12/10/2020 - 01/11/2020 (Week 8 - Week 10)
Naim Zuki, (0346615)
| Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Design Principles
Project 2
LECTURES
Lecture 7 | Sense Of Place
As a continuation of the Self-Portrait Project,
Sense Of Place revolves around our
interpretation of our surrounding environment. Initially, this project
required us to explore the streets of Kuala Lumpur and make visual records of
the locations we find interesting through sketches, photography, or
videography. But due to the pandemic limiting our ability to explore the city,
we're instead given the task to observe anything in our surrounding, be it our
room, our house, gardens, neighbourhoods, or any environmental visual research
that we could gather.
After we're satisfied with the visual research, we're tasked to use these visuals into a design work that reflects our interpretation of a place. We're given the freedom to use any medium of choice for this project.
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INSTRUCTIONS
Module Information Booklet
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PROJECT 2 | SENSE OF PLACE
I've always had an obsession with photography ever since I was a wee little boy. My dad was a camera fanatic, so growing up I used his old boxy cameras to take pictures of anything I could see. As I grew older this obsession became a hobby and I find myself taking pictures with anything that I can get my hands on, be it my phone, my DSLR, even stealing my friends' phones to take pictures of literally anything. So going into this project, I had a lot of old visual materials of Malaysia that I took and I was excited to finally use them as references for my design.
That was my initial plan when I started the project. I figured the best way
to approach this idea was to digitally paint a fish-eye perspective of a
range of places I've been to. However, I began reconsidering the time
constraints of this project and balancing out deadlines with the other
projects at hand so I threw the idea in the trash and start anew.
One day as I was sitting at my desk and staring outside my window, I
realised that my room has been my own little world ever since I moved back here when lockdown happened in March. So much has happened here and I
thought why don't I translate my room into a design work? Thus, I finally started developing the design for this project.
IDEA EXPLORATION
Fig. 1.0, Inspo, (Images courtesies of MIENAR, Tillie Walden, Fujo)
The major difference between these artists' work and my art style is that the artists' works revolve around line art. As you can tell from the work
I've done in exercises, I hate doing line art and I avoid including them in my final submissions as much as possible. I'm simply not confident enough with them to submit them as finalised work. So I wanted to go against that and improve so I can be more versatile with my work.
I went into my archive of pictures I've taken and picked out three pictures that can be used for practice references. Then I tried finding an angle in my room to use as a reference picture for this project. For this project,
I'm doing everything digitally in photoshop.
Fig. 1.01, Pictures from my trip to Penang, 07/08/2020
Fig. 1.02, Room picture reference
SKETCHES
I practised line art on two of the three pictures I've chosen before starting with the design of my room. I started with big and clunky lines and then tried going with smaller more delicate lines to accustom myself to the art style. Then I moved on to the stylized design of my room.
Fig. 1.03, Line Art practice, 30/10/2020 - 01/11/2020
Fig. 1.04, Initial Sketch of Room, 01/11/2020
DEVELOPMENT
The thing about this little "world" of mine is that it is incredibly monotone. The everyday routines, the same cycle of 10 dishes, and the isolation, it drove out all the colours of life. So I worked on this project with more focus on colour values and dramatic lighting rather than a complex colour palette to reflect this monotone-ness.
I used the rule of thirds to measure out the proportions of the composition so it would look properly balanced. The monotone style also comes with the feeling of unity: everything exists as a singularity, which is how I've been viewing the world around me. In addition, the dramatic lighting also reflects an atmospheric calmness with a tinge of desolation that comes with being locked between four walls for more than half a year due to the pandemic.
Fig. 1.05, Development of Sketches, 01/11/2020 - 02/11/2020
Digressing from the main topic, I recalled watching an
analysis of
Life Is Strange, the video game, and there was a segment in the video
where it discussed how DONTNOD utilised their limited budget by recycling the same environments but painted at different times of the day. By doing so, the developers created depth in their own sense of space and I wanted to try it out with my work. In the colour study, I used photoshop's blending modes to vary the light intensity to mimic different times of the day. I prefer the latter colour blending with pink and used the same blending mode over the colour blue for an evening atmosphere. I felt pretty happy with both the linework and the colouring style.
Fig. 1.06, Colour study, 02/11/2020
Fig. 1.07, Dramatic Angle, Nightime, 02/11/2020
Fig. 1.08. Dramatic Angle, Dusk, 02/11/2020
Fig. 1.09, Project 2: Sense of Place Final Submission, 02/11/2020
Fig. 1.10, Project 2: Sense of Place Alternate Colouring,
02/11/2020
Fig. 1.11, Project 2: Sense of Place Final Submission PDF, 02/11/2020
Rationale
One day as I was sitting at my desk and staring outside my window, I realised that my room has been my own little world ever since I moved back here from college when lockdown happened in March. So many things have happened here in the past and this room practically saw me grow up into the person that I am today. Now that I'm back here after almost 3 years of living outside of the house with no further plans to move out anytime soon, I thought I'd want to translate this room of mine into design work.
The thing about this little "world" of mine is that it is incredibly monotone. The everyday routines, the same cycle of 10 dishes, and the isolation, it drove out all the colours of life. So I worked on this project with more focus on colour values and dramatic lighting rather than a complex colour palette to reflect that feeling of emptiness and isolation.
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FEEDBACK
Week 8
I started my consultation session by showing Ms Maria the mood board I've created for this project. I explained that I wanted to use pictures that I've taken before and she highly supports my idea. She suggested that I do something like a fish-eye illustration to incorporate the different landscapes of the pictures I've taken.
Week 9
For this week, I've shown Ms Maria my experimental sketches. She commented that these didn't represent the place well and suggested I start experimenting more with colours so I can bring out the liveliness of the places I've chosen.
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REFLECTION
Experience
Doing this project was fun and experimental. Like I explained, I've always wanted to improve my line art and I saw this project as a chance for me to finally sit down and work on my confidence with digital art. I was a bit disappointed I couldn't do the fish-eye idea and create something a little more visually pleasing. But, I have to say, at eight weeks of digital painting experience, the result wasn't too bad and I can be happy with the progress I've made so far.
Observation
I tried going against having to implement fine art techniques like I did in the previous project and did a more contemporary design style. I noticed I took a lot of inspiration from the manga/comic drawing styles, especially with the monotone colouring. I realised while doing this project how much depth can be added into the small details within an environmental design and I practised this by adding the small notes above the bed to show more personality and add a tad bit of intimacy.
Findings
When designing a simple environment, I find that it is important that designers practise adding impactful information to add personality to the environment. Adding too many elements would create a claustrophobic feeling while adding too little elements can make a design bland and uninteresting. In the context of environmental design, this concept can also be known as visual storytelling. Upon learning this, I noticed that rather than making big and clunky adjustments, I started focusing more on the little details in my other designs to improve its depth and quality.
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