So! here's my final pictogram. i think it'll be great to have it in the library. where we think that only nus students are around. BUT NOOOOO. a lot of people have lost their laptops there!!! so this would serve as a reminder to NEVER leave ur laptop unattended! even when you think it's 'safe'.

it can also be put in the canteen - i think that's the next common place.
and other benches and rooms around school that are not under surveillance.


omg this assignment totally FORCED me to improve my tracing skills! traced every single thing - even the little keys of the macbook. but i think the effort paid off as i am quite satisfied with this one. especially from the original photo to the 1 step of abstraction. i had to tweak the angle of the right side of the laptop and table a bit in order to have a sensible tracing, if not it would just look distorted.

as i went along, i took out unnecessary details like the tshirt, table, etc. the last stage of abstraction was super abstract - too abstract cuz the mask and the rectangles were literally only representations and would only be understood if put into context. so i chose the second last one which is abstract enough but clear enough as well.



An issue i thought was very serious in NUS was that of laptop thefts. 2 of my friends already kena-ed this and i think we as students and owners of laptops should take precautionary measures. sometimes it seems like it's safe but we never know who's lurking around and who's the thief.

I 'computerized' the second rough. Tracing was bleahhh. I wanted to take a shortcut using live trace but it just didn't turn out right at all. certain parts disappeared and other parts were too bold. so i manually traced everything. gave a nice clean effect cuz the lines were nice and consistent! i finally feel good about illustrator. haha. coloured it in photoshop and added a bit of effects.



i realised that by keeping things simple, i could get my message across more clearly. by 'forcing' too many things into this little a5 piece, whoever sees it will get confused. i'm so glad that i traced everything myself. being in control of how i want it to be feels really good and i don't have to be afraid when asked 'did u trace this urself?!'. hahah.

this little piece is meant to portray me as a lively, cheerful person, standing straight and tall in what i do. firm in my beliefs. oh, and i do like flowers. looking more than smelling. i think they smell weird.


1. I like to whistle
2. I'm easily swayed on the surface but deeply rooted in my beliefs
comments:
-make the butt of the bird more curved.
-maybe add a blueish background at the top and make the 'wind' white and more 'windy'
-roots of the plant thinner and lighter so that it doesn't take the attention off the 'hwei' plants.
**I decided to scrap this one because I seem to be the only person who understood it - not communicative at all!!
Since others cannot understand what i'm trying to portray, I'm pretty sure it's not good. It may seem nicely done, but it's not effective at all. With that in mind, i decided to work on another of my sketches.

Oh what a bruise to my ego. hahaha i thought it was really nice. hahah.

well at least i learned something! not to be too ambitious and try to incorporate so many things and end up with nothing. :D

from sketch 4 i developed 2 roughs.
tried to do 1 (as seen in next post) but it was too complicated and ineffective.



1. easily swayed - swaying flowers
2. sweet - candies
3. natural - elements of nature
4. firm and lively - straight and tall flowers.

in case you're wondering, how can it be that i'm 1 and 4 at the same time?! well. i am full of contradictions. you can see in the next post how i attempted to incorporate those 2 in 1 design. and failed. hahah.

Brainstorming
i've decided to use hwei for my name. hope that's acceptable!
I made use of fb (& inevitably my friends) to help me with coming up with words to describe myself!
The shortlisted words or traits are:

kind . sweet . day-dreamy . