What's Your Square? ( Final Presentation)

Finally, after almost one month..today is our presentation day! :)

Presentation was suppose to start at 2pm.. but Ms Lisa decided to give us an extra 90 minutes to do some preparation.. . However, we eventually the presentation at 4pm because Ms Lisa had something else to settle before that. I was the 3rd to present my artwork..and I think it went pretty well..thank god for that :)

Some pictures taken during the presentation

 

Managed to spot my artwork??? hahaha....anyways..here is what you all have been waiting for..

PRESENTING TO YOU..MY WONDERFUL AND FABULOUS LOOKING ARTWORK!

Asymmetrical cutout

 Symmetrical cutout

Some of my coursemates artwork

There's a lot more of artworks to be shown...but then again..XP..I'm too lazy to post them all up...tehehehe.

anyways..from this assignment..I have learned a lot of things..For example, PATIENCE!!.. It was definitely not nice knowing that your sketches are being REJECTED by your lecturer..honestly..I was really impatient cause I had to do TONS AND TONS of sketches which were constantly being REJECTED..but nevertheless..I still stayed patience enough and managed to get my sketch APPROVED by Ms Lisa.. Besides that, cutting the design out was really another CHALLENGING task..It really required me a lot of patience..as the paper easily tears apart all the time...I then decided to buy a slightly thicker piece of paper which made it a little easier to cut :) *smart decision*...hmmm..TIME MANAGMENT was also a big issue during this assignment...as I only got my sketch approved 4 days before the presentation day..It was rather a rush to finish up my assignment..I tried my hardest to finish it on time..and indeed..I MADE IT!! *HOORAY*..and last but not least..I have also learned about composition and how to use a pen knife in a proper way..tehehe..thank God for no cuts on my finger/hand during this assignment :P.. Anyways, our artwork ( FID Sem1 & Sem2 ) students will be displayed at the Coda Gallery,Taylor's University Lakeside Campus for a whole week starting from 11th of November :)..Do come and drop by at the gallery to take a look at some of our wonderful display of artworks ^_^...Sayonara peeps! :D

What's Your Square (Progress)

Here are some of the sketches I did back at home for the paper cutout assignment :)

Tutorial -24 October 2013

However,Ms Lisa only approved one of the sketches I have drawn..which is the in the 4th picture ( bottom right ) ..She asked me to cut it out and try experimenting with it..and this was the outcome XD

Ms Lisa said it was nice and even mentioned to me that It looked like a mask..LOLS..I do agree with what she said..It somehow looks like a tribal mask or something XP.

Tutorial/Practical - 28 October 2013

 So, for this week's tutorial/practical class..I've decided to try out something different.. I added some details and changed the pattern according to the previous sketch I did :).

-The outcome after cutting/pasting-

 After getting approval from Ms Lisa. I then started to do my final paper cutout design at home :)

Asymmetrical design 

(Before cutting)

(After cutting / before pasting )

Symmetrical design

(Before cutting)

 (After cutting / before pasting )

Where's the final outcome you ask?? XP...well...stay tuned for my next post to find out then..MUAHAHAHA

Ideation Sketches #3

Here are some of my ideas that I've come up for our Noir Film

                         

 So, after having our tutorial session with Mr Charles,We decided to change the whole concept of our "Cult". We changed our mind and decided to go with a "Teddy Bear" cult instead. Why a teddy bear you ask? Well, the appearance of a teddy bear seems friendly and nice but it actually has a mean intention. It was created to destroy the young generation because they are the ones building up the country.Our main objective is to recruit members to join in the "Teddy Bear" cult.

Who made the first toy bear called teddy bear?

Well there are several stories, below is the most popular one:

Morris Michtom made the first official toy bear called the teddy bear. Michtom owned a small novelty and candy store in Brooklyn, New York. His wife Rose was making toy bears for sale in their store. Michtom sent Roosevelt a bear and asked permission to use the teddy bear name. Roosevelt said yes. Michtom and a company called Butler Brothers, began to mass-produce the teddy bear. Within a year Michtom started his own company called the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company.However, the truth is that no one is sure who made the first teddy bear,

 

Reference : http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventions/a/Teddy_Bear.htm

Design References

Here are some design references I've done for the Noir Film we're going to create

A homeless girl sleeping at a park bench...

  A homeless girl wondering around the street hoping to find a miracle in life

  Reference

http://blogrestandplay.com/2011/08/08/the-a-team-ed-sheeran-white-lips-pale-face-breathing-in-snowflakes/

Ideation Sketches #2

This was a brief storyboard that we've created for our Noir Film.It's basically talking about a homeless girl who is left alone in the streets. The only thing she has left is her teddy bear which has been with her since young. She goes around the streets begging for money and longing for miracle to happen one day. Her bear got snatched away by someone and ever since then..she started losing hope in life. She wonders around the street everyday desperate to seek for a better life. An incident happens to her one day where she almost wanted to take her life by suicide.In the end, she decided to not give up hope in life and continued living.One day, she stumbles upon a poster at the street sides.It's about an organization which can help the homeless people. She was so happy that she finally found the way out of her "homeless" life. Upon arrival at the organization, she was greeted with warm smiles.Many homeless people can be seen queuing up to claim free help from the organization. What made her extremely shocked was that they handed her back the teddy bear to her. It was then, she said to herself, "Many things in life don't come the easy way.But with a little bit of "Hope", we are bound to have happiness in life". After joining the organization, she became much happier then she ever was before :).

