course we learned a lot of theoritical and practical things that are valuable to us as graphic designers. We went through detailed lectures and presentations to properly understand the technicalities of the different kinds of printing processes like Offset, Letterpress, Gravure and Screen Printing.
Above: Machine composition of letterpress block set in monotype. Right: Hand composition of the characters. Left: Letterpress printing machine.
Apart from the printing processes itself we learnt a lot about pre-press and post-press details that need to be kept in mind while execution. We also learnt about colour changes from screen to print as well as costings of printing, different binding methods, the theory of halftones and how to identify different kinds of printing like offset, screen, letterpress by looking at the physical print.
Book binding in the print labs
During our print production course we spent a day binding different kinds of notebooks to understand how things work. In this exercise we tried our hands at pad binding, spiral binding and hardcover perfect binding.
two colour poster offset& screen print
As a compiled representation of our learnings about printing processes we had to design a poster having only two colours (Cyan & Black) of which the cyan layer was screen printed and black was offset printed. The poster was a comparison of a German and Indian dinner.
Print production allowed us to visit a few big printing factories as a part of field study. This allowed us to look at the process of printing at a much larger scale and also study the commercial aspects of it.
image making
// 3 weeks // Tridha Ga jjar
Letter integration
The first assignment of image making had us integrate letters and numbers into one composite form so that the letter pair is read in the intended order.
The previous page and this page records the several hand drawn and inked explorations done on tracing sheets for letter integrations and letter-number integrations. After several trials I fixed on the letters Z and A. After finalizing on the integration we enlarged it in an A3 sheet and followed up a series of hand corrections.
These are the final letter integrations vectorized digitally from the hand drawn, hand corrected enlarged versions of the selected integration forms. This assignment was a very valuable one in the sense that it involved extensive explorations and helped us understand the integral parts of letterforms which are essential for their recognition. It is possible to exclude some parts from a letter and still recognise it, while one the other hand exclusion of some other parts make the letter unreadable. We thus had to learn which parts we can exclude to effectively reduce the letters to their most minimal form without compromising with their identity.
final integrations
Abstraction of an object from its image Our second assignment had two ma jor parts, based on a single chosen theme which can be anything from health, safety, security and cleanliness: 1.. Abstraction of an object from its image to reduce it to its simplest, most recognizable form, yet capture its detail in a minimal manner. 2. Use that object in relation to chosen theme to convey some message and make a poster of the same.
The theme I finally chose for this assignment was protection and safety and I used the object ‘peapod’ to depict the same. Hence using the image of a peapod as seen on the facing page I abstracted it by hand to produce a high-contrast black and white image of a peapod. However before finalizing on a peapod I also experimented with oranges, oysters and snails.
On the facing page: Above: Image of a peapod. Below: Hand abstraction of the peapod followed by digital refinement.
PROTECT YOUR SWEET PEAS STOPCHILDABUSE
posters for protection
Using the peapod as the central image in a poster, I made posters against child abuse. Here the peapod is a metaphor for protection while the peas denote the children.
The tagline of my campaign was protect your sweet peas denoting children as we often call our loved ones ‘sweet peas’.
Pictograms A pictogram is a very, very simple immediately recognizable image that performs a very specific function of either providing information, warning against something or alerting against hazards. I chose to create pictograms for safety against sharp objects as sharp objects are something commonly hazardous to children and adults alike.
sharp objects!
sharp objects!
sharp objects!
sharp objects!
To develop a pictogram for a specific purpose all the elements in the pictogram have to be reduced down to their most simple form so that there is no stress or delay in the part of the viewer in recognising and understanding the message. In this final pictogram I have simplified the hand to its most minimal form and I have excluded showing any existing sharp object (scissors, knife, blade etc.) and converted it into a symbolical sharp object and used the sharp object and the cut in the hand to depict the injury. This works better for the purpose of caution against sharp objects as it is a simple image with a direct message.
Left: Vector set for final set of four pictograms. Right: FInal pictograms after several iterations and modifications regarding text, frame, background and visuals.
intro to theatre
// 2 weeks // Urmila Bhirdikar
After in-depth analysis of the three plays we were required to write an essay elaborating on our individual understandings of the tragedies. Below is an excerpt from the essay I wrote: The fourth soliloquy in Shakespeare’s tragic drama, is hailed as one of the best specimens of literature even now. A little different from the previous soliloquies, the fourth one delves deep into the fathoms Hamlet’s mind and brings out his darkest dilemmas, thoughts and concerns. In this edition of his personal musing, Hamlet considers committing suicide. To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
As part of our Introduction to Theatre module we studied the plays Antigone, Hamlet and Blood Wedding and watched the movies of these respective tragedies.
