So, couple weeks back, I’ve found out I’ve won the YCN student award for my Fedrigoni’s lion campaign. Let’s say I’m more excited than I’ve ever been in my entire life. I’m glad all the hard work has paid out. I cannot wait for the ceremony to find out who’s won, and meet up with people in the industry. This is a great opportunity!
Check out the winners here: http://education.ycnonline.com/student/
And this was the work:
This is the next brief that we have to work on within the period of five weeks. It is a YCN brief, a live brief. In another word, it is an actual competition, held by a professional design body. I have chosen their brief for Fedrigoni, a paper manufacturing company. The task is to create a fully intergrated campaign, promoting their new paper selection tool called Imaginative Colours.
I started out doing research on campaigns, advertising, PR, poster design, paper engineering, and Fedrigoni and the product itself. Even though the campaign was to promote the paper selection tool, it had to sell the paper along the way as well. Since Fedrigoni’s pride is on their tactile, expressive, and functional usage, I came up with this ‘Wild’ concept, basing the visual on nature. Nature contains pretty much all the colors, so by using it as a tool to communicate, I could present as many colors of the paper as I wished. I was hoping to use the scene of autumn, with some animals to create this Wild scenery.
When I had the concept in mind, I started experimenting with paper, folding, creasing, cutting, etc. I had to explore my own skills with paper to learn the limits and the comfort zone. I created a couple abstract shapes, hoping to translate them into something more concrete, relating to nature. It was a fun process, but I couldn’t use any of them. But it really helped me understand the roles of paper better.
I moved on to focussing on creating real sceneries, so I experimented with folding trees and animals. Later on, I used 3Ds Max to model a mountain. I produced plains, corners, color coding, and flattened template so that I could translate them into paper mountain. I tried it out with much smaller scale than I was aiming for.
At that point, I realized my concept and visual itself wasn’t strong enough. So I took a step back and tried to take this project to a different direction. I had come to a conclusion that I would stick with the ‘Wild’ concept, but I would approach it from a Dangerous Wild, rather than Nature Wild. So I modeled three animal heads to represent the wild side, preparing for paper modeling.
I took the lion forward and made a paper head. It took about 8 hours total to make the head, but the result was very satisfying. I photographed it and put into a poster.
It just looked so boring! I wasn’t sure where to go from there until my friends start playing with the head. That was when I decided to put personality into the lion. I dropped the Dangerous Wild, and just focused on the lion head, making the best out of it. I had my friends wearing the lion and posing it in different scenes. It took a while until I found the right personality for him. I started brainstorming ideas for the posters, what kind of scenes my lion would be in. After a couple of photo shoots, I made some posters.
Everything started coming together then. So I moved on to another aspect of the campaign, Direct Mail. I came up with the idea of paper dolls of Mr. Lion so the receivers could take picture of him in different scenarios. Sent along with the dolls would be the invitation to the launch party. I made some postcards of 5×7 inches. In the end, it didn’t look as a part of the campaign. The design language wasn’t the same.
After a few development, I’d created the final design. The campaign print aspect is consisted of 2 ads, one portrait and one landscape. The title goes ‘Live on the Wild Side.’ and the body copy reads ‘Fedrigoni let you pick the papers that best express your wild imagination.’ The direct mail has two postcards, an invitation and a paper doll, and a badge.
The print ads’ll be featured in design magazines like creative review, eye, design week, etc. The invitation will be sent in a black envelope, matching Fedrigoni’s packaging. The invitation is a postcard, requiring RSVP from the receivers. It is for the attendance to the party. The instruction of what to do with the received package is included in the invitation. The paper doll is perforated so it’s easy to pop out, and the instruction is included too. The badge is used as the party ticket, pin is attached ready for use.
So for my self-promo item, I have created a couple of design for the tri-fold booklet, in black and white. These are some spread from my first draft. I use my existing logo as the cover, but I am very aware there is a lot of work on for that part. There’s still too much text going on, and it’s very difficult to deal with.
I work on the black and white for a good deal of time, when I decide to add some color to it, to create dynamics in the piece. I have to say it looks very boring at the moment. I drop the black to 95% to create something slightly different. I pick light gray and bright green to break the piece, giving some personality to it, as this booklet must represent me. I also leave out the logo, to make sure everything looks right without it first. My logo is still an ongoing project.
After that, I’m just working with type and grid mostly, making it more interesting.
At that point, I put this project on a break, while I’m working on my other uni module. During that time, I get to explore more into illustration and crafting work. I expand from bookmaking to paper cutting, and folding. I’m in the process of finding out more about myself as a designer. I’m actually really enjoying what I’m doing. So when I resume my physical self-promo project, I know there’s a lot to be changed and done.
I start looking for different color, booklet format, grid, paper stock, and typeface. And at the mean time, I start making mock-ups, developing my own illustration style, and experimenting with paper cutting.
I am more certain about what I want to do, and how I want it to turn out. So I apply all that to my booklet.
And once I’m done making spreads, I create the actual booklet. Due to lack of access to professional printer, I use the uni’s normal printer to print out every page, mount them together to make a double-sided sheet, staple the sheets to make a booklet, and then cut the paper for the decoration.
Throughout this week, I have been continuingly looking at examples of self promo, print work and book making. I came across some useful resource: FPO andCargo. I’m still not entirely sure of what format I would like my self promo to be, but with the help of these researches, it begins to shape up.
On the websites, there are self promo ranging from normal print work to coaster, from letterpressing to inkjet printing, from large to small, and from a single publication to a folder.
I’m personally attracted to this piece with its incorporation of great color palette, letterpress, calendar, and coaster.
With the research I have done, my eyes have been opened to more possible methods I can approach for my self promo. Throughout the summer, I have been working my design identity, in which if I get to finalize it, I would love to feature it in my self promo. My letterpressing idea has been suspended through the lack of resource, so I was thinking of customized rubber stamp, which would be perfect for reproduction. I have found a graphic design who has developed the same idea as mine, and used it in her self promo as well.
Now that my design is more focused, I decide to go back to work on my copy. I wish to cut down to just essential information, to avoid unnecessary mess.
I have been exploring myself as a designer more seriously this passed summer break, through the process of applying for internship and during the internship itself. Yet I still have some trouble coming up with a physical self promo item, with the wide range of interest I have for graphic design.
This week has brought me to the point I am torn between the two possible descriptions of myself. Looking back, I have realized I have two distinct styles, depending on briefs I receive: minimal and B&W, and colorful and organic. At the beginning, I had come up with either a recycled box, filled with seperate sheets of information, or a tri-fold B&W booklet combining everything. Both of them represent my style, yet I still wish it would emphasize more about my versatility.
I decided to pursue my booklet idea as it seemed to have a starting point. I have produced two mock-ups, one for my manifesto, and another for the whole piece. The result was successful, but I still felt like something was missing.
I figured some research needed to be done, so I looked for creatively designed self-promo in a book format.
After some time spent on researching, I started to know where I was supposed to head. At this point, I am trying to incorporate my two sides together to see if it works. I am going to experiment more with color, and other possible book format. I have started looking around for different stocks I would like to use. Because I have a personal obsession towards print work, like printmaking, letterpress, embossing, and silkscreening, my next goal is to explore and experiment more in that field. It might not work out as I’d like, but now I know where I am heading now.
This project is kind of a sequel to the last post’s project: Gather No Moss. The previous briefs require digital skill especially in motion and interactive, but the choice is up to us now. The aim is to creating a design for literary festival at Southbank, London, responding to the chosen text from the other brief or not is entirely optional. I choose to. After considering what I want in my portfolio, I propose to create a book art of “Before You Say Hello” for a small exhibition at the festival. And because it’s a digital module, I decide to create a corresponding motion piece to be projected at the exhibition also.
Now that I have to create a project that sits within a real world, I try to come up with a strong and solid concept, based on the given text. I choose to explore into the mechanism of phones, how it translates voices into signals and such. And with the mechanism, I can create a book art, showing its diagram. So I start researching phone parts, and using tracing paper to dissect the phone. And that process has turned my project into a completely new direction.
“Dissecting” is used generally with living organism, and by using that word with my phone, I decide to explore into human anatomy also. I want to establish the connection between phones and human. Not only that I’m looking into how phone works, I’m also looking for how human responds to such technology.
After I studied into phone mechanism, and human’s organ responsible for communication, I have to figure out how to create a final outcome. So I create some sketches for hybrids, between phone parts and human organs, to establish a permanent connection.
At this point, it leaves up to the final production. I create 4 illustration pieces of brain, heart, ear, and eye, with a mixture of phone parts. They are separated into parts, and printed on tracing paper, so that when it is put up in exhibition, the lighting will do its job of connecting the pieces into a whole. These are the 4 drawings that I made:
My motion piece is terrible as it is not my strength at all. I have created more illustration responding to the text, so I animate them all together to create a motion piece. I have to not post it up since it’s my work of shame. But I figure out what the weaknesses are, such as, the rhythm, the flow, and the animation itself.
Anyhow, as a final presentation, I make an insit-u for how the exhibition should look like: the illustration layout, lighting, and motion projection.
This could be my best work so far. I thoroughly enjoy the process and the outcome. I get to think more about my specialism, my work flow, and my time management. It’s been a good fun, and I’m looking forward to drawing more, and finding out more about myself as a designer.
So just a quick post of my work I just did for Advanced Digital Communication module these passed weeks. We started out creating 4 sets of 5 sequencial images based on a text, then selected one set to create a 10 second motion piece. The text surrounds the idea of telephone, relationship, distance, and the anticipation. My initial idea was to create a flow of color I’ve painted as an experiment, creating a continuous river of emotional frequency, sparked by the action of dialing phone calls. With the limited skills I have for motion, all I could do was creating animation through Adobe Photoshop, linking all 5 images together.
I wasn’t quite happy with the result, as it wasn’t smooth and seamless. So I experimented a whole new set of images to create another 10 second piece. This time, I focused on the symbol of sending signals, interpreting frequency of phone calls.
And in today’s session, we were given a short task of using our 10 second piece to respond to a given word and extend the video to 15 seconds long. My word was interference. I decided to play with the rhythm of the repetition, and insert an interference of black blinking screen. I am quite satisfied with the second set of my sequence project here.
I think it’s going to be just a quick post here. I came across one of my favorite experimental works of all time a couple days back. It involves “painting” with the molten glass on a spread sheet. Etsuko Ichikawa’s molten glass work requires so much time, determination, patience, control, and movement, yet the result is complete unpredictable. No one would know how each stroke will turn out. This link will lead you to her work, video, interview, and photos. Simply amazing work here.
Just read through bunch of updates, and apparently typography is showing up a lot. So, here’s a post entirely on type. There’s another post coming up, about graphic design in general, so stay tune!
Animated Typeface
It’s a project on experimenting with ink and water to create letters, words. Ruslan Khasanov, the man behind the project, isn’t so new to this liquid typeface. Before he did a project on a still experimented piece, but now, he has taken it to the next level. He captured the movement of the reaction between ink and water, which resulted an animated typeface. The still letter itself is already dynamic and contains movement. The chosen white on black background provides such detail. It’s a piece of work you gotta check out there.
Popular Typefaces for Designer
This is simply a compliation of typefaces designers use most, from serif to san, from script to slab. I quite agree with the list, and with the inclusion of almost-made-it typefaces at the end, it seems like a complete list. With example of the typeface (regular, italic, bold, large, and small), there’s also explanation of their strength and usage suggestions. Bravo to the author. I really appreciate the list. It also provides me with more insight of typography.
Typechart
This break, I’ve been exposed to more of digital side to graphic design, which leads me to find this website out. I’m pretty sure it’s common to those web developper, but for a recent type lover over here, this site is simply awesome. Typechart allows web developper to experiment or preview different typefaces they wish use in their design. This website makes it easier and less complicated to keep changing the typefaces to fit their desired design. Typechart also provides CSS, so that with just one click, it updates your site for you. They also includes information whether each typeface is available for Windows or Mac, or both. Just simply a great tool I’m thankful for, even though I do not write script.
Recently, Nokia and KIA have launched out a stop-motion commercial. It intrigues me in which both possess really interesting ideas, and above all, differ immensely in size. You wouldn’t have noticed much from Nokia’s “Gulp”, until you found out it just made a world record for largest stop-motion animations ever made.
For KIA Picanto’s, it’s probably the first nail art animation, that would probably go into world’s record? The result is impressive, considering sizes and details of the animation.
I liked them enough just them being a stop-motion piece, but the fact that both brands incorporate their product or the theme into the ads. It’s not just about selling the oh-so-cool stop-motion. Kia presents their idea of the small size of Picanto with the beautiful small nail art. Nokia simply sells the product by shooting the whole video with their Nokia phone. Their stop-motion might not be the best out there, but I like how they “work” with the brand.
