Visual Communications

Story Book

2008-04-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

Introducing....

Monsterland - The First Encounter

You can view the whole story here.

Design of the good and the bad

2008-04-18T19:12:00.000-07:00

We were asked to critic 2 posters, one with good design and another with a bad design. We have chosen 2 movie posters, namely "A Mighty Heart" and "Batman Begins" for the bad and good design respectively.

A Mighty Heart, maybe you have watch this movie before, but I had never watched it. The obvious reasons why is bad is explained below, other reasons are due to aesthetical reasons like it does not appeals to the general public.

Batman on the otherhand is commented for its good points.

Continuity, our favourite Batman is looking down. Eyes will follow the direction he is looking and end up with the name of the movie. Good colour contrast and a general colour scheme which is generally dark presents to the viewer a "serious" mood telling them this is no comedy. The brighter background brings out the main character in the foreground, and as this is a popular character, most people can relate to it immediately.

Loving Cards

2008-04-10T03:05:00.000-07:00

For the cards, I made 2 different kind of cards. One is based on a cool colour scheme while the other on hot colours.

After receiving comments from my peers in class, I decided to change the 1st card and did some changes to it.

Below is the 2nd draft I designed.
Added: 19th April

I further edited my card, giving it a more loving look as I added another dove inside my card, as most of my classmates feel that 2 doves are more loving. I also drew another heart. The obvious colour contrast is the red coloured heart which tells people immediately that this is a card for your love ones.

Friday Lecture Group Work

2008-03-10T07:34:00.000-07:00

My word was..... Astonishing. Jaw-dropping indeed.

This was what I can come up with.

A poster to demostrate design concepts

2008-03-10T07:02:00.000-07:00

We are supposed to design a poster, using design techniques such as frame and visual interaction, use of negative spaces, rule of third, visual balance, contrast, unity and many more. Besides that, the poster should revolve around the theme Save, Prevent, Kill. I intended to use the theme 'Save' for my poster.

Save Lives

How to save lives? Donation of blood seems the easiest way. I would regularly go for blood donations, once every 3 months that is. In my opinion, it should be performed by everyone that fits the criteria, but there is always a lack of blood in Singapore all the time. Ok, back to the design of my poster.

I wanted to use a light background for this concept, white seems the best, as it is more related to medical, it is best protrayed using white which represents pure, and red for the blood. The glass used in the picture is used as a container to hold the blood. The flowing of the blood represents the never-ending flow that will be poured into the container.

Added: 19th April

Somehow, I did another poster, which is more intuitive to most people, as the previous is more cultural bias. It has the same text and with the same "Save Life" slogan, I took a photo from the squeeze ball I got from donating blood last February in NUS, which is really a blood bag-shaped.

It shows that the pulse was really erratic and when it goes in and out of the blood bag, it becomes stable and normal. I hope it is more intuitive and easier to understand than the previous as it requires some explanations to most people who do not know about it.

U C what I C

2008-03-05T04:31:00.000-08:00

The story follows me finding my lost coin (yah is a 10 cents coin). Was chasing, jumping down stairs, peeking, being framed of being a molester....

Finally! My coin is recovered!!!

Some comments were that I should not have included the first picture (was trying to create a misconception that I am some pervert). Shouldn't have grabbed the girl's hand, and last picture should be me picking up the coin.

But thanks for all the comments anyway!

Representation Techniques

2008-02-17T10:22:00.000-08:00

My signs are about Cooking! Among the Realistic to Abstract, I decided to take number 4 as the sign.

I feel #4 is suitable as a sign as it consists of 2 things every chef should have. 1, the chef hat, of course to keep the hair in it, so that you won't get to taste the chef's hair! 2, the ladle, of course it is used for cooking.

(Forum for the E-Learning Week is still not out yet...)

Added: 19th April

I redraw the cooking signs and blow it up to an A3 size, good for printing so the resolution is high enough so it will be clear.

Digital Version

2008-02-12T09:18:00.001-08:00

After yesterday's class, our work are being critised and commented. I think everyone's works are great! Give yourself a pat on your back.

First Picture, critics received:
1) Background is obsolete, too distracting.
2) 'O' not recognised straightaway, classmates tot is a 'd' instead.

2nd Picture:
1) Background very un-natural.
2) Animals too small.
3) Should change rabbit to another animal.

Added: 19th April

Really I feel that the animals are really a bad idea, I thought of another hate to do... TOMATOES!

Colouring a pencil sketch on Photoshop

2008-02-04T22:51:00.000-08:00

I've found a webpage desribing the steps to colour you sketches on photoshop. Hopes this will help you all in the assignment!

http://www.newtutorials.com/coloring-a-pencil-sketch-in-photoshop.htm

Me, Myself and I

2008-02-02T06:51:00.000-08:00

This assignment was an interesting one. You will need to squeeze every single bit of your brain juices to think of something you like (a bit easy but can also be very difficult) or something you hate (extremely easy if you have one!), and that it can fit into your name, and hopefully create a picture out of it.

Here are some 4 roughs for the tutorial...

Fibonacci Number and Rule of Third

2008-02-01T02:47:00.000-08:00

I am fascinated on Fibonacci Number. It is really amazing, and it is used in many areas like Mathematics (of course, it is a number sequence), life sciences, botany, and non-technical areas like Art and Photography.

Since I learned it in a Math Class, I would like to start explaining it technically. Fibonacci sequence is a recursive function that adds the previous 2 numbers in the sequence, with the exception of the first 2 which are 0 and 1. It formed recursively implies that you may need to count from the beginning if you were to find out the 20 sequence of the series. But interestingly, a direct formula in Math allows you to calculate the number immediately with just one step. And more interestingly, the formula consists of calculation of 2 root of 5! Most of us would have learnt from middle school that the root of 5 is some very strange number resulting in tons of decimal places 2.236067977..... But the formula actually ends up in an Integer Number!

In botany, most flowers have petals of a fibonacci sequence. Very rare flowers have petals that are not in the fibonacci sequence. The 4-leaf clover is considered a lucky symbol as 4 is not a fibonacci number.

Rule of thirds is a common tool used in photography and art. A picture captured in the rule of third shows to the viewer a different perspective of the image. A picture of the merlion I took sometime ago shows the rule of third.

Lecture 3

2008-02-01T02:23:00.000-08:00

Guess I had done my blogging late. But nonetheless, it will still be good to start than not starting at all.

Lecture 3 today was a bit more technical that usual, guess most people from non-technical areas may not be able to understand them quickly. In my own opinion, some knowledge on these technical stuff is critical and absolutely essential.

Drawing a image, say on Abobe Photoshop, you will require to understand several things when creating a new image, namely the resolution, colour and image size.

Resolution is an important part of the image as it tells the programme how much information you want your image to contain. Like 72pixel/inch (ppi), which means that in per square inch, there will be 72 * 72 pixels in that square. That means, your image will be clearer and sharper when compared to one that has lower resolution for example an image with resolution 48ppi.

Once you had determined your resolution, the next is the colour space. RGB, CMYK are common colour spaces found on most image editing or creation programme. RGB are common for graphics created to be displayed for screen viewing, but for publishing, you will need to convert it to a CMYK colour space.

Image size is also important. Should you create a poster for printing in A3 or A2 size, you may need to create a blank image size based on a A3 or A2 size before proceeding in creating the images on the file, especially they are of raster type. For vector-based images, they do not have this problem, but you will not be able to create high quality images on vector based drawing (unless you are expert in Geometric Math and Linear Algebra).