The movie ‘Hamlet’ released in 2000 which is a modern rendition of the classic tragedy, but uses dialogues in old English.
typography 2 // 2 weeks // Tarun Deep Girdher
typeface study
DIN
Our typography course kicked off with each one of us selecting one typeface to study thoroughly about. We were required to make a presentation speaking about the special features of the typeface. The typeface I had to study was DIN which stands for Deutsches Institut fĂźr Normung.
The quick brown fox of DIN Engschrift jumped over Oishee’s lazy dog. 30.12.14 D. Stempel AG Foundry, 1923
Left: Timeline elaborating history of the typeface DIN and its current status. Right: Basic anatomy and features of DIN 1451 Below: Applications of DIN in public signages.
marrying
DIN &
Bodoni
The funnest crash assignment of this course had us marry two typefaces and make typographic postcards for the new year. Sneha and I combined Din and Bodoni and made numerous postcards with puns, jokes, lyrics, tesselations and more!
Q
itna naraz hai
Happy New Year bola na
2014 you have been delightful.
YOU CAN GO NOW.
aaaaaa aaaaaa aaaaaa aaaaaa
aaaaaa aaaaaa aaaaaa aaaaaa H A PP Y
N E W
Y E A R
2 0 1 5
it’s already 2015?!
I DIN PREPARE FOR THIS.
&
it’s here!
HAPPY NEW YEAR
2015
this new year, lets stay healthy, go to bed on time, work harder, exercise more, lose weight and get organized.
OR
NOT. HAPPY NEW YEAR, ANYWAY.
Application form for admissions 2016-2017 Our next assignment was purely a typographic exercise without any bias of colour or images. We all aimed to best represent the information given to us, so it is easy to read and register, fits in the given space of the newspaper slot, highlights the most important things and has a logical segregation of information. Choosing point sizes of different bodies of text and highlighting specific details were very crucial in this exercise. #informationdesign #typographichierarchy #layouting #designforprint
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NID offers B.Des. at Ahmedabad (4 years) and M.Des. at Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Bengaluru (2.5 years).
Master of Design (M.Des)
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Communication Design: Graphic Design, Animation Film Design, Film & Video Design, Exhibition Design. Textile, Apparel & Lifestyle Accessory Design: Textile Design.
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designing and composing a calendar the concept I wanted to make a very simple, basic calendar that is easy to eyes and devoid of unnecessary clutter, yet having some specific special functions. I decided to put the weeks in alternate colours so that it is easily distinguishable from the previous week or the next week. The weekends are in bold alternate colours as is the name of the month on top. As emphasizing the weeks is the focus of my layout, I have provided a small section at the bottom for notes for the weeks of the month. #A3 #black #red #twocolours
Designing a layout for a book of convocation addresses Our final and biggest assignment had us design a layout for a book of convocation addresses. It was a very meticulous process that involved in-depth study of the content, determining the hierarchy, developing a visual language and choosing the right typefaces and their point sizes. After trying out several classic and formal approaches I decided to go ahead with something bold, impactful and unconventional.
Choosing typefaces before starting work on layouts was a crucial step before the actual execution.
Speaker name and year of convocation in 56pt Gotham Bold.
No fixed arrangement of columns to avoid monotony.
Page numbers set in 72pt Gotham Bold in left pages.
Title of the speech set in 120pt Gotham Bold
Body text of speech set in 13pt Optima Regular and Italics
Quotes in 15pt Gotham Bold
colour 2
// 1 week // Rupesh Vyas
bookmarks for awareness of natural dyeing Anannya and I received the topic ‘Colour in Fashion’. After going through several ideas we decided to take up the study of the process of natural dyeing and the sources of natural dyes and what colours they give. We visited a natural dye workshop in the dye lab and documented their process as well as numerous dyed samples. As a campaign to promote awareness about natural dyeing I decided to make a set of six illustrated factual bookmarks about natural dyeing and sources of natural dyes.
The bookmarks were designed with the front having an illustrated girl with naturally dyed clothing and accessories, with a tiny bit of text about a specific colour, while the back has information about natural dyeing in general.
colour as seen on you comparing a photo of dimensions 10.24x15.36 inches with a resolution of 300 ppi the respective file sizes are as follows:
CMYK | 54.0 mb
Bit depth refers to the color information stored in an image. The higher the bit depth of an image, the more colors it can store. The simplest image, a 1 bit image, can only show two colors, black and white.
Greyscale
Bit depth
fujifilm 3510 (rdi)
Oishee Sen & Anannya Gogoi under the guidance of Rupesh Vyas for Colour 2, Sem 4, Graphic Design, GDUG13
Image modes define the channels that create an image. Bitmap images have only one colour, black while R,G,B uses three channels to create colours.
