Fussy Felix and the Food Creatures

The group came up with quite a few ideas such as teaching a kid how to behave appropriately in society through food idioms, educating them about a healthy diet by learning how to make a bento box set, and telling them not to waste food because of the hardships that the food cultivators go through.  Initially, we had selected to go with the ‘no food wastage’ idea but after an extremely long struggle trying to write the perfect story for kids from 7 to 9 years old, we finally settled with something a bit simpler that adopted the scare tactic while injecting the fantasy element to downplay the fear appeal – to “scare” the kids with the consequences of being picky about their food.  I’ll leave it to you to find out what exactly happened to Fussy Felix at the end!

Download ‘Fussy Felix and the Food Creatures’

The final storybook’s is actually a flash e-book that allows the kids to flip the pages, but I can’t upload it here on WordPress, so… Let’s just make do with the PDF format? Heh.  Click on the link above to download the final storybook.

I believe one of the major highlights of our storybook is the fact that there’s the fantasy element there – human interacting with fruits, vegetables and all – which keeps children interested in the story.  The transitions that are made (real world to fantasy world and back to real world again) allows the children to make certain connections between the moral of the story and their daily lives as well.

Overall, I’m going to wrap up this module by saying that this experience was a good one.  Though tiring, I’d say that my group had pretty good chemistry among ourselves and this made the final project an enjoyable experience.  Also, everyone had their personal strengths which complemented each other’s and most certainly contributed to the project significantly.  I think most groups will probably know what I mean when I say that it’s very difficult to work in a group of 2 people (what more 3, 4 or 5 people) when it comes to design projects because of the conflicting styles and all.  But I’m proud to say that my group and other groups managed to brave through this storm and produce beautiful looking storybooks (Cheesy, I know).

Okay, I’m out! Will probably be back if I ever need to blog for academic purposes again! Bye!

And below’s my infographic:

Infographic: Are you destorying Earth with your grocery shopping?

Basically, my infographic was to provide a brief summary of how the different groceries people purchase could affect the Earth and how they could save the Earth with their groceries as well.

Some of the design principles which I used:

• Emphasis: As compared to the rest of the poster where I used relatively neutral colours, I used striking/prominent colours and font sizes for the words “You destroying Earth”in hopes of being able to attract a bit more attention to them and have a bit more impact on the target audience.
• Balance: With all the groceries, the bottom of the infographic is really heavy.  So, I decided to add a bit more weight to the top of my piece with those boxes of text and the small little icons.  Also, the header font I chose was kind of like an angsty handwritten font that gives off a pretty heavy feeling, adding to the weight at the top half.
• Harmony: I’m a little unsure about this principle but what I did was basically to ensure that I consistently used neutral colours in my infographic, except for the header and the small little graphics next to the texts.

Critiques:

• One of the major issues was that my infographic looked more like a poster than an infographic.  Some said it could possibly be because of the paper orientation (I used portrait instead of a landscape orientation).  Others said it could because of the organization of my texts and suggested that I have my text all around the bag of groceries to make it look more infographic-like.
• Another critique was about the bag of groceries looking a little weird because I chopped it off midway.  (I can’t exactly remember whether it was about looking weird or something.  But I clearly remembered the chopping off of my plastic bag part. I believe it’s in relation to the point about looking more like a poster. Heh.)

That’s about it! Shall do the relevant changes soon!

So, here’s my design/colour exploration:

Colour Exploration

Initially, I was pretty lost about how to go about doing this colour exploration thingy.  I had completely no idea how to start on it, so Jing suggested to make use of what we learnt in lecture about whispering colours, speaking colours, yada yada yada.  But I had to fill up an A3 sized paper so I thought maybe I should Google some colour palettes and theories to base my colour schemes on and also to fill the empty spaces.

Here’s the list of colour theories which I based my colour explorations on:

• 1st row, left: Random colours
• 1st row, right: Neutral/Pastel colours
• 2nd row, left: Cool colours
• 2nd row, right: Warm colours
• 3rd row, left: Shouting colours
• 3rd row, right: Speaking colours
• 4th row, left: Shocking colours
• 4th row, right: Monocolour

I decided to go with the warm coloured one.  I felt that the colours were pretty close to the real things, and the colours blended very well with each other (as in, none of the souvenirs were “fighting” for attention” or standing out too much).  Also, warm colours are fiery, representing passion and energy which reflects Asia pretty well.

And here’s the back design:

Back Design

I was lucky because initially, I had already designed this stacked luggage bags but decided to scrape the idea because  I was having problems trying to fill them up with souvenirs and it was just going to clutter my entire postcard if I did show the entire row of luggage bags instead of halve it like this one on the back of my postcard.

Critiques from the class:

• The legs should be lowered a bit and we should not be able to see the knees if the luggage cover is actually slanted.
• The eyes of the Balinese mask are white when they are suppose to be see-through holes.  This was kind of delibrate.  I tested out setting the eyes to a transparent fill so that the sari could be seen through the mask’s eyes but it didn’t make the mask stand out so I decided to just leave it as white.
• As for the tag, “I <3 Asia” seemed a little cliche but I felt that it something that everybody can relate to because it very commonly seen around.  Probably going to keep it as it is.

