Wednesday, July 11, 2007
This feeling stems from multiple origins. I can’t exactly pinpoint what is making me feel tired, but I can gather that it is probably a mix of work, life, relationships, problems.
Am I depressed? I surely hope not.
The weather today isn’t helping either – rainy days always evoke my darker, inner self. When this inner self surfaces, it can really spoil my mood, though I try really hard to hide it. I really hate this feeling.
It’s a rather paradoxical situation here actually. I am feeling so tired and sian, and I hate it, and yet somehow I seem to “enjoy” the state I am in. Strangely, I have no answers for this, and I have learned to accept it since I’ve felt like this as a young kid. I wonder why.
Being alone has always been a problem for me - I used to hate being alone. Have you ever heard the sound of silence? The high-pitched sound of nothing-ness that fills your head just before you sleep or when you’re alone? That eerie sound of silence that I hear right now, an accompaniment to the sound of me tapping on my keyboard?
Yet I like it. Stupid idiot bantering about stupid weather, and yet he says he likes it. Moron.
I don’t care. I am tired.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Blogging is stupid
Originally intended as a showcase for my visual communication portfolio, I think I might keep up a blog to write my life down. This is the rationale for my actions - carpe diem. Life is short. Really short. Life is so short that one moment while you're taking a run in your friendly neighbourhood park you could be struck by a falling branch and die. Life is so short that one moment as you're preparing to cross the road you could be knocked down by a car, a car that you failed to look out for once in your life.
Don't get me wrong, I am not lamenting for lives lost. Nor am I mourning for the short lifespan that we humans have. I am merely stating the obvious that everyone is trying to escape from. I am not morbid, nor want to impress someone with my morbid thinking. I just wish for an avenue to share my thoughts and happenings. I believe that (besides vanity.. haha) is the reason why most people blog, right?
Yeah yeah, call it emo. Nyah Nyah. There's only two ways that one can interpret this. Two groups of individuals - one being the 'nonchalent' and 'cool' bunch who makes it seem like life has always been going great for them. This is the group who will most likely make fun of lesser individuals, and shrug my blog off as being 'emo' or make fun of me when we meet. The other being those who are more acceptive and responsive towards what I write in my own personal space. These are the people , on the other hand, who are the ones who put themselves in others' shoes. These are also the same people who are generally nicer and more understanding than the former.
Oh well. That's enough for the first post. More valuable insights to come in the near future.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Assignment 7 - The final assignment
In detail, the assignment goes like this:
As such, my group members, Eugene Timothy Poh and Ang Jie Li, Jeremy, sat down to discuss our plan for the storybook.
After much discussion, we decided to keep the book simple and uncomplicated in terms of graphical layout, so as to prevent children from losing interest in the book. Children, as we have discussed, have short attention spans which would be detrimental towards creating a confusing book for them. In any case, we think that they would just put down the confusing book and go on to play with their toys (which were of more interest and fun to them).
Also, from the discussions that we had, we had to implement the many concepts that Mr Reddy had introduced during the course of NM2208. With the previous exercises and assignments given to us, we were more than prepared to observe the "rules of engagement" in making the storybook more enticing for children.
For example, we understand that figure and ground, from gestalt principles, play an important role in storybooks. Furthermore, storybooks for children should be in colour, since during the child's learning process "colour" is important to convey the story better. During the tutorials we attended, we have received constructive comments from our fellow students that our drawings were very well-done, and should be left alone without colour. However, we felt that giving the drawings a selective colouring, instead of colouring it totally, would give a better result than leaving our storybook in black and white. This is because, as I have mentioned above, colour is an important component in conveying the story and attracting the attention of the child, since they are undeniably visual creatures.
Our story, "Timmy and the Tree", is a story of friendship. The story revolves around our main character, Timmy, and his friend "Tree". The friendship blossomed into one where even after many years had passed, due to unforseen circumstances they lose each other, they are able to find each other again. The storyboard in rhymes, we felt, would attract parents and children alike who might like rhymes instead of normal reading.
This is our storyboard:
Storyboard: Timmy and the Tree
Page 4
There once lived a boy named Timmy
Who was lonely and had no friends.
A little boy an age of three,
Who did most things full of glee.
Page 5
Timmy plays alone a lot,
And wonders if he’ll have friends someday.
It is not like he cries or bawls,
But just that he was shy and small.
Page 6
Little Timmy was bored one day
As he ran out of toys to play
Suddenly he had this wacky idea
And decided to plant a seed
Page 7
Timmy stayed with the seedling all day,
And made a wish before sleeping that night.
“I wish this tree grows big and strong,
To be with me forever long.”
Page 8
In the morning little Timmy woke up
And his first thoughts were of delight.
A bigger tree made Timmy know,
That’s a companion within his sight.
Page 9
Timmy said hi,
But without reply
Page 10
Timmy was sad, but only for awhile.
And so he continued to care for the tree.
Page 11
One day Timmy sat under the tree,
Exclaiming, “I’m bored to bits come play with me!”
Then suddenly, the tree said to him,
“Tie a swing on my branch, we’ll have some fun!”
Page 12
This marked the start
Of a beautiful friendship between Timmy and the tree.
Timmy shared all his thoughts with the tree,
And in return, the tree lent a listening ear.
He took good care of the tree,
And spent all day with it.
All was well between Timmy and the tree.
Most importantly, Timmy had a friend.
Page 13
In days of hunger and of rumbling stomachs,
The tree bore fruits for Timmy’s tummy.
Page 14
In days of scorching heat or chilly rain,
The tree was there to ease his pain.
Page 15
But alas, nothing stays forever!
Timmy had to leave his village to study.
And in turn left behind his buddy.
It was sad but life went on.
Page 16
A few years passed
Little Timmy had finished school in the city
More years followed,
Little Timmy grew up and started a family
Poor Tree had been forgotten, had he not?
This was exactly what growing up had brought.
Page 17
Decades passed, and Timmy retired.
Suddenly, Timmy remembered the friend whom he admired.
“How is he I wonder?” thought Timmy
And took the next bus back to his old place in a hurry.
Page 18
When Timmy reached his old house,
He almost broke into a run.
So excited was he,
That he tripped on an old tree stump.
Tree said “hello Timmy”, and Timmy was sad.
Where were the glorious branches that Tree once had?
“You must be tired”, said Tree, and raised his stump
Timmy sat down and they started to talk on.
Page 19
Memories refreshed as both looked back
Hours passed and night began to creep
Words were few as both stayed silent
And before long Timmy drifted into sleep.
From our selections, we decided on either brown parchment or grey textured paper. With the grey textured paper in our hands, we went ahead to POD (Printing on Demand) at Bras Basah to print out our finalized book.
The font we chose, Ninifont, was decided after much experimentation with other fonts. We originally had a few fonts to choose from, but ninifont turned out to suit our storybook better.
Ninifont looks like this.
Hence, the experimentation process was actually one of give-and-take between our group members. Lucky for us, most of our ideas were agreed on without much complications.
Another issue that was placed into our discussion is that a few of our tutorial members mentioned that it was too sad a story to be for children. However, we decided to keep the ambiguity at the end because we felt children should, while their learning process is at its peak, be exposed to a meaningful story such as this, rather than the typical storybooks that only highlight the happy times of life.
That's all for assignment 7.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Assignment 6 - Gestalt Principles
The assignment goes like this:
select one good and one bad (in your opinion) design (e.g. poster, magazine advertisement or information brochure)
analyze both designs and build a case to support your opinion.
analysis should be based on visual principles (visual form, visual harmony, colour and gestalt principles)
Hence, the assignment required us to create a powerpoint presentation. Together with my group mate, Eugene Timothy Poh, we sourced out 2 posters that were in contrast to one another. Its a classic case of the Good v.s. the Ugly.
These are our presentation slides:










