Design Principles: Final compilation and reflection

 24.08.2021 - 23.11.2021 (Week 10- Week 14)

Sasilvia Cheong Pei Hoong / 0345031 / Bachelors of Design in Creative Media

Design Principles

Final Compilation and Reflection

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EXERCISE AND PROJECTS

Exercise 1: Gestalt theory and contrast 

Exercise 2: Emphasis / balance / repetition / movement 

Exercise 3: Harmony / unity / symbol / word and image 

Project 1: Self-portrait 

Project 2: Sense of place 

Final project: Visual analysis

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Submissions:

Exercise 1: Contrast and Gestalt theory

24/8/2021 - 14/9/2021 (Week 1 - Week 4)

Contrast

Fig. 1.1 Final design for contrast JPEG

                    

Fig. 1.2 Final design for contrast PDF

  "Lady with Red Eyes"

The lady with red eyes is looking up at the sky with light and hope in her eyes thinking 

"When will all of this end?". When will what end? The pandemic? Discriminations? Animal cruelty? Pollutions? What comes up in your mind right now? Ask yourself. Do you want it all to end?

Gestalt Theory

Fig. 1.3 Final design for gestalt theory (Principal  of Figure/Ground) JPEG

Elements that be found: Earth, two human hands, a fallen leaf, a bird and dog head.

 

Fig. 1.3 Final design for gestalt theory (Principal  of Figure/Ground) PDF

  "The World in Our Hands"

Throughout decades, the earth is changing, it is slowly getting destroyed. From climate change to varies types of pollutions, what can we do to save earth? Only us humans can decide whether we want to keep on destroying the earth or save it as the fate of earth is in our hands. One day it might be too late to change anything and everything will fall into despair and regret. Earth is not only a place for humans it is also the beloved home for various species of animals and plants. Staying still will not change anything, lend a hand and save the earth.

Exercise 2: Repetition and Movement

31/8/2021 - 14/9/21021 (Week 2 - Week 4)

Repetition

Fig. 2.1 Final design for repetition

Silhouette of human figures are copy and pasted, shadows on the bottom of the image is created by distorting the human figures and lowering the opacity. The human figure is to avoid monotony while the upper part is negative space.

 

Fig. 2.2 Final design for repetition PDF

   "Don't Look At Me"

This work was actually inspired by a person who has social anxiety, for a situation where they have to go outside or talk to a stranger they will have this feeling where people are just staring at them and judging them which makes them start hearing things and feel uneasy and they just end up breaking down.

Movement

Fig. 2.3 Final design for movement

The water swirl in the mug was created by using the liquify tool in Procreate.

Fig. 2.4 Final design for movement PDF

 "Consumption"

Consuming something once in a while does not have any effect to the body, but once you get addicted and consume the same thing many times daily it starts to poison your body and slowly kills you. This actually represents people who have an addiction of drinking too much coffee, sugary drinks and alcohol daily. The spiral movement of the drink is the drink starting to hypnotize you into drinking more of it, the green and black water is poison while the black background represents darkness where everything else does not matter as long as you drink that cup of poison.

Exercise 3: Harmony and Unity

14/9/2021 - 28/9/2021 (Week 4 -Week 6)

Harmony

Fig. 3.1 Harmony final outcome

Fig. 3.2 Harmony final outcome PDF

"Lurking Lotus"

Seeing lotus lurking beneath the pond. "Why are some with lotus on their head and why are some with only sprouts?"  The heads with flowers blooming on top represents people who open their eye and acknowledge what is going on in the world where the flower on their head blooms with knowledge. While the heads hiding in the water with sprouts on their head are people who hides from reality and shuts themselves out from society, so they are still a sprout trying to grow out of life.

Unity

Fig. 3.3 Unity final outcome 

Fig. 3.4 Unity final outcome PDF  

"Suffocate"

Society tends to judge a person very easily and throw in harsh comments without knowing the backstory of that person especially in social media. In the end the person will end up being suffocated by the overwhelming amount of negative comments they received and suffer in emptiness without anyone there to save them.

