It’s Done …

And So it Goes …

Two major things I have learnt from this module are the “language” to communicate visually; and how to appreciate visual design.

Me, Not Me

I recall what I have said in my first posting: “How well one can present and deliver his design is as important as how his design can communicate to his audiences.” Similar to any other languages, a successful communication can only be achieved when both parties understand the language and using it in the correct form. Visual communication is communication through visual design. Thus to understand the language, we learn the design principles and concept. Through our assignment we can then learn how to apply these design concepts correctly.
 
It does matter if the design concepts are not accepted by all, but what is more important is that they understand the concept wish to present to your audiences. Without the understanding it is hard for anyone to try to convince others in accepting his design.

The weekly presentation had also built another advantage in cultivating us into the habit to reason for our design concept. As we head to work in this industry, we must learn how to turn criticisms into useful advices for enhancements to our artwork. Although it was just a few min presentation, the weekly pressure to produce our artwork within a short period of time (applicable to tutorial group 1 I think ha ^_^) also motivate us to practice better time management so that we can meet our dateline. Presentation are opportunities for us to showcase our work therefore we should only produce the best (need not be the best in all but the best in you ^_^). On top of these, we get to see how different people can come up with different ideas in their work. This is a good chance to exchange and learn from these creativity ideas to broaden our creativity. (It’s always good to share ^_^)

At the start of the module, I only had basic interest in drawing. Now, after all that I done in this module, I am please to say that I have also learn to appreciate more of visual arts. From the amount of time I have spent working on these artwork, I have slowly develop more interest in understanding of visual design. Sometimes I will even question myself why are certain design like this and not like that? To answer that question I need to understand the principles behind the design. Well, anyone can learn how to design but not many know how to fully appreciate the design unless he have the opportunity to recreate that design and represent it with his own thoughts and feel.  Take the love card assignment for instance, I believe no one better than the designers knows what is the true message he or she wish to tell their lover until one breakdown the design and analysis their design thoughts. Regardless how much effort one put in an artwork, if it is not appreciated by those he wish to present to, it’s no different just keeping the artwork to himself.

Appreciation is the key word for me in life. To learn to appreciate and not take things for granted. The question how do you want to see this in life is similar to the question how one wants to present his life in front of others.  People live to enjoy life and life stay alive when everyone appreciates life. (Eh hope you understand what I mean)

Anyway, I wish to thanks our lecturers, tutors and my course mates for making this module a fun and enjoyable one. I am glad to learn a lot of useful things from this module. All in all, I believe the end of this module does not mark the conclusion but rather the beginning of a journey of continued learning.

Happily Ever After …

Finally …
we have presented our story our course-mates. And yes, the respond was good. Although it did not really impress our guest judge, it was still pretty well received by the rest. I’m glad most of them enjoyed the humor and twist in our story. I wish to thank all those who had voted for our story. The best book award had made our effort even more paid off. I believe every group had spent a lot of time and effort while working on this assignment. And yes, time was a major problem we have to tackle as many of us have also other projects to rush during the past 3 weeks

Time management and team work are two important issues everyone needs to handle when working on a group project. We have to come to a common agreement before we can proceed to do any task. If not, things might turn out quite messy and time and effort will be wasted. All these can be achieved through proper planning and good coordination in the team.Similar to all pervious assignment, creativity was also a major requirement to the assignment. Thanks to my group mates, we manage to squeeze out all our juicy ideas when drafting our story. Initially, we kind of dwelled out of our scope with the first idea (almost thinking of producing an animation or comic) but when we had all our mind set to the idea of a fairly tale twist, all the funny and crazy ideas start to flood our mind. However, due to amount of time we are given to produce the storybook, we have to select those ideas which we find most interesting and captivating to the story.
 
I have gained a lot while working on this assignment. Firstly, I was introduced to a new graphic application – Corel Painter; it was slightly different from Adobe Photoshop as it can handle water paint graphics better. In fact, when it used together with a tablet, the painting effect was quite similar to real painting. Although I did not have the chance to try it out on the tablet, I still manage to play with some of its unique features such as the realistic paint mixing. In result of these features, we are able to produce the paint-like images for our story theme.
 
Secondly, the whole production had given me a first hand experience of producing a storybook. The stages starts from brainstorming for ideas, drafting the story, sampling the tryouts, organizing the layout, illustrating the contents, compiling the pages and finally, printing the storybook. I learnt that each process is closely related to one another. For example, the page order of a double sided book will be jumbled if the pages are not organized initially; the colours and fonts should be sampled with various printing papers as the end result may encounter some colour degradation when printed on the wrong choice of paper; a consistent page layout allows reader to focus better on the context, it help to capture the reader’s attention; page and gutter margins must be laid properly to give space allowance for book binding.Sourcing for the right printer and paper for our final printout was also a challenge for my group. Firstly, we need to find a print shop that provides hard-cover binding and printing. We found many shops that provided the binding services but not the printing of hard-cover. And when we finally found the shop that fit our requirements, we were advised by the print master to print on soft cover instead. Fortunately for his advices, we realized that soft-cover was more appropriate for the thickness on our storybook. He pointed that the end result would look weird if the thickness of the cover is thicker than the page body. Furthermore, it was more time consuming to do a hard-cover binding as the whole process is done by hand and not by machine. Unless the production is in bulk, the printing and binding will be a costly service. On the other hand, soft cover binding is less costly and only require staple bounding (most suitable for thin book). Considering these factors, we believe we can equally present an aesthetical feel to  our storybook with a soft-cover.
 
At the end of the production, we are very satisfied with the final print-out. (It is amazing how much we can achieved within three weeks, and the opportunity to have our own designed book published – limited edition) However, if given more time we wish to add more interesting story and go ahead with the initial plan of a hard-cover storybook design. Nevertheless, I have enjoyed the whole production especially the time when working as a team. (Not to mention how I was entertained by my group mate’s magic tricks ha… )

For details on the production please read our Final Design Documents :
+ Design Documents – 2007-04-12 – FINAL

Feel free to preview our Final Storybook Design :
+ Final Printouts – 2007-04-10