As you can see, we thoroughly analyzed the two posters side by side with Gestalt Principles, for example Figure and Ground. From this assignment, we have understood these concepts taught by Mr Reddy during lecture better. After all, with practice comes perfection. :)
Classroom Activity : Gestalt Principles
In this classroom activity, we are supposed to come up with 3 different designs to demonstrate the gestalt principles. We were given 20 minutes to come up with these 3 concepts, which incorporates the shapes of a square, triangle and circle.
This is the assignment in detail:
With this assignment in mind, my friends and I sat down to discuss what the assignment meant. As such, the process of experimentation occurred. I decided to draw upon the concepts of Figure and Ground, Proximity and Continuity. This was what I experimented with:


After much experimentation, I decided to draw these concepts.
This concept on Proximity. As you can see from the roughs earlier I didn't want to add the black triangles inside. However, I thought that it would explain the idea of proximity better in this context.

The concept of continuity. Yes I know its a little cheap, however I felt that this concept shows a continuous flow, through direction and movement from inside to outside, or vice versa.
And the concept of Figure and Ground, with the different symbols within one another. The ground here would be the triangle, and the figure would be the square. And then the square is the figure to the circle. As you can see, the circle is blue in colour, which sets it apart from the "ground". In any case, the colour is also different in the square, and also in the triangle.