Project 1: Self-Portrait

28/9/2021 - 12/10/2021 (Week 6 - Week 8)

Fig. 4.1 Final Self-Portrait JPEG

"Haywire"

Don't you ever wonder what is going on with someone's mind? Well for mine there is this space inside my mind like there is another "me" inside of it. The inner me who is holding in all the unwanted emotions that I do not want anyone to see, from being clumsy and breaking things, crying without reasons or getting mad easily because I was having a rough day. I started keeping all my real feelings in since nobody really likes them and just called me careless and dramatic because of it. 

There is two me in this, the inner me who is bleeding through my fingers trying to let go of my emotions where the blood are all my emotions flowing out. Then there is outer me which is the me who is presented to others, is stuck in the mirror and screaming and yelling to tell the inner me to stop pouring the emotions out. If you look closely the inner me has really dark eye bags since I have insomnia, where I usually take up to 1-3 hours to fall asleep. The mirror acts as a barricade where I locked up all my emotions, the eyes that are above the ceiling are from the eyes of other people judging me. The tentacles are actually connected to the ceiling and are the people who are making it hard for me to keep my emotions in and trying to ruin the barricade which is the mirror. The other two mirrors beside the one the outer me is stuck in are mirrors of the unknown, like where does it leads? Do the mirrors end there? Are these my real emotions?  

Fig. 4.2 Final Outcome PDF

Project 2: Sense of Place

12/10/2021 - 26/10/2021 (Week 8 - Week 10)

Fig. 5.1 Sense of Place Final JPEG (30/10/2021)

"Reminiscence of Lost Times"

Laying down on a cold kitchen floor, having the cold breeze from the freeze leaking out from a tiny gap, while looking up at the many magnets on the fridge, then looking up at the clock, again changing the view to the calendar on the right. I wonder "Huh...., where did all the time go?" "How long have we been stuck like this?" "When can we go back to travelling around the world like we used to?" "Will we be stuck like this forever?". All these questions popping up into my head makes me feel empty and sad, all the time that we had has pass by like a flick of a finger. All of our time for the pass two years has been taken from us like it has fallen into abyss, is there any hope left, can we turn back to all the lost times? Are opportunities coming?

This piece actually represent how I feel during the ongoing pandemic, somewhat sad in  a way. Knowing that so much time has passed by where all the time we could had have travelling around the world or even in the country with family and friends are gone and can not be retrieved back. Every time I lay on my kitchen floor and staring up at the fridge magnets gives me this nostalgic memories that I spend travelling around the world every year collecting magnets like a trophy that we have been to this country before. The fridge magnets shows the places we had traveled to before. The clock and calendars indicates that time has passed. The fluorescent light shows hope while the fridge being slightly open with light and cold air coming from the fridge shows that there might be an open door and one day we will have the opportunity to be able to travel freely again. The colour choice actually shows the sadness and how overwhelmed I feel towards the situation.

Fig. 5.2 Sense of Place Final Animation and sound effect 

Fig. 5.3 Sense of Place Final PDF (30/10/2021)

Project 3: Visual Analysis

26/10/2021 - 23/11/2021 (Week 10 -Week 14)

Fig. 6.1  Visual Analysis Final Outcome JPEG 

Fig. 6.2 Visual Analysis Final Outcome PDF

"He is mine. He can't leave me."

Obsession, jealousy and possessive, are these the actions of true love?

She might start off as loving and caring to someone they have a strong affection for until their romantic love, admiration, and devotion becomes feisty and mentally destructive in nature. Her love towards that special someone will turn to over-protectiveness, violence, brutality. The lady licking the skeleton eyes is a fetish she has to mark him so that no one else can have him and he will be hers forever and ever. He who fallen in love with this lady who he though would be a happy relationship can be seen with only his skeleton and organs left. The one he thought he loved ended up sucking the life force out of him through this toxic relationship and his humanity is slowly fading away as he is on the verge of death.