Overall, I’m really happy with my design!  Just a few minor changes here and there, and I’m done! Woooooo~!

So here are my storyboard and photo story:

Storyboard

So, my story is basically a horror story that takes place in the female toilet.  Initially, there were two people who went into the washroom together and they each went to do what they had to do (i.e. go pee, check herself out in the mirror).  The girl who went into the cubicle (a.k.a Cubicle girl) locked the door and after she was done with her business, she flushed the toilet and opened the door, but the cubicle was empty!  Cubicle girl had disappeared which caused mirror girl to get a shock of her life.  Finally, it is unveiled that the girl who went into the cubicle is in fact a ghost and was trying to strangle the mirror girl.

Critiques from the class:

• The ghost was in a checkered top and it seem a little too cool to be a ghost.  The class suggested that she wear something more plain.
• Picture #7 is a little ambiguous.  Though it’s a mirror reflection, the absence of Mirror Girl’s  back view and mirror reflection made the picture seem a little out of place.  Quite a couple of my classmates didn’t quite get this picture.
• Picture #8 and #9: Mirror Girl’s expression is a little unconvincing.  She didn’t exactly look scared enough.
• Another suggestion was to try to speed up the transition between Pictures #7 to #9, to made the ghost seem “quicker than the human”.  One idea was to simply remove Picture #8 since  my ghost has got quick motion effects in Picture #9.

Some other issues I had:

• My printed pictures turned out a little darker than I had expected.
  (Note to self: Always remember that what I see on my laptop screen is not what I will be getting on paper.)
• There’s a little inconsistency between Picture #7 and the rest of the pictures.  Mirror Girl was wearing glasses in all the other pictures except in Picture #7.

Well, that’s about it for Assignment 3.  Am going to retake a couple of pictures again, which means Singapore Polytechnic CASS Toilet, I’m coming back again!

Below are two pictures of the politicians I picked out from the internet.  I wanted to portray the stronger sides of these two personalities, which explains the fist and head pointing actions.

So here’s my 5 step process of abstraction:

Concept:
As mentioned earlier, I wanted to portray that strained relationship between them.  One of the main elements you will notice in all abstractions is that streak in the middle.  It’s suppose to be a paper tear that shows the “split” between the two politicians.

Another thing you’d realize is Lee Kuan Yew’s size relative to Mahathir.  I made Lee Kuan Yew bigger because I wanted to show that he always thinks that he’s “bigger” and that his way of governing is better than Mahathir’s.

Also, Mahathir’s pointing towards his head while staring at Lee Kuan Yew.  I’m trying to show that Mahathir thinks Lee Kuan Yew’s crazy for thinking the way he does and all.

Step 1:
I basically traced out as much details as possible from the two pictures, but I removed some details such as the shadow from Mahathir’s face, Lee Kuan Yew’s hair at the top of his head and the patterns on Lee Kuan Yew’s tie.  I hid the left and right sides of their faces as well.

Have to admit that my Mahathir doesn’t resemble the real Mahathir at all.  So, it was a good thing that he was wearing a Songkok.  I felt that it kind of showed exactly what were each side representing (Mahathir: Governing based on race and religion is better, Lee Kuan Yew: Governing based on race equality is better).

Step 2:
In this step, the most obvious change from Step 1 is of course, the zooming in of Lee Kuan Yew’s hand which makes him seem like he’s trying to hit Mahathir on the head.  I gave both personalities a bit more emotions as well (raised eyebrows to show anger, Lee Kuan Yew’s wide-opened mouth as if he’s shouting, Mahathir’s upside down mouth to portray his unhappiness).

One more minor change is the removal of the facial lines from both personalities.

Step 3:
I removed the eye details (i.e. double eyelids) and all the facial lines from both politicians except Lee Kuan Yew’s forehead wrinkles to make them look a little younger because they have been “enemies” since a really long time ago.  I simplified/smoothened their face shapes into simple ovals, got rid of Lee Kuan Yew’s teeth, removed Mahathir’s hair and creases from his shirt and made Mahathir point towards his Songkok (i.e. his head) rather than near his eyes to better convey the “He’s crazy!” message as well.

Step 4:
This step is probably the one with the most drastic changes from the previous abstract.  Firstly, I changed the colours of each personality to further emphasize the differences between them (i.e. White vs Black a.k.a Lee Kuan Yew vs Mahathir).  The reasons for the selected colours for each party is due to their political organization’s representative colours (i.e. White – PAP, Black (or rather, Red) – UMNO) and my intention to play up the racial differences a little bit here (I don’t mean to offend anyone).

I felt that the fists in the previous abstracted were too fat and comical looking, so I gave Lee Kuan Yew a thinner and stronger looking fist.  In addition, both their mouths were expanded to further highlight their anger and unhappiness with each other, and some “movement lines” were added to Mahathir’s hands to make it not look so static.

