Initial design was not on costumes, but on rice. But it was too simple as can be seen from below and hence called for a change in design. haha. There are some colour distortions. The images of the Indian, Thai and Japanese women were from cliparts.
For the next design, I had to trace out the images from scratch. They were traced using the same method as in Assignment 2, where we had to create Pictograms. They were then coloured in Photoshop. Because they were outlined in Illustrator, all the details provided in the clip art were lost. I had to add in my own details using Photoshop brushes. As can be seen in the final postcard design, the Indian sari was added some sparkles to make the costume more unique.
There are 4 colour schemes initially, each based on a season. Blue for winter, green for spring, orange for autumn and pink for summer. Initial design as seen below was to place these 4 different colours of a nationality in one postcard, but it did not fully represent a colourful Asia.
The solution was thus to add in different Asian costumes so it is more vibrant and colourful. Colour schemes are based on the background. This is so the spotlight on the costumes do not get compromised. 4 schemes were created
Pastel scheme
Shades of black scheme
Fabric Scheme
Grayscale scheme (some distortions occured??)
The final chosen design was the fabric scheme, as it it able to bring out the costumes most effectively.
A children's storybook was decided for this final project. Several themes considered, for example, family values, self-acceptance and also friendship and teamwork. We decided to go with teamwork, as we felt it was not a theme commonly explored in children's storybooks.
1. Brainstorming and story generation
Chosen theme: Teamwork
This theme was based upon a personal teaching experience of a group member.The story centers around the two groups within the Alphabets, the vowels and the consonants, who did not like each other, and hence did not like to work together. However, when a crisis emerges, the vowels decided that they have to put aside their differences and work with the consonants to throw a spectacular part for the King of Alphabet Land.
Moral of the story:
The moral of the story is how teamwork is vital to success, and in a society that promotes individualism, we believe it is essential to teach unity as an important concept in today's world.
Typography
Several font types were considered for this storybook. We wanted font types that would appeal to children. However, most of such font were unsuitable as they are often illegible. Thus, we had to search for a font that was legible, yet appealing to children, which was not an easy task, considering the amount of fonts available for free download on the internet. The final choices for font type were:
FG Klara: This font was decided for our body text. It is available for download from http://www.1001freefonts.com. This font was chosen primarily because the space between each letters was not too cramped. A bold but not too thick font meant that there would be easier readability. It also added an unique and child-like element to our book, suitable for readers of our target age group.
Akbar:This font was obtained from http://dafont.com and it captures the essence of children’s handwriting. This would be suitable to our activity page, which allows the child to either fill in the page by hand, or by using stickers provided in the book. This font also resembles our main text body’s font.
Colour Scheme
Colours used for this storybook were bright and colourful. This is to contrast the characters against a white background for the pages of the storybook. We also made sure that for the King and Queen who often appear as a pair, had colours that complemented each other. We realised that the colour of our characters changed once the CMYK mode was employed, which made the initial chosen colours to be dull, the opposite of our intended effect. As such, we made sure that colours employed in the colouring of our characters would still be bright. This was done through a careful selection of colours.
Character Building
Characters were drawn using Adobe Illustrator using the pen tool. In Adobe Flash, the line tool was employed. After the characters were painstakingly traced (they were hand sketched before being scanned in), they were then transferred over to Adobe Photoshop for colouring. Gradient as well as the paintbucket was the tool of choice.
Expressions
Characters were given expressions for certain scenes. For example, the character "A' features in many scenes that require different expressions. To fully achieve the effect of say, excitement, we drew "A" with a wide smile, with hands in the air. When we wanted to portray angry, we drew "A" with arms by the side, and also changed the way his eyes and mouth looked. Textures
For characters like the animals, textures were added, such as a rough skin texture for the elephant, and a fur like texture for the lion. While the elephant did indeed achieve that rough like effect, it was not that obvious on the picture of the lion, especially when printed (the fur like texture was visible on screen). We felt that the addition of such textures would add a sense of realism, although on hindsight, a better effect would have been achieved if we had stuck on cloth of rough and furry texture respectively.
Text Positioning
4 variations of text positions were employed in our storybook.
- Text on the right of pictures
- Picture between text
- Picture below text
- Picture above text.
This was based on a 4x4 layout grid. 10mm margin space was added all around to ensure there was enough space during printing.
Production Stages
1. Brainstorming of themes, moral of the story
2. Writing storyline and character building
3. Illustration process
4. Layout selection
5. Putting it all together
6. Editing
7. Print
8. Reflection; spotting of mistakes
9. Re-print.
As seen from above, the book was printed twice. The first print allowed us to spot several mistakes we were unaware of previously. Corrections were immediately made before quickly being sent off for printing again.
Reflections
The building of this storybook was particularly frustrating at times, though a valuable process that I can proudly say I have experienced. Working on Illustrator for drawing out pictures severely tested my patience, as it was a very long process, where I must take into account different stroke weight of every different part of a character. For example, the Queen's eyelashes was drawn with a stroke size of 0.75, different from the stroke size of her body, which was at 2. In another example, the character C was of an elderly with bushy eye brows. As such, I decided to completely fill the eyebrow white, before adding a hair-like effect using Photoshop.
While we had thought our book looked nice on screen, it was a different case when it was sent for the first round of printing. Insufficient margin space was given in the first draft of print, which resulted in the printer having to expand the printing space, and reduce the size of our image. This led to an ugly column, though not visible unless seen up close. It however taught us a valuable lesson of remembering to add at least 10mm margin space in our next and final draft (cost and time constraints, haha)
Working in a group of three does indeed have its pros and cons. While we were able to decide quickly on what we wanted (less people, less differences, quicker agreement process), the workload was indeed more than other groups who had 4 or 5 people. Thus, we decided to keep our book simple, choosing to work with what we can. Our division of labour was also strongly based on each individual's skills. Hence, one person took care of hand drawing the characters before scanning them into the computer. After that, another person took care of the digital illustrations and colouring of the characters. Amidst these, another person took care of the backgrounds in the storybook. Once a person was done with what she was to do, she would then move on to help someone else. This method of division proved effective, as we were able to complete our assignment on time.
All in all, the project was a rewarding, though extremely time-consuming experience. :p
For this assignment, I decided to do something that is rather personal, which is to Prevent Colorectal Cancer, which my grandfather succumbed to 2 years ago.
The colour blue was chosen for the background as it is the official colour for colorectal cancer awareness.
I had initially wanted to write "Looking for Treasure Island?" and something along those lines because my friend had commented that the initial image which was a fully red colon looked like a map. But after adding colour to it, another friend commented that it looked like kissing seahorses. I decided to go with "seahorses?" since it did resemble seahorses more so than a map.
Also, I was deciding between Prevent Colorectal Cancer and Save Yourself, but decided to go with the former as it was more clear cut.
The text in the middle is deliberately small, as I thought people who are truly intrigued would take a closer look at the poster.
EDIT:
Some updates - Slight change in the former design although the concept remains the same. The aim of creating awareness for colorectal cancer is retained even in the change in design.
"Prevent Colorectal Cancer" goes right to the top now, as this is the main message. The blue background is also removed and replaced in favour of the Colorectal Cancer Awareness ribbon, as per Alfred's advice. The text in the middle is also enlarged. Why is the colon in front instead of the ribbon? I felt that the diseased colon would be a more eye-catching picture compared to the ribbon. Also, most people are not familiar with this ribbon, as we are more used to the green and white ribbon (say no to drugs) and so on. Furthermore, if the ribbon was to be placed at the front, the text would have to be changed to a different colour, which would look unsuitable in the current colour scheme of white, red and blue.
There were several inconsistencies in the initial photo story, and cos it's nearing exams, I couldn't ask my friend to pose for me again. =x
This time round I made use of figurines lying around at home. And lots and lots of Photoshop. o.O considering I use Illustrator most of the time. But this assignment has really allowed me to improve my Photoshop skills. lol.
Original photos were taken against a white background. For example:
Some pictures were used as originally taken, but other were given a background, as having a white background for the entire story would be plain. I decided to then create grass for the little Kung Fu boy. Googled on a tutorial, and then created my own grass! It wasn't as difficult as I thought: layers, lots of different filters, and then we get grass.
The story is as follows (click to enlarge):
There are dream-like sequences in the story. From frame 2 to 6, the pictures suddenly become quite blurry. This is to let known that the character has entered into his dream. The dream effect was done through duplicate layers, gaussian blur and then changing the blending mode of the layers. Shadow was also dropped on the character to make it look more realistic.
For this assignment, Illustrator's pen tool was used in tracing the details of the photocopier.
Initially, all lines were of size 2, but with Alfred's advice, details such as the handle and buttons of the photocopier were changed to size 1.
I chose this particular picture of a photocopier as I felt that it would be easier to do the reductions if there was a lot of details. However, I soon learnt that it was not an easy task to do, with that many details in the picture. It did give me a lot of room to reduce into my final pictogram though. As the reduction steps went on, it became easier for me to take out unwanted/redundant details, as I had many details available for deletion.
One problem I encountered was when I had traced entire frames in one stroke using the pen tool. This led to problems during the reduction process, as portions I wanted to delete could not be deleted. I learnt that for future illustrations, it would be better to tackle complicated outlines using several lines instead of one.
I also learnt that Flash was an easier programme when illustrating pictograms as it allowed easy manipulations of lines drawn.
Comments given were that a lot more reductions could be done in the 4th and 5th step. This was where I felt that the photocopier was starting to look like a printer instead of a photocopier. As such, I decided to work on reduction 3, choosing to reduce the illustration further.
The final pictogram is as follows. White outline was used for the details of the photocopier, while a black fill was used for the body of the machine.
The sketches done were based on 2 things - aikido, as well as my love for music. The left top panel is actually a sketch based on the manipulation of my aikido belt to form my name. The bottom left panel is of little aikido men in their uniform, using their hands and legs to spell out the letters of my name.
The right panel are sketches of the wires of my earphones, twisted to form the letters. They are somewhat similar, except in the bottom left, I added another "layer" to make the wires look more realistic.
I decided to go with the wires as my rough, as I decided that I love music more so than aikido. In the roughs, I added in my iPod touch, so I could have the wires coming out of the player rather than it lying on a surface by itself, which would look kinda weird.
Based on the roughs, I worked on my prototype (?) with Illustrator and came up with this. The iPod was done with the help of the standard shapes, while the wire was done using the Pen tool. The anchor points of the Pen tool allowed me to curve the letters of my name at certain points to create a more realistic look of wires twisting. I also added the shadow effect to make it look as if the player is lying on a flat surface. A background was created because I needed to make the wires stand out, as it was quite camouflaged without one. Again, making use of the rectangle and star tool, I blended the two shapes and it came out looking like this. I wanted to go with the reasoning that music adds colour to our life, which explains the colourful background, which however, had the opposite effect unfortunately
Comments received from the class was that the background was too complicated, and that the star took away the focus of my name. Mr. Low suggested removing the star, and also making part of my name appear in the player, such that the screen (the grey space) was not wasted.
This is the revised version:
Following Mr. Low's advice, I made my name appear in the screen of the player, adding a bit of a glowy effect. The rest of my name comes out from the wires, with the ear pieces resting on the side. This time round, I used the paint tool to draw out my name, but it was quite difficult doing this with a mouse. But after several tries, I got something that I was satisfied with, which was this. Instead of a complicated background in this revised version, I went with a simple one, mainly so the white wires could be seen when printed out on paper. It still looks simple, but I think I remember it being said in lecture that it is better to be simple? haha.
The solution was thus to add in different Asian costumes so it is more vibrant and colourful. Colour schemes are based on the background. This is so the spotlight on the costumes do not get compromised. 4 schemes were created