The lady's hair is red in colour which shows dominance and power towards someone else. The green eyes shows jealousy and obsession. The lady licking the skeleton eyes has this expression of pleasure and lust where her eyes are mesmerize towards the skeleton and has blush on her cheeks. The lipstick spread on her cheeks shows the violent and slightly unbalanced mentality she has. The tattoo on her is a Hannya Irezumi which is a Japanese demon tattoo that symbolizes a lady who is filled with jealousy and obsession. The skeleton with organs shows that a man who once was in a relationship with this lady started dying off, where skeletons normally signify as death The centipedes inside and outside the skeleton represents the toxic relationship eating him away slowly. The purple wisteria flowers on the right might look pretty but it is actually very poisonous to animals which perfectly represents our subject who is pretty on the outside but toxic on the inside. The overgrown grass, butterflies and white smoke is too cover up this ugly act that the lady has committed towards her lover.

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REFLECTION

What have I learnt in this module?

I did not take art stream during my high school years so my knowledge about design was not that deep but I did get some base from my Foundation in Design. During this module, I learned more about the elements and principle in design. Gestalt theory was something I heard before during my Foundation year but I never really look into it and it was very interesting to go more into detail about it.

What did I enjoy the most?

This module was somewhere I could express my feelings and expression throughout my works it makes me feel at ease. My favorite projects are the self-portrait and the visual analysis. For the self-portrait, I had an incredible opportunity to show my true self through my artwork. I even developed an art style of my own that I was super satisfied of and it made a huge impact on my confidence level through my artworks. It actually took me way faster than before to finish drawing an artwork which shows how committed I was into doing the self-portrait. Other than that, the visual analysis project made me realize that I was actually setting a huge wall for myself and I should break myself free and realize that art has no boundaries. I made an artwork that younger me would never even bother to start. 

Dr. Charles was a big support and he encourage me to always take a step further. He is very calm and chill during class which makes it less stressful for us compared to other modules. I would not feel any tension or pressure when I am in his class.

What did I not enjoy the most?

I honestly did not enjoy the first exercise at all since I felt it was too rushed and we were all unprepared from being bombarded by all the works in the beginning of the semester. I was also very confused about gestalt theory even after many and many of researching and studies. 

What have I learnt about myself through this module?

I learnt that I sometimes overthink too much where I ask myself "Will this be good enough?", "Should I add this?", "Do I change that?", "Will it be okay if I were to do this?", "What if no one likes it?", "Am I a failure?". I get super paranoid and it causes me to get very nervous at times and possibly getting breakdowns and anxiety attacks. I probably developed this behavior of thinking that what I do is never good enough as I used to get feedbacks from people I know saying "I don't like it", "I don't understand it", "Could be better", well it sometimes is okay since everyone has their own personal opinion on things they like. But I always get overwhelmed by the thought of it and it always end up breaking me down. That said, I am very grateful and thankful of the people around me right now supporting the work that I do and I am able to express my feelings more freely now. Well enough of that depressing talk, I should also manage my time better since I always end up rushing my work at the end and having a new sleep schedule with is 4am throughout the semester T.T.

What has changed and what has not in my learning journey?

I started to stop holding myself back from the ideas and thoughts that I have, I am able to express myself more within my artworks and taking away the boundaries I set for myself especially through the final project. My art style and anatomy skills definitely improved which I hope one day I can be able to develop them even further. 

What has not change is that sometimes I could drag a work for too long and end up procrastinating. So for my consequences I have to stay up super late to finish them like until 4am. 

What could be improved in this module?

For my opinion the timing between projects and exercises should be longer especially the 3 exercises we did where we had to create 2 artworks during a short period of time. For people who just started design without any base knowledge will 100 percent struggle with it. Having more time between the exercise would solve the problem. I also think that maybe during class, the lecturer could maybe show us a few more artworks based on the design principles we have to give us a clearer idea on what we should do .