Final Project: Storybook

This has been an amazing project. It's very exciting to make a storybook and especially when we actually print it out as a real storybook that could put on shelf alrealy.

This is a story about a little boy called Tom who's afraid of thunderstorm. After his father told him a story about thunderstorm, he overcomes his fear!
We hope it could somehow, help the kids do not afraid of thunderstorm anymore.

Assignment 6: Gestalt Principles

This is a group assignment; our group thinks most people will choose movie posters and other commotional advertisements. So we want to do something different. We pick two posters from a poster competition. The theme is global warming. For this kind of serious topic, the posters supposed to be simple but eye catching, plus should deliver the right information to the audiences.

Bad poster: Good poster:

Assignment 5: Christmas Card

When Dr Julian said we need design a card for coming Christmas or New Year, I thought they are only examples for this holiday card assignment. So I pick up a theme as Love. And I design my card based on the quote “love is growing old with you".
I want to use four representative period of life which are kids, teenagers, getting married and finally happy old couple to present this quote.

It took me forever to draw each picture first, and then arrange them into a card. Coloring is also a painful experience. I chose to color it as brown, sort like old wall. I think it’s the kind of color bring all kinds of memory flash back to people. Also it’s like autumn’s color which represents time for harvest and memory.

After the tutorial, I realize I totally did the wrong thing. The purpose of this assignment is play with different color palette to know more about what different color presents. The use of color is definitely an important element of a design work.

I could change the color try to use the pictures into other theme that more related to Christmas or New Year. Anyway, I choose to redo the card…

I choose a line as “ready for your presents?!!”, actually I was hoping it could be some kind of funny card. I actually trying to say “see! Get so many presents for you!”, but I think the first line is better to put on the card…

I choose to pick the black background one for the final card, I guess because Santa always comes at night. Actually I think other colors look good too, but I prefer the black one.

Class Exercises -- Happening and Full & Exclusive

First Class Exercise : Happening

People are moving and doing stuff all the time, it is weird when I am doing this class exercise I don’t know what to draw… Then I think when people are half loaded in a lift might be counted as happening…

The arrow above tells the lift is going up from level one.

I was trying to draw the glisten on the glass… it’s hard to tell….

Full—the first thing come to my mind was a cup of water.

We are asked to use only lines and dots. So for exclusive I come out with this.

Assignment 4 -- Poster Design

I am a movie fan; movies get all those cool posters! So this assignment worries me a lot. I want come out some really good posters that I can see them be used everywhere.

I think many people would remember “Dove Evolution”. It is really amazing that by using photoshop anybody can become a “super model”! So I want to learn how to do those PS~~
This is how I came up with the theme “save natural beauty”.

At first I thought drawing would be fun. I will just cartoon character. Then I realize real person would be more suitable for my theme. Then I searched on YouTube to learn those skills and get my friend’s photos to do the poster.






This is the poster I presented in tutorial class.

Actually I don’t like the background. Because the face with makeup took me so much time, I didn’t have time to try different color or effect to see what kinds fit the most.

After tutorial, I get some feedback. First of all, the background is cut into half which was really distracted people’s attention and not well interactive.

And my friend was saying the color is not ok either. Yellow makes Asian (with yellow skin) looks sick.…

So the first change I make was changing the background. I cannot really explain why I choose black yet…

Another thing is our tutor mentioned I should think about whether the original face was necessary. For a poster, usually the less the better…

I kinda like keep the 3 faces… so I haven’t change yet. But I will definitely think about it, might change to less

Assigment 3 -- U C What I C

This is a visual story assignment. It’s mid-autumn festival period when we were doing this assignment. I guess my brain was fulfilled with moon and moon cakes, so cannot think of any good ideals other than mid-autumn….

Anyway, about just before I need present my work, I forced myself come out a lousy story...

There is a guy walking down the street…

He stopped and just stands there …

He looked around…

There are people keep coming and walking away…

He seems waiting for somebody there…

Finally when there are no people around…

He moved his foot, pick up the coin there and smiling…

Since my brain was quite useless so far… I cannot think of any better story. So I try to improve this one somehow. Here’s the script I come out for further development.

Hopefully, there would be a more clear twist after I added in a girl. I want to tell the girl seems has a crash on the guy. Then come out she just saw the money stepped by the guy. So she picks up the money after the guy leaves.

I cannot stand my photos for this assignment either… I kinda feel my ideal was really hard to short… it’s more emotional, I don’t think I’m that kida good photographer who can really catch people’s feelings .
Anyway, for the final one, I stick with the original ideal, and I did add in a girl… hope it produce more twist at the end…

Here we go, the story goes like this:

A guy is standing under a building. There are people keep walking by, he looks like waiting for someone. When he’s on the phone, there’s a girl walking down from the building, also on her phone. So it looks like the girl is the one the guy’s waiting for. But next photo, the girl walking by… when finally there’s no people around, the guy moved his feet, there’s two dollars there. he’s waiting for the time there’s no people around!

Assigment 2 -- Pictogram for NUS Community

We are learning pictogram. The mainly example was Olympic Pictogram. It was just days before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games started. So it’s really exciting and fun.

Actually after our lecturer show us all those series of pictograms for each Olympics, off course include 2008 Olympic, I heard people beside me was murmuring the pictogram of this year’s Olympics is the best one! I was quite proud of China~~ hah~~~

Anyway, this assignment I didn’t do well either. I thought we need design a symble or something for NUS Community. So I find these photos I think show the spirit of NUS community. (students get together as teams and friends)







I guess this assignment I get it totally wrong. I suppose to use abstraction which by the way was very fun to abstract stuff! I think I am too perfectionism. Always dislike my own works and try to fig out better one… however… I think my brain is totally empty………



I keep doing the wrong things and I am getting angry about myself… The pictogram above was totally wrong. So I have to do the right thing for the final submission.













I choose the second last one as the final one, because obviously the last one would be too abstract to deliver the information.

Assigment 1 -- About Me (I have & I love)

Love is easy. I love dogs very much, so it’s definitely takes no time for me to come out with “I love dogs!” The problem is I don’t really have something I hate. At least nothing comes to my mind. So I was trying to fig out something easier to draw and present. Then I “remember” I don’t like eat mushrooms. It’s easy to draw, so why not.


I didn’t get requirement for the first tutorial clearly. So I took my 4 draft for each to class.





For what I love, I was trying to tell I love dogs. So I am feeding the dog and protect him out of the rain, this kinda of thing. We are both happy with smiling faces. Hope it can tell…


After the tutorial, I realize people come out really good ideals and they choose themes like “I have violence”. My works are so childish and worse, I didn’t really understand what I suppose to do. My mushrooms are so “healthy and happy” which cannot tell that I hate them.

Then finally, I was thinking maybe I can draw a mushroom master who’s gonna eat me! It’s like nightmare or something. “After my parents force me to eat mushrooms, I dreamed about they are gonna eat me!” (which is never happened!! Haha~)

Still think my works are childish. I might change the whole thing if I get time. Anyway, the mushroom needs lots of improvements. I will play with different colors and effects to see what kind fits the best.

I really cannot stand my lousy design. I think I don’t really understand design. When I started my sketches, I was still sort on board, but I lost when I did the final one. I know my name wasn’t really in my design. But I don’t have time to redo already.
At the end of this semester, I know photoshop and illustrator much better than I did at the beginning. So I will fell the first assignment was damn terrible. But I don’t have time to do the whole thing again… I’m blaming my Japanese oral…
Anyway, I did some changes, hope the final one was not worse it has been…