Classroom activity: Talking forms

Classroom exercise: Talking forms

This week we had to pick out 2 words and use abstracts to convey the messages of the words.

The first word picked is: Attractive

My abstract shows a back profile of a woman sihoulette. The flowly hair and curvy body shape is intended to accentuate the woman's attractiveness.

The second word picked is: Repulsive

My abstract shows a stick man escaping and running away from a bad smell.

Feedback from Ms Siti was that repulsive abstract was difficult to infer and identify. She suggested drawing 2 objects moving away from one another.

Home assignment 3: Visual Story with 10 photographs

Home Assignment 3: Visual Story with 10 photographs

For this assignment, I really had a tough time creating an inspirational storyboard. It wasn't as easy as it seems to tell a story within 10 frames! I guessed that most students would probably use human actions to bring out their storyline. I wanted to do something different. Hence I decided to rely on the use of toy keychains to do the narration of my storyline. I named the toys as well because I believed a story should have characters for audiences to identify with. Everything seemed perfect, but I had not foreseen 2 possible problems: Firstly, since my casts were toys, they are incapable of creating expressions! Secondly, they were too small and it was really very difficult to position them desirably. Several times I had to sprawl on the ground in order to capture them at the right angles. However, though the process of the photo shots were tiring and at even some times frustrating, it was still a memorable experience: It was one of those times that I had to ignore several curious stares of passerbys and get on my fours to get my best pictures.

Below is my storyboard sketch:

Here's how it story goes:

It begins with a beautiful sunny morning.

Mushroom girl heads for school, carrying her oversized yellow lock-bag.

A suspicious character is following behind Mushroom girl

Mushroom girl sensed that she's being stalked by someone as she sees a blur figure at the corner of her eye.

The suspicious hand reaches out for Mushroom girl

Mushroom girl jumps around to shock the suspicious Butterfly man

Mushroom girl sents the suspicious Butterfly man a deadly flying kick

Butterfly man falls to ground and a key falls out

Mushroom girl recognizes the key and picks it up: The key belongs to her!


Mushroom girl realizes it is a misunderstanding and apologizes to Butterfly man.

Some classmates have pointed out that the first photograph does not seem to fit with the rest of the 9 frames. This is because, it gives an impression of a very formal beginning, while the rest of the photographs follows more of an informal and cute storyline. This breaks the flow in the story. Also, some felt that the 7th photograph does not clearly show the flying kick action. They suggested using photoshop to add lines of impact or to show the point of contact.

So here is the edited version of picture 7:

I added a twirl effect to show the impact of the flying kick. Hopefully this brings out the essence better.

A Visual Story

Classroom exercise: A Visual Story

This is a scene of a girl sitting inside the chat point cubicle located in the central library. She sits alone with her laptop and notes, and is chatting merrily on the handphone. It could be a close friend or family of hers.

She seems to be in a relaxed state as depicted in her posture: she is leaning against the wall and sitting casually with legs slightly crossed. I am guessing that she couldn't find a seat near the powerpoint at the studying area and has to use this chat point cubicle instead. She could be waiting for her project mates to arrive while chatting on the phone to kill time.

Abstraction home assignment

Second Home Assignment: Abstraction.

For this assignment, I did abstractions on 2 objects.

For the first object, I chose the ship. The point of abstraction is the 5th picture ( 3rd picture from first column). This is because, at this point, a generic meaning of the picture is achieved - the picture loses some of its essence of a ship while still retaining certain characteristics. At this point, the picture is ambiguous: At some angles it looks like a steamboat cooker under the fire, but from a different view, it looks like a boat at sea.

The second object of abstraction I chose is the tortoise. Similarly, the point of abstraction is the 5th picture. This is because it is here where the picture loses its tortoise outlook and takes on a more general meaning. Some of the feedback I got from my friends is that the 5th thumbnail looks like a mushroom or a lamp.

Eventually i decided to select the ship abstraction because I felt that it brought out the generic meaning better than the tortoise abstraction. Also, more people were able to identify the ship abstraction with the steamboat cooker.

Below is my finalized work:

I recieved comments from Ms Swati that I can further simplify the 6th thumbnail by removing the waves and the lining along the ship. This can give a second level of generic meaning as it can symbolize any kind of water transportation, a boat, a sampan, or even a float.

Below is the version 2 of this assignment:

Class activity: Types of representation

Today's class activity was an exercise on the types of representation.

The object selected is a pig.

As you all can see, the first picture is iconical representation of a pig's head.

The second picture shows an indexical representation, with a round shape to indicate the pig's body. The stout and tail are added to give context to the round shape.

The third picture is the back view indexical representation of a pig. Once again, I used the round shape to represent the pig's sihoulette, and the curly tail and legs are drawn in to give the recognition of a pig.

Lecturer's feedback was that it was not necessary to draw the body at all. The indexical representation could simply be the stout or the tail because these are self explanatory symbols. From our own context and knowledge, we can easily recognize these as parts of the pig body.

Finalized representation

I hate laundrying and love shoes!

In this first assignment, we're supposed to design and fuse the themes/objects of what we love and hate into our own name. It is a pretty interesting and challenging task because you have to crack your mind and think of possible ways to merge two things into one-which is not an easy feat! It was necessary to take into account that audiences perception: They must be able to recognize two elements once they see the design.

Anyway, when it comes to thinking about what i hate, it was relatively easy because it came to me almost naturally, and in an instant. Have you ever experienced having to do all the laundry while your siblings escapes from them? Haha, if yes, we probably share the same sentiment! So for what I hate, it is pretty much laundrying as you all can guess by now.

Alright, so here are some of the ideas in thumbnails:

Eventually, i chose 4th thumbnail because I thought the very action of doing laundry can bring out the essence of hatred much better rather than just drawing objects related to laundry. And so i developed some colored sketches and eventually came out with a colored prototype to work on:

rough color scheme

finalized color prototype

Here's the final product:

In the first tutorial(presentation of finalized thumbnail prototypes), I gained some feedback from students who felt that I should have used more sinister colors like black to show the emotions of dreading to do the laundry. I tried to change accordingly but realised it made the design less outstanding and more difficult to recognize. Hence I kept my colors and added different expressions (tiredness, hotness, anger) on stick men faces and fire above the last man's head to show frustrations.

So for the second part of this assignment, I chose shoes. It was relatively difficult to think of shoe designs that would suit alphabets, especially 'U' ,'N' and 'G'. I brainstormed a variety of combinations as seen below:

And like for laundrying, I came out with a rough color scheme and a finalized color protoype:

And presenting you my finalized work:

Some students have feedbacked that the 'T' was not obvious enough and looked more like a 'Y' instead.

Overall, it was an enjoying process though quite alot of time is spent in producing the eventual thing. My first experience with the illustrator application was not exactly smooth sailing, however, when the creation is finalized, it really gives you a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction!