I did this particular project with Faizah, Jessie and Litus.

Our storybook title is Toyland Adventure.

While brainstorming ideas for the storybook, we all had certain aims we wanted to stick to. Firstly, we didn’t want to publish a trivial children story, which a child can just read once and not appreciate. We wanted a story that has moral values attached to it. We also thought of what children in general like, and they are mostly animals like puppies or toys. So, we finally decided to create a story on a little boy with his puppy and toys. Our story also has a mystical twist involving fairies and magical toys that can come to life, appealing to children.

Also, my group had very good illustrators (Litus and Faizah), who could draw 3d drawings very well. So, we thought that for our book, our pictures will do more talking, and we wanted to make sure they are perfect and stand out. If you notice, all our pictures are very detailed incorporating shadow. This we feel will really appeal to children. Even those who are younger and are not able to read well enough yet can look at the pictures and understand the story.

For the sizing of the book, we sized it according to our pictures, which we more squarish, hence our book size being 3/4 that of an A4 paper. Fonts used for the storybook is comic sans, which is a little bit more kiddish, appealing to the children. Also, the words we chose were mostly simplistic. This is because we feel that children do have a very short attention span, and by incorporating a lot of difficult words, the child will be turn-off and get bored easily. We kept our story very short too, and minimized having chunks and chunks of words on every page. Instead, short sentences were use so that children could relate to them. The pictures played a bigger role, with the words supporting them. However, we tried using some flowery and descriptive words to stimulate the child’s imagination, and our pictures further enhance this. Colours chosen were mostly pastel and easy on the eyes.

As for the page layout, we initially planned it to have words-picture then picture words per page, going horizontally. This is featured in our very first prototype, which we presented during the last lecture. Only certain pages with significant events will have a whole page with a single picture to itself. However, after going to Goh Brothers for printing, we realize we needed to change this layout. Firstly, we only had 18 pages in total, including the cover page. We were told that by having a hard cover; our book would look really ugly, because it would be too thin as a hard cover book. We really wanted hard cover for our final storybook, so we finally decided that since we have 22 really nicely done pictures, why not have one picture per page, with the words supporting them. I must say this is a must better design, and we should have thought of it sooner, to save us alot of time and last-minute madness. =)) But all swell.

Ok, here’s the breakdown of my group’s job scope.

Litus and Faizah – illustrators

Everyone – editors

Everyone- colouring

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I worked with Jessie, my tutorial mate, to come up with one good movie poster design and one bad design. I focused more on the bad design, while Jessie did her research on the good design.

In the above movie poster of Hairspray (which I consider to be a bad design according to Gestalt’s Laws), aspects of Gestalt’s principles have not been taken into consideration in terms of its Figure and Ground, Similarity, Proximity, Continuity, Closure, Area and Symmetry.

In relation to Figure and Ground, there seems to be alot of things going on in this particular poster. 3 objects seem to be competing for the viewer’s attention, the bright striking pink background, the large coloured words and the centralized main actress. The background seems to be competing for attention with the figures in the forefront. The choice of striking pink as the colour in the background does not complement the colour of the images in the foreground. It forces the viewer to look at 3 different things, all at the same time. There are too many objects and colours chosen are too bright and conflicting.

Gestalt’s principle of Similarity is poorly illustrated in the movie poster. There are attempts made by the designer to achieve some similarity, by making all the fonts and size of the words similar. However, even this attempt is weak, as the colours are not compatible. The rainbow colour of the Movie title Hairspray shouts out too much, when compared to the other words, in semi-transparent white. Sizing is also a problem. Making the size of the main actress as well as the wordings large and similar makes all these objects fight for attention.

In the movie poster, the arrangement of the images and objects are all large and cramped together. The proximity of each image in relation to another is very close. The entire poster becomes very messy and cluttered making the viewer confuse as to where should he focus his attention on the poster.

The movie poster also lacks continuity. The choice of colour for background, image and wordings are imbalance, making the poster disjointed. Instead of allowing the viewer to appreciate the poster as a whole, the viewer is forced to focus attention of 3 locations at the same time. The poster fails to deliver a holistic and complete feeling.

Next up, it terms of the level of closure, the movie poster lacks a frame. Everything is bright, big and cluttered. It feels like the images are spilling out of the poster. Viewers may look at the poster and and lose focus easily, forcing the eye out of the poster.

As for the area the designer worked with, it feels as though everything was just made super sized, bold and bright, and simply cluttered in the center. There is no space left in the poster at all to breathe.

And finally, the symmetry illustrated in the poster is near non-existent. Instead of arranging the images and words in an orderly and symmetrical way to enhance viewers’ vision, everything was just cluttered in the center and stretched to the max.

Alright, so that was my part on the assignment. Really, no offence to the designer of the movie poster. I’m sure he had good intentions in mind. Anyway, I’ve linked my powerpoint presentation too which will include Jessie’s critic on a good movie poster design as well. Enjoy!

Presentation

In my first love card, I used a playful love quote “Love is foolish, but I still might try it sometime” to accompany my design of a playful boy and girl as well. The colours used were all in the red family with 1 or 2 exceptions. However, though my class like the playful message put across, many disagreed with the colour scheme. The colour red was to bright and was fighting for attention everywhere. Many preferred the use of more colours to make the card more colourful to accompany the playful theme.

In my final design, I still stuck to a red colour scheme, but added lighter shades and tones like pink. I also decided to use fire to represent passion and love.

Love Card 1

Front and Back

Love Card 2 (Final)

Inside                         Front and Back

I decided to adopt a simplistic and minimalist structure for my poster. I just wanted to get the message across without any complications.

Reviews From tutorials:

Many thought the main message was brought across, but the tree representing the forest could be darken and leaves could be added. Some advise me to add grass to the surrounding areas too. Also, the words “Save the Forests” must be bigger and bolder in a different font, as the font I used didn’t do justice to it. Overall, the symbolic tree and wordings speaks for itself. Many liked the way I structured my design, in a longitudinal downwards direction, leading the eye from top to bottom, with no distractions.

In my second attempt, I tried putting some leaves on the tree but it just didn’t feel right to me. I decided to just put 1 symbolic leave on the tree as suggested by a classmate. The bare tree depict a dying forest with just one leave left on it. Grass didn’t go well with the poster as well, as it kind of shouts out of the poster and overshadows everything else.

1st attempt

Final Poster Design

Anyways, unlike assignment 1 and 2, which concerned designing and drawing, which is soooooooo not my thing, =D I was really excited to do assignment 3! I’m pretty sure by now everyone knows how bad my drawing really is. =S

I actually thought of getting my close group of friends to act out a short comical scene for me, but yes, they too are having T E S T S! So,I thought instead of dealing with real life people, why not do something more like an animation, using stuff toys. Finally, my stuff toys can come into good use, and not just rot away in my room!

So here’s the story:

Voodoo was miserable for losing his Sweetheart.

He searched high and low for her but could not find her.

He was devastated. None of his friends could cheer him up.

He felt like his heart had been ripped out of him.

He sat by himself thinking back of happier times with Sweetheart.

After awhile, he could not take it anymore and decided to take his life.

Just as he was about the commit suicide, the lift door opened.

Voodoo smelled a familiar scent.

Sweetheart had found her way home!

Voodoo and Sweetheart lived happily ever after.

=) yes.. a bit corny. But oh well, life is but a box of cliches.

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Here are the comments from my tutorial mates:

Overall, many thought my 3D #3 to 2D #2 transformation was too similar so I’ll need to work on that perhaps in Photoshop like someone suggested, or just stick to 2D. It was also agreed that my drawings can be more abstract. So I will be removing the buttons and the handle in my final drawing, and work more with the speakers like many suggested.Thanks for the comments guys!

And here are the improvements made =)) :

I will be using the last drawing #5 as my final symbol. =)

Just some thoughts on the online tutorial:

I think having a forum for us students to critic and receive critic on our work is a great idea! I find that everyone is much more open to new ideas and are more willing to offer constructive comments for others’ works.

Trials: I love CANDY

Trial 1

Trial 2

Final design: I love CANDY

Trial: I hate CATS

Trial 1

Final design: I hate CATS

So this is my brainstorming sketches for the initial stages of the assignment.

Since my name is Melissa but almost everyone call me Mel, I decided to just use Mel, which is shorter !

The reason why I chose CANDY was because I wanted to do something fun and play around with colours. As for the CATS (eew), I really really do have a thing against cats =P so hence the drawings. I’M SCARED OF CATS AND JUST DON’T LIKE THEM AROUND ME. I have to admit I’m not much of an artist =)) , but I’m hoping that through this module, I can at least come away with some basic design skills, which should be helpful in the future.

Brainstorming Stage

Roughs

Here are some of the comments I got in class:

As for the Candy, almost everyone preferred my very first drawing from the brainstorming stage, but advice me to add bold and bright colours to make the picture pop out.

For the Cat, everyone mostly picked the last drawing but preferred my letter ‘L’ to be a cat’s tail, instead of a worm, which made the drawing look weird. The letter ‘M’ could also be more creative and drawn as the cat’s ears. As for the letter ‘E’, my cat could be more animated, and many advised me to draw my cat sprawled on the floor instead.

For the Cat drawing, I decided to stick to the last drawing, but make some changes. For the letter L, I decided to simply draw the a cat facing front.

Alright, so stay tune to see what wonderful drawings I’ll post up next. =)