Excursion! Not to the zoo, though :(
Hey guys! For our last DI lesson we had a field trip to the National Museum!
Never been much of a museum person, but after the trip I’ve realised that there’s actually a lot to like about these quaint places which are bursting at its seams of heritage and historical juiciness (okay I exaggerate, but it was a great experience!).
With a rich history dating back to its inception in 1887, the National Museum of Singapore is Singapore’s oldest museum. It is heavily inspired by European influences and modern architecture, and the result is one that is truly stunning. I’ll let the pictures do the talking ;)
here’s the entrance of the museum itself; not too shabby, eh?
Here’s the interior of the lobby, featuring the iconic dome-shaped ceiling with stained glass panels. The 50 dome panels were actually intended to be a tribute to the Queen’s birthday!
When we reached the place, a guide brought us around various exhibits and explained in vivid detail about the history and design of the museums. Many things were note-worthy, such as the intricate designs of the railings and the mesmerizing patterns of the columns which supported the structure (eg. Doric, Ionic columns).
Here’s a couple of my favourite shots from the museum, focusing on hawker food and its culture back in the early days of Singapore.
Here are a couple of old-school molds for food!
Ahh, le good ole’ dessert cart.
A tool you don’t see your typical Ice Kachang dude welding
An interesting architectural aspect of the building - A glass ceiling passageway that’s meant to be a link between the 2 structures, new and old. Fiberglass is used to ensure an undistorted view of the magnificent dome above.
This picture’s from the newer part of the museum, and one might notice that the design of this area is starkly different from the other with the used of glass, stainless steel and other modern materials. Oh, and those are some Ionic columns! Reminiscence of the design from the older days.
All in all, it has been a fulfilling trip to the museum - a place I honestly never thought I’d step foot in. This pretty much sums up my journey throughout Design and Illustration. Never been much of the artsy fellow myself, but I have to say that this module has taught me that there’s a whole lot of thought that goes behind designing; be it an advertisement or a historical structure.
I can safely say I’ve gained a deeper understanding and appreciating for design as a whole, and look forward to my future endeavors with Art (so to speak ;P)
P.S. Thanks Ms. Nga for taking the time off to plan excursions for us! And of course for making DI lessons interactive and interesting as always. We appreciate it :)
Giving threadless a shot!
Okay, here’s an update on my threadless project! I’ve submitted my design and awaiting approval from the guysat threadless. It’s a little shoddy, but I think I’m quite content with how the shirt turned out. Here’s a look!
The concept was fairly simple, just a bear who got sick of being hunted and decided to turn on the hunters instead. Childish? Maybe. Lame? Possibly so. Smart? I don’t know, I hope so? xD
I’ve realised that many designs on threadless.com thrive on their concepts, and although the design may be simple, it’s the genius behind the idea that really drives it home. While designing my shirt, I found that it is agonizingly difficult to come up with a design that you really like. Much thought and conceptualization has to be done in order for a design to really shine, not to mention the tremendous amount of development. Although I personally do believe several ideas are one in a million and can fly instantly, majority of designs will require time to be fine-tuned.
Here’s the proof of submission!
Now I’ll let time do it’s work, and wait for a (hopefully) favourable response from the folks at threadless.
Till then! ;D
Cardinal Rule of Advertising Design
In advertising, it is important to keep in mind the following:
- Tolerate (e.g. no gory pictures for youth)
- Distasteful (what’s considered vulgar/distasteful?)
- Know your limits (regard Code of Advertising Ethics)
- Is it or is it not cool (to your TA)
- Humour (to different age groups and cultures), culture, frame of reference (e.g. colour associations in different cultures)
Also, we have to:
- Respect your audience
- Don’t underestimate them
- Do understand them
As a rule of thumb, a few things have to be avoided while designing ads. A common mistake is using the product as the main visual, or making the logo very big. These make the ad scream out “I’M AN AD, LOOK AT ME!”, which in turn make them appear to be very tacky.
Very typical ad layout:
- Looks like a visual sales pitch
- Product is obvious
- Not visually unified
- Little graphic impact
- Not memorable
- No visual surprise
- Boring
An atypical ad layout which we should all strive for!
- Visually surprising
- Visually engaging (digest/admire/read more)
- Stops you
- Makes you remember the ad message (not just the ad)
- Seductive (creates emotion within people, create likeability)
- Fresh
- Motivating
- Worthy of being hung on the wall (ulti!)
Why don’t cha come on over, Valerie ~
Okay, so I’ve finished my final design of my mascot.
Meet..
Valerie! Pretty, ain’t she? ;D
Basically I thought that having a (sexy? I tried! D:) female mascot with a slender figure would be attractive to the masses, both the females AND the males. A simple sketch of an attractive looking girl would send the message home that if you drink SOBE, you’ll be like her! Or for the guys, maybe give you the looks/figure/confidence to snag a pretty girlfriend.
She was quite a pain to draw on the tablet but i think she turned out okay! Simplicity was my objective here, and I think i’m pretty satisfied with how it turned out.
Take care all!
A White Christmas!
Presenting to you - my CA2 ad for Nanyang Optical!
For this particular ad, I wanted to keep to a theme of a “white Christmas”, hence the respective dominating colours cream and black. Using the image of a girl wearing glasses, I placed simple images of a reindeer and a christmas tree, symbolizing the first things that come to mind when one mentions the word “Christmas”.
While I had quite a agonizing time trying to squeeze in the list of promotions, I’m generally satisfied with how the ad has turned out. I somehow wanted the ad to come across as one that was informative and not too complex/complicated at the same time, and I have to agree that I could have made a better choice on the design and concept of the ad. I had originally wanted it to come across as an abstract, artsy ad which would capture audiences’ eyes, hence drawing attention to the promotions and information that the ad is trying to convey.
Working on this CA2 project has also taught me invaluable lessons about spacing and margin. Important information should be placed in an area of the ad which isn’t too messy so as to prevent clutter. Also, margins have to given, so that the wordings are not too close to the edges (people might miss them, printing issues, etc.).
Understanding advertising
Since a young age, we have been exposed to many modern advertisements from mediums such as the television and radio. I remember admiring the flashy ads that I used to watch over and over again as a kid.
After reading the article on effective advertising, I’ve learnt that to truly create a quality ad, one has to think from the consumer’s perspective and understand the factors that drives their buying decisions. This is meaningful as when we know how the consumer thinks, we would be able to construct an ad that would really connect with the audience.
A good guideline to follow would be the 5-step creative process:
- The assignment
- Preparation
- The creative process
- The solution
- The verification
Reading this article has really opened up my eyes to how a truly successful ad would work, ads that are On Strategy and On Target. and to quote the article: “skillfully delivering the message, like arrows hitting their target”.
Here’s an ad which I think was spot-on regarding it’s objective, target audience and the way it communicated its message. Showing that by using the tooth paste featured, anybody (young, old, fat or skinny) could tear apart billboards with just their bare teeth. I found it very attention grabbing and innovative/creative at the same time!
Mr. Pickles!
Say hello to Mr. Pickles! :D
These are a few of the concept drawings for our cat mascot. I’ve found out that coming up with both a catchy and iconic mascot is tough work! Wonder how the genius at Pixar and Disney make it look so effortless! Although I indeed want Mr. Pickles to look classy and professional, I’d still very much want the final design to be clean and simple, nothing too extravagant or fancy.
The following are important to keep in mind while developing our print ads for next week:
Deconstruct the ad
Emotion
Response
Huh? (It has to be attention grabbing!)
Science (methods that are tried and tested in terms of design)
I enjoyed the Hallmark ads that Ms Nga showed us earlier in the lesson, and I believe they did a terrific job enthralling audiences and communicating their message through playing on peoples’ emotions. I do think they’re a tad bit too sappy for my liking :x Nevertheless, it was good knowing how Hallmark ads clearly took note of:
- Their audience
- The purpose of the ad
- The message it’s trying to communicate
- and the execution of it all (colors, techniques)
Keeping in mind these factors (which are essential for a successful ad or campaign), I’m gonna have to rack my brain over the weekend for an idea/concept regarding the ad! *puts thinking cap on and ponders*
And more Mr. Pickles!
My ad featuring a random, cat who’s deep in thought! (Mr. Pickles is on the can of sardines in the thought bubble, by the way)
We spent today evaluating each others’ ads! I must say some of the works by my fellow classmates are very impressive.
I particularly liked Ming Jie’s ad, it looked very professional! Aesthetics aside, most of the ads were successful in communicating their message and attracting the target audience.
But you know what they say, there’s always room for improvement - and so we went about discussing on how each of us could further improve our print ads.
Moving on to our next assignment..
IMAGE & TYPE FOR UNITY AND CLARITY!
- Create an A4 ad that a design magazine would want to use and the creative designers would wanna see
- Practice what you preach in the headline
- Gotta attract their attention!
HEADLINE: Practice safe design, always use a concept.
Enough said. Time for more brain racking, more next week!
Meowww.
Today’s lesson was on the development of an ad! Ms Nga seems to have a liking for animals, (green aliens too, perhaps?) and we got grouped again into different Tribes. Me and Cassandra were team Cat! Basically, the cat would act as the mascot for sardines, the product which we were assigned to.
A couple of pointers had to be taken into account while brainstorming, such as the target audience and some of the product’s key benefits (tasty, affordable, convenient, healthy, to name a few).
After much consideration, we finally decided on the name Sillycat Sardines. We wanted to portray the product as one that was humble and affordable, so that any cat lover could pick up a can and make a cat happy. Sounds simplistic? That’s what we want it to be ;)
The sardines would come in many different flavours such as:
- Chili
- Tomato
- Sour cream & onion
- Barbeque
Most people would think we’re a little daft, but I feel that if humans get the luxury of a myriad of flavors while eating potato chips, why can’t cats have that benefit while enjoying Sillycat Sardines!?!
Here’s a couple of sketches of our mascot Sillycat/Mr. Pickles.
Till next time!
Hot damn, KFC is good!
Now that the first post is out of the way let’s get down to business.
This is a blog that students taking Design and Illustration are supposed to create, and in it we’re supposed to blog about our lessons/visits.
Okay, so I didn’t attend the first lesson due to falling ill. I certainly hope I didn’t miss out on too much though! I eventually attempted the day’s activities anyway. I heard that Ms Nga went through a couple of relevant points and techniques that we should take note while drawing, such as viewing the drawings at a distance every now and then to make sure we’re on the right track.
We’re supposed to do 3 sketches of a farm animal (mine was a chicken! mm chicken wings) and after each sketch, an “animal buddy” would evaluate your drawing and you would have to improve on the next one bearing in mind the critique that you had received from your animal buddy. Thanks to Yihan for helping me out with this!
Here’s some pictures of my chicken, try not to laugh!
The first two drawings of the chick!
Opps, the last one’s inverted.
It may have been a simple excercise, drawing these little chickies, but I’ve learnt that one has to be open to different kinds of critique and opinions for a piece of work to be as perfect as it can be. I also feel it’s important to find out what others feel about your drawings as we may sometimes miss important, minute details that may be lacking while we progress.
Drawing/sketching/Duplicating cute cartoon animals on paper isn’t exactly my field of expertise but I’ve learnt that with hard work and determination, almost anything is possible! (c’mon, the last one’s not too shabby!)
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