Step 5:
So, I removed the face shapes and clothes of both politicians because I felt that they added no meaning to the pictogram.  Enlarged Lee Kuan Yew’s facial organs and twisted Mahathir’s mouth as well.

Critiques/Feedback:
So here are some of the critiques and feedbacks I received from the class.  Most of the critiques are referring to Step 5 of the abstraction process.

• In Step 5, because I removed the face shapes of the politicians, Lee Kuan Yew ended up looking like a ghost, floating in the middle of nowhere.  Also, as one of the defining features of Lee Kuan Yew is his high forehead, he was a little unrecognizable in the last step.
• After I switched the colour concept to ‘White vs Black’, Lee Kuan Yew seemed to have lost his presence in the pictogram, as compared to Mahathir.  Some suggestions were to have a black background for Lee Kuan Yew’s halve or thicken the point size of strokes.
• There was a little issue with the composition (i.e. Having Lee Kuan Yew above and Mahathir below).  Aesthetically, it wasn’t exactly very pleasing to the eyes.  Some suggestions were to maybe level them or make Lee Kuan Yew look like he’s squeezing Mahathir with his hands.

Well, that’s about it for Assignment 2.  Going to have to make some changes with the feedback I received from the class and come up with my final prototype!

Below’s the abstraction process:

In this step, we changed the lion symbol to a simple oval shape, and removed the texts from the top, bottom, right side and in the boxes.  We removed the grey-ish parking symbol that was in the background in the ‘Day’ box.

Here, we got rid of even more redundant texts and boxes.

We removed all the numbers from the small perforated circles.

The huge boxes that bounded the perforated circles were removed.  We reduced the number of circles and also coloured a few circles to let it seem like some of numbers were torn off the parking coupon already.

In this final abstraction, we deleted even more perforated circles to just 4 circles and enlarged them.  The perforated circles are kind of the main “feature” of a parking coupon and thus we wanted to bring more attention to it.  As seen in all the various steps, we removed all the redundant boxes but kept the 50¢ box there all along.  We felt that if it was removed, the final abstraction would look like a domino block.  Afterall, a parking coupon is somehow an indirect way of making payment and hence, we decided to retain a money-element in our final abstraction.

Final Design (Version 1)

As mentioned during the first critique session, using the dental floss to form my name seemed rather unnatural.  Previously, the main focus of my design was only on the dental floss.  Thus, I  reduced the usage of floss and integrated more dental care products (i.e. floss box, mouthwash, toothpaste, toothbrush) in the design to form my name.   ‘a,’ ‘n’ and ‘r’ are formed by the dental floss, ‘D’ by the spilling mouthwash, ‘E’ by the squeeze toothpaste and ‘a’ by the toothpaste on the toothbrush.

Somehow, with so many elements in my design, I felt that it kind of further emphasized on the extensiveness of my daily oral care regime.  In Full Rough #2, the focus was pretty much only on the dental floss (it was the only item used to form my name) and the rest of the elements were out of place.  The message, “I am obssessed with dental care,” was not conveyed very effectively.  This time round, I believe the fusion between the oral care products and my name definitely brought out the message a little more.

Some of the critiques I received during Tutorial 2:

• The design is flat and 2-dimensional because there aren’t any shadows.
• The ‘D’ is not very obvious because if you look closely enough, there’s a sudden sharp point on the left side of the spell.  (My bad on this part.  I got lazy trying to perfect my curve on Illustrator and just left it as it was. Heh.)  Similarly, there was a suggestion to try to make my entire name slightly clearer.
• The mouth is quite empty, especially the inside.  Maybe a tongue and some colour would do the trick.
• One of the questions posted to the class was whether a black or white background was better.  I think there was a unanimous  agreement that white was a more suitable colour since it’s usually associated with cleanliness, etc.  Some of my classmates suggested using pastel pink because of the phrase ‘in the pink of health’.  There were suggestions to add some pink gums as well.
• As my design consist of bits and pieces, it’s not too, how should I put it, cohesive?

Well, received some pretty good feedback from the class and Jing.  Shall rework on this design (though it might kill quite a bit of brain cells. Heh.) and come back with another update on Assignment 1 soon!

Some critiques I received on my full roughs during Tutorial 1:

One of the main issues for Full Rough #1 is the dental floss.  Using the dental floss to spell my name seemed a little unrealistic and unnatural.  Had to agree with the class that it seemed like an easy way out to integrate my name into the design.

Similar to Full Rough #1, there was an issue with the name formation with dental floss.  Also, the mouthwash seemed a little out of place.  It seemed a little neither here nor there since it was kind of defying gravity by not flowing into the mouth.  I guess I was trying to show the extensiveness of my oral care obsession, but because it was dangling in mid air, it didn’t have much of a significance.  One of the pretty good suggestions was to let the mouthwash form an alphabet of my name.