By drawing these concepts, it was initially difficult to grasp the concept of Gestalt Principles. It was after much discussion with my friends that helped me to draw the concepts out. With their constructive comments, it made the class activity easier to handle.
Assignment 5 - Greeting Card - Theme : Love
The greeting card, on the theme of "love", is related to the lecture on colour. Colour is an important concept in art and design, as it compliments whatever beautiful drawings that one can draw. I feel that colour is an important concept because sometimes black & white does not convey a message very well.
Hence, I present to you my greeting card, "Passion".

and this is the inner page:

As we all know, Love is a mind-boggling thing. Somethings with love one can feel happy, yet sometimes with love, it can also be dark and sad for that person. Also, when one is in love, one gets hit with different feelings and emotions that identifies with love. A better description of this would perhaps be the delirious feelings that one encounters when they are madly in love. This was the intended effect of this greeting card.
I chose the colours of Red and Black to show this point. Using colour burn, I edited the background to become the reddish hue it is now. White was chosen for the font to represent the purity of love amidst all the dark, delirious love.
Also, I used different words and sentences to create the "delirious" words at the bottom.
Throughout the entire experimentation for ideas, I kept in mind the importance of colour for this assignment on love. Love can be described in many colours, depending on the definition of love. My focus here is more on passionate love rather than adolescent or happy love.
During the experimentation of different colours to suit my greeting card, I had tried the colours of light blue and pink. However, it did not turn out so well for the theme of "passion". Also, with the colours available in the standard colour palette, I realised that giving the card a deep red hue will do the job.
From this assignment, I have learnt that different colours can provide different meanings to different words. For example, if I had given a baby blue colour to my greeting card, it would not have come out alright. Colours can, and will, play a part in conveying an effective message.
Assignment 4 - Save, prevent, kill... : Poster design
For this assignment, I figured I would do a "stop animal cruelty" kind of poster. I am not an animal activist, but there is this particular cat, nicknamed "Tripod", that hangs out at the void deck of my place. Tripod is a 3-legged cat that I have seen "prowling" around my neighbourhood, and the moment I laid eyes on him, I felt intense hatred for the person/dog who did this to him. How could anyone do this to a poor little cat? After asking around, I found out that apparently he was a victim of animal cruelty by his previous owner who had left him to die.
Hence, who better than Tripod deserves the lead role in my poster? :) And here it is:

I chose to give the poster a black background because I felt that black, being chic in nature, would attract the audience-on-the-go to take a glimpse at the poster. Also, it is a simple colour that represents a sombre mood, which I thought fit the mood of the poster perfectly. I chose a simple font, garamond, to present a simple message for the viewers, so as not to complicate the poster. I felt that with a simple message and a good choice of words, the effect intended on the viewer could be heightened.
As Mr Reddy mentioned in lecture, a good poster has to tell the story quickly. This is because in the busy lives of the average person, they can only afford a quick glimpse of the poster. This is also a reason why I chose little words instead of many to convey my message.
Also, a good poster is attention grabbing. The attention-grabber in this poster would be Tripod himself. With his 3 legs and a stump for his 4th, I believe that the message is clear: "STOP ANIMAL CRUELTY"
Lastly, the last line "STOP ANIMAL CRUELTY" is presented in red because I feel that red brings out a sense of "warning" to the viewer. Red, as explained in lecture, represents "danger", "blood". Hence, through the use of a red font, my intentions are to explain to the reader the cruelty against Tripod.
As mentioned in the lecture, a stark and simple poster can convey a message more effectively. I hope my poster is simple enough. I have observed "harmony" throughout the experimentation of the poster. After receiving comments on the original poster I created, I decided to change the layout of this poster so as to appear more harmonious with my message.
Another thing that I have observed while creating this poster is how to control the attention of the viewer. In this poster, the attention is caught by the picture in the middle, which then goes to the top and to the bottom.
Assignment 3 - U C What I C
This assignment requires the use of a camera to take pictures, from which we use to describe a story. The story, as written above, should have a plot, a beginning, a middle portion, as well as an ending with a twist.
In the lecture by Mr Reddy, he explained about the importance of a picture frame and the rule of thirds, expressing the need for it to present a clearer picture to the viewers. This is also required to ensure that a clearer message is conveyed to the reader. I tried to include the rule of thirds into my pictures, as well as to focus on selective focus
These are my pictures:
The story goes like this.
1. This picture shows the setting, somewhere which involves palm trees and wind and darkened day.
2. A girl is evidently lonely and sad
3. She is pondering over love and thinking of someone she loves.
4. The girl looks out into the vast ocean, reminiscent memories invading her. She makes a prayer.
5. A collage of photographs are spread over a table, showing a glimpse of the person whom she misses. All the picture-perfect moments with him.
6. The girl mourns over the loss of her loved one. She grips tightly a shirt that used to belong to him.
7. The girl mascara-filled face shows that she has been crying.
8. The girl sits alone at her void deck.
9. The twist: The silhouette of the person walking into the distance. He is not dead, as some of the photographs might have suggested.
10. Life is still and empty.
I chose to represent some photographs in black and white and some in colour to symbolize the depression of the girl. Many a times when a person is under depression, life appears to become slower while they start reminiscing, and quickens when they return to reality. Hence, the colour contrast between colour and black and white is supposed to represent this shift from dreamworld to reality. Also, I tried to implement the rule of thirds into the photography.
Lastly, I also used Adobe Photoshop to edit the pictures so as to present the photographs as part of the rule of thirds.