Inspiration

This was a music video that we've got inspired from for our Noir Film

The music video is about a homeless girl which is related to our Cult..

Not only that. I've also noticed that it's somewhat like a "Noir" style video

                               

Meaning behind the video                                                                                                 

The song is about a prostitute who gets beaten up, and takes drugs and ends up passing away.
but those lines:
The worst things in life come free to us
- the violence shes getting is free, and its sort of ironic because she gets paid for because shes a prostitute.
And we're just under the upper hand
- also a symbol for violence and neglect, and the fact she is overpowered by her pimp.
Go mad for a couple grams
- this is about the drugs, and the fact she doesn't have much of a meaning to her life so she will go mad if she gets a few grams of drugs because they'll make her feel better.

Ideation Sketches

This is what my group members and I have discussed for our "Noir" Film cult.

My group members consist of me,Kim and David

So basically, this is a simple visual mind map that we've created

p/s : Sorry for the low quality picture..

Anyways, we've decided to have our Cult as "Believe in Yourself" or in other words " Hope".

Basically, every success or achievement starts by an individual having hope and believing in themselves.

I personally believe that any goals in our life can be achieved if we just "Believe". During our group discussion, we've decided to list down our aim/goal of this cult and also the Manifesto involved in this.

 AIM/GOAL

-Stop poverty

-End the big gap between the rich and the poor

-Create awareness

-Improve living standard

 MANIFESTO

-Seeing is believing

-There's enough for everyone

- You can make money without doing evil

-You can be serious without soup

 -Great isn't good enough

 -2 pieces of 50cents is better than 20 pieces of 5cents

- Just a brief idea for our storyline-

Cult

For this post, I'll be talking about "CULT"
to be honest, I've never actually heard of this word before till Mr Charles mentioned it during class

Definition of Cult

The word cult comes from the French culte, and is rooted in the Latin cultus, which means "care" and "adoration." That idea comes from the Latin cultus - the past participle of colere, which means "to cultivate."

1.  a. A religion or religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers 

       often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader.

     b. The followers of such a religion or sect.

 2. A system or community of religious worship and ritual.

 3. The formal means of expressing religious reverence; religious ceremony and ritual.

 4. A usually nonscientific method or regimen claimed by its originator to have exclusive or

     exceptional power  in curing a particular disease.

 5. a. Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing.

     b. The object of such devotion.

6. An exclusive group of persons sharing an esoteric, usually artistic or inTtellectual interest

-A cult  is  usually small and tightly-knit organization, whose beliefs and religious practices operate outside the mainstream.  Some cults may be good and some bad!

EXAMPLES:
 

 

                                -The Manson Family-                                  - The Illuminati-

 -Scientology-

Well, cult can also be seen on the branding side

Definition of 'Cult Brand'

 A product or service that has an energetic and loyal customer base. A cult brand, unlike others, has customers who can be described as near-fanatical, true believers in the brand and may feel a sense of ownership or vested interest in the brand's popularity and success. Cult brands have achieved a unique connection with customers, and are able to create a consumer culture that people want to be a part of.

 From what I learned in class today, It is rather unusual that people would prefer buying a cup of Starbucks coffee instead of some ordinary coffee from another brand. Why would people spend more money to buy a pair of Nike shoes instead of buying a normal pair of shoes at the market?.

  

REFERENCES

.1) http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cult

 2) http://www.themansonfamily.org/story/

 3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati

 4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology
 5) http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cult-brand.asp

Well..after learning all about "Noir" and "Cult" ..Mr Charles told us that we will be making our very own "NOIR FILM"..I was really excited when he mentioned about that! XD..

Noir

Heyyyyyyy ~ (^_^)

so..Mr Charles told us to do some research about the word "NOIR"

when I first heard this word ..I was like..huh?? noah? o.O..noah's ark? LOL! XP
after doing some research..I've found out the actual meaning of  "NOIR"

According to the free dictionary by farlex, noir is defined:

1. Of or relating to the film noir genre.

2. Of or relating to a genre of crime literature featuring tough, cynical characters and bleak settings.

3. Suggestive of danger or violence.

 

Noir is a french word. which means BLACK 

It is well known worldwide

for being a film style called FILM NOIR.

Film Noir literally translates as

"black film" in English. 

The term Film Noir, was first applied to Hollywood films by French critic Nino Frank in 1946,  

Noir film style uses shadowy, dark and haunting visuals which were mostly used for thrillers, suspense, criminals, cops and crime films. 

 Basically, the word NOIR is used to describe things that are dark and dangerous, although the word literally means black.

Here are some examples of Noir Photography

Reference : Noir Photography #1

Reference : Noir Photography #2

In Film Noir, there's a lot of attempts to take advantage of shadows in every scene.Lighting is very important for this type of films. It is basically done at night because they want it to be a little bit more dark and dramatic.The sense of mystery is what people enjoy watching.

Here is a video I found on YouTube talking about Film Noir

Famous Film Noir Titles

Film makers and graphic designers play a very important role in create the opening credits for a Film Noir.
They work with typography and fonts. Some of them are animated which are very interesting to look at.

 

For more info about "NOIR"

References
1) http://voices.yahoo.com/character-prototypes-typical-storylines-film-4052641.html
2) http://www.thefreedictionary.com/NOIR
3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir
4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2_wWc99g88
5) http://www.filmnoirstudies.com/home.asp

What's Your Square??

For today's class,
Ms Lisa gave us our next assignment which is

WHAT'S YOUR SQUARE??

we were all so blur when Ms Lisa mentioned this to us o.O

Basically, we learned about expanded squares today :)

Expanded square is simply taking a square piece of paper and using a pen knife or blade, we have to cut out our design and the leftover paper must be used again on the mirrored side of your cut out. Every single paper you cut out cannot be thrown away.Ms Lisa gave us around 15minutes to make a brief mind map on what is our square going to be like.We all had to come up with at least 5 different themes for our square and Ms Lisa will choose the final theme for us. In the end, the theme of "Geometrical Shapes" was given to me by Ms Lisa.She mentioned to me that I have always done realistic stuffs and wanted to challenge me by choosing this theme. I do agree with Ms Lisa as I am not really good with geometrical shapes and patterns. After obtaining approval from Ms Lisa, we were given an hour to do some research and rough sketches for our square design :) . Class was dismissed at 5 something and the tutorial will be postponed to the following Monday ( 7/10/2013 ).

Further instructions : Ms Lisa told us to come up with 12 different sketches for Monday's practical session

 ( 6 symmetrical and 6 asymmetrical ). We were also instructed to bring our cutting mats,blades and pen knife as we will be doing our paper cut outs in class itself :)... 

This was a brief mind map I did during class today 

One of the sketches I did for my square design

 I was inspired by the puzzle "Tangram"

Discovering the "New me"

Hey everyone!!
I'm finally back from my 1 month semester break :)

Today we had our first 2D Design class with Ms Lisa

We were told in advance to bring along our basic tool kit to class..

Ms Lisa gave us a brief description on some of the things we're going to be working on throughout this semester.After that, our first assignment was given ( wow, first class and one assignment already??) haha.

Task : We had approximately one hour and thirty minutes
to go out of the classroom and find items that best represent ourselves after going through Semester 1

 -A rough sketch of my 3D self portrait-
 

I went around campus with Kim searching for any trash that we could use..

In the end..I managed to find alot of things such as, colour papers, water bottle caps, colour sticks, plasticine,sticks and not to forget..a transparent sandwich container! :P..and so, i started drafting out my idea on how my self portrait is going to look like.It was really hectic as most of us didn't have UHU glue..so I was stuck with using my "PRECIOUS" scotch tape :( ..oh well..gotta sacrifice for my assignment right? xP..

 -The Mini Me-

So, this was what I came up with.. :) ...cute right? haha..well . just want to share with all of you about what my artwork actually means. Firstly, the reason why I used a transparent sandwich container is to show that I'm OPEN to others. What I mean by this actually during semester 1, I wasn't really that OPEN to others about my artwork and was lacking presentation skills. I believe that after going through semester 1, my presentation skills have really improved a lot . Next, I used sticks to represent my arm. As you can see, sticks are tough and strong. I personally believe that I have become a stronger person both mentally and physically.Going through all those stress everyday during Semester 1 really made me realize that I am stronger then I think!. Next, the crumpled pink paper represents my brain. The words on the piece of white paper are some of the knowledge that I've gained throughout semester 1 for example; rules of third,composition,art movement,colour wheel and many more. The empty spaces shows that there is much more things for me to learn and discover :) . The green frame represents my spectacles which is part of my identity..tehehehe XD....Last but not least, the maroon plasticine represents my eyebags. Yes, as a student, we are required to do multiple assignments and tasks set by our lecturers. We spend countless amount of time trying to finishing up our work. Not to mention , all those late and sleepless nights.! No wonder most of us seems to have eyebags..hahaha XP * true fact *. anyways.. I actually learned how to managed my time well so that I can submit my work on time and also to have efficient amount of sleep.

SOME PICTURES TAKEN BY THE LAKESIDE

 

*Credits to Kim for this amazing shot *

 

 Oh look! Mini Me decided to come and drop by the Lakeside :)

 Just a random sunset picture ^^

Signing off,

Pui Leng <3