Individual Assignment 7: Process and Finished work.

We were given a quick exercise yesterday to test our colour theory and colour psychology skills. Basically we had to match a font to the six colours given, and give a word that best describes it.

Screenshot of me going through Adobe Illustrator, trying to find the right font!

Half of the work is choosing a suitable font. That meant going through free font sites such as dafont.com and my computer's existing font bank to look for a font that matched the mood of the colour.

[Fonts used: League Gothic Regular, Ostrich Sans bold, Ostrich Sans medium]

Black: Corporate. The colour black to me is a formal colour, since it does not have any "colour" or hue, per se; it gives off a serious mood. Corporations are serious business, hence the choice of word. The font I chose is a simple, no-nonsense one.

White: Clinical. Since the colour white is hard to see on a white background, I used a font that had a black outline. The colour white is clean and pure. The first thing I think of when I think of the word white are clinics, and the imagery of long hallways and sterilised medical equipment. The font chosen for this one is also a rather serious font, albeit giving off a slightly different mood from the previous one.

Grey: Calm. Most people may think the colour gray is dull. But I like to think of it as a neutral colour, therefore making it give off the impression of calmness. A tall and thin font was chosen, almost resembling a calm, clear mind.

 [Fonts used: Edo SZ, Shagadelic bold, Snell Roundhand black]

Red: Passion. RED. PASSION. THE BLOOD OF OUR ENEMIES. That was the first thing I thought of when I see the colour red. Look at that brush-like font. Almost looks like blood, doesn't it? THE BLOOD OF OUR ENEMI-- yeah okay I'll stop. Red gives off a very passionate feeling because of its intense hue. Really makes you feel like being really passionate about something like KILLING FOR THE BLO- okay no. But there is no doubt that red is sometimes associated with passion.

Blue: Peace. This shade of blue conveys a rather serene feeling, like the blue sky or a calm blue sea. Serene and peaceful. Ironically, I chose a 60s-esque sort of font for this, because peace is often associated with the 60s. Peace out.

Purple: Elegance. Purple does not only resemble royalty, but elegance as well. A sophisticated font was chosen for a sophisticated colour. In addition to the colour purple, cursive fonts also tend to look very fancy and sophisticated themselves.

[Fonts used: ChunkFive, Calgary Script OT, my own font a.k.a. my own handwriting!]

Brown: Stability. Brown is a very earthy tone, so it makes sense that a word to associate it with is Stability. The font chosen is a chunky, serif font to represent something being very grounded. (Get it? Grounded? Earth? Haha okay nevermind that was a lame attempt at trying to be clever)

Pink: Feminity. This one is rather obvious and stereotypical. Barbie dolls, My Little Ponies, and most other toys targeted to girls are pink. Other brands for ladies are usually pink too. The cursive and playful font I chose kind of reminds me of Katy Perry.

Aina: Light blue! I chose light blue to represent my name because it's my favourite colour. And I thought, what better way to represent myself as a font by using my own font! In other words, my own handwriting. I wrote my name with my graphics tablet in Photoshop for this.

That's all for now!

Individual Assignment 7: Colours and Emotions

Today in class we learned a little about colour theory, and colour psychology. That is, how colours can invoke and convey emotions. While a lot of the interpretations are subjective, these theories in general are an extremely useful element of design that can be applied to many things from branding to interior decorating and even fashion!

There are so many articles and charts on the net about this topic. Here are a few I found.

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Individual Assignment 2: Composition & Design

In this week's lecture, we learned about composition and framing, as well as the design process. For our assignment, we had to go around campus and take 20 photos of a certain subject, using our cutout frames made from mounting board. The frame made it easier to see the composition, since it blocked out a portion of the view that was not in the composition.

At the end of the day, we had to take an extra 30 more photos of the same subject. My subject matter was initially signs that I found around campus.

Group Assignment 1: Change of plans.

After some reconsideration, we decided not to use the TV to make our TV bookshelf and instead opted for our backup plan, the umbrella stand.

Here's a picture of the big ol' TV that we were going to use:

Some reasons why we didn't use the TV:

- Hazardous. In order for our TV bookshelf to work. we would have to break the glass of the screen and use the inside of it to place planks as shelves. While in theory, breaking the glass seems easy, practically it is a difficult process. None of us are experienced in breaking glass before and we don't have the right safety equipment, such as goggles.

- Time and cost inefficient. Given the timeframe of the project, it would simply take too much unnecessary time and effort to break the glass. Cleaning up the broken glass pieces would take a long time too.

In theory it looked nice. Credits to Zue for the photo.

A lesson learnt: just because it may look nice in theory, doesn't mean it will work well practically!

Individual Assignment 1: Self Portrait

Hello and welcome! This is my first post on this blog.

Today in our first proper lecture given by Miss Lisa, we were given an overview of the elements of design and a few principles of visual aesthetics. She then showed us a few popular western art movements, such as Romanticism, Impressionism, Pop Art and even Graffiti (I was personally surprised that it's considered an art movement, since it's still so new!).

Which led us to our first assignment: "Design a self portrait based on an art movement that you feel represents you best". In about one and a half hours, we had to come up with an A3 sized portrait of ourselves using the things around us, and as Miss Lisa says, "free stuff".

The style I chose to best represent myself was Constructivism. It is an art movement that started in Russia in 1919 that mainly used on propaganda posters in the war. I like this style because it's simple and bold, yet elegant. I also like the use of minimal colours in this movement, since I consider myself to be a bit of a minimalist too.

Some examples of Constructivism:

Some preliminary sketches I made:

And the final portrait:

I decided to use the sketch in the lower right corner. The final image is a portrait of me in profile view. The methods I used are drawing, gluing, and a bit of collage (the white flower was paster on). I tried to be different and didn't use flowers or leaves picked from the campus like most of my classmates did, instead I borrowed my friends markers to colour it in. I tried to emulate Russian writing by using blocky letters and writing the letter "N" in my name reversed. I chose a yellow background because it represented my outlook on life, which is mostly positive. The flower pasted on my head there also symbolizes a form of happiness. My shirt in the portrait is light blue simply because it's my favourite colour, and in the bottom right corner I wrote "Foundation in Design", because that is basically what represents me now; a student studying Foundation in Design at Taylor's Lakeside.

In our presentation, we were also asked to state why we were studying design. My answer was because I was always interested in design after being exposed to it ever since I was small thanks to my dad (he was an architect, who then became a designer!), and I wanted to pursue something that I truly liked.

Well there you have it, my first assignment. Here's to more posts in the future! :]