CMYK
Indexed | 13.5 mb
image modes
Prophoto rgb
Greyscale | 13.5 mb
Bitmap | 1.69 mb
keywords used
RGB
RGB | 40.5 mb
adobe rgb
This poster talks about the fundamentals of digital colour and explores the digital medium to understand colour in new context of print and web medium.
image modes and comparing file sizes
Colour spaces and its impact on images A color space is a specific organization of colors. In combination with physical device profiling, it allows for reproducible representations of color, in both analog and digital representations. A color space may be arbitrary, with particular colors assigned to a set of physical color swatches and corresponding assigned names or numbers such as with the Pantone system, or structured mathematically, as with Adobe RGB or sRGB.
bit depth and the changes in file size 16 bit 8 bit 40.5 mb
81.0 mb
32 bit 162.0 mb
colour blind and changes 8 bit sample image
To best reproduce the colours we want, from screen to print, we must know how to exploit digital tools and produce colour through digital media.
Adobe offers proof setups that s blind people view images by prov colour modes. This viewing mod for two kinds of colour blindness Protanopia and Deuteranopia.
bitmap wide gamut rgb
srgb iec61966-2.1
indexed
ur screen
d modes in colour deuteranopia
protanopia
show how colour viding two de is avaiable s known as
Infographic for digital colour As a compilation of our learnings in Colour 2, apart from our respective research areas, we made an infographic poster covering topics such as Image Modes, Bit Depth, Colour Blind Modes, Colour Spaces etc. As a visual comparison study we converted an image to different image modes, colour spaces and bit depths to study how the colour was getting affected. We also studied and compared the changes in file size when this image was converted to different modes and depths. We also studied the change of colour in the available colour blind viewing modes that Adobe provides in its softwares. However it is for viewing only and gives and idea of how a colour blind person will perceive colours in an image. The two available modes are Protanopia and Deuteranopia.
poetry & comics // 2 weeks // Arjun Gupte
Poetry & Comics was two weeks of intense poetry reading, comic book making, early morning sketching and a hell lot of fun. Comic book art was something I never really tried my hand at seriously, and this course was extremely fulfilling in that way. This course gave me so many memories and so many skills, and of course Arjun Gupte made us all stronger, sharper and a hundred times more hard-working!
9 o’ clock at night, I pencil sadly, My friends party. The morning breakfast, I always miss, Damn him. A late night plane, So late, I am always late.
Throughout the course we studied different kinds of poetry that covered subjects of world war, biplanes and airmen, Indian armies, Japanese haikus and poems about animals and nature. We learnt the basics of comic book drafting, inking methods, spotting blacks and various rendering techniques.
Here I have included some of the comics we did on subjects of war, both during the first world war and the Indian army during the second world war. We also learnt the technique of making dummy duckflaps for quick layouting and planning comics.
We followed a very straight-forward, simple comic book making process that only required a checking pencil for rough layouting, inking materials for rendering and a xerox machine to keep making dupes (duplicates of the master) and changing things around till you have something that you’re proud of.
Above are the different stages that we had to undergo to get to the final comic.
Above is an example of what a final page looks like after final stages of inking, rendering, adding text in the right places, cleaning up blotches and taking a last xerox. This stage is reached only after a lot of iterations and corrections in terms of text placement, black spotting and rendering.
Design Project 1
online/offline A project on developing a visual language and visual identity for NODE: NID’s Online Design Education.
After a lot of research, ideations and changes the final visual language I developed used these forms evolving from less complex to more complex. These forms are colour coded according to the categories of visual communication (red), industrial design (blue), design fundamentals (green) and textiles and materials (yellow). This is an ongoing project and here I have included a short peek into the different visual developments and some of the collaterals that have been made till now.
On facing page: The different forms that are the basis of the visual language for NODE.
Above: Visual identity of NODE using the red forms. Left: A pattern exploration that was later extended to different media. Below: An idea of how the courses will appear on the webpages in form of megaicons.
My message for offline promotion aimed to make design something anyone will find fun and interesting.
Hence this series of posters has messages like ‘design is fun’, ‘design is change, ‘design is growth’ etc.
As part of branding the website we had to make plenty of offline collaterals using the same visual language.
Here are some samples of the offline stationery using the visual language developed for the website.
// Specs //Page dimensions 7� square. // Headline Typeface Ostrich Sans set in 36pt, 48 pt and 72pt. // Body text Typeface Quicksand set in 8.5pt and 10pt.
In conclusion, this has been the most enriching semester in Graphic Design so far, and the things we learnt have undoubtedly made us better at our craft. Here’s hoping for an even better next semester.