Design Principles/ Week 5 - Symbol, Imagery and Typography

13/04/2021 (Week 5)

Ngu Kah Shin / 0347666

Design Principles / Bachelor of Design in Creative Media / Taylor's Design School

Week 5: Symbol, Imagery and Typography - Any design programme and collage work

LECTURES

During the lecture with Dr Charles, he mentioned how symbols are very often stylised. Stylisation is simplifying something into a more graphical element, usually comprised of 2 or 3 objects merged together. He also mentioned eccentricity is a very interesting thing, some people will be negatively judgmental about it but there are also some people who might find you interesting because of it. This reminded me of the famous quote, "You can be the sweetest peach on the tree, but there is always someone that doesn't like peaches." Oh well, we can't please everyone!

Fig 1.1, 1.2. Lecture notes on Symbol, Image and Word

INSTRUCTIONS

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TASK 1: Symbol

For this piece, I was inspired by the upcoming celebration, Mother's Day. My mother is truly my everything- my best friend, my carer, my teacher, my hero, the list goes on! I was especially emotional during mother's day because it was the first mothers day I spent it over a video call with my mom, not physically there with her. So in this piece, I really wanted to express my love for her, through the use of art with no words included.

The facial features, hair and clothes were directly based on my mom. I referred to one of the photos we took when she was sending me off to KL. The use of red and pink, to me, is what my mom radiates. Her hugs are warm and her words are velvet soft that comforts me on my darkest days. I guess it's true when they say distance makes the heart grows fonder!

Fig 2.1, 2.2 Compilation images of visual research, idea exploration and sketches during the process

Fig 2.3 Time-lapse video of Symbol

FINAL DESIGN OUTCOME: SYMBOL

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TASK 2: Imagery and typography

While this coming Sunday being Mother's Day, it is also my father's birthday! I decided this was the perfect opportunity to dedicate both works for my mom and dad each. My dad may be less affectionate compared to my mom but he is the most supportive yet humourous dad a daughter could ever ask for. I am able to talk my heart out to him and he always gives the best advice.

So for this piece, we had to create a collage work. I decided to compile a bunch of his favourite things that I know from heart. The use of the blue background is because I remember he mentioned his favourite colour is blue. I decided to use some Chinese words because Chinese is our mother tongue, though I would have used Fu Zhou if it wasn't just a dialect. His birthday is displayed on the left, arranged vertically. The Chinese words seen on the bottom right are lyrics to a song he used to sing to my siblings and I. It is called the Red Dragonfly and it's about growing up, I guess appropriate for the situation I am in, just left my parents, everything to pursue my dreams. The use of a little pop art style yet vintage was inspired by the decades he grew up in the 70s and 80s. The colours and texture is a filter of how I see my dad's past when he tells us his childhood stories- lively, sunkissed with sepia-toned in his days of yore.

Fig 3.1, 3.2 Compilation images of visual research, idea exploration and process work

I also implemented the hierarchy in terms of typographical work. The title of the piece is the biggest and in white, so it is the most obvious among other elements in the piece. Then, I also have the title in English, right below the Chinese title. On the left, I wrote down his birthday in fairly big font size but I reduced the opacity to bring less attention to it as to create hierarchy. Only image elements related to his favourite thing are placed in the collage work so that is part of the Imagery principle mentioned by Dr Jinchi in the lecture video. I think it's fairly important to note that I have only started learning Adobe Photoshop less than a month ago!

FINAL DESIGN OUTCOME: IMAGE AND WORD

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Ellis Ngu Kah Shin [0347666]

Design Principles/ Week 5 - Symbol, Imagery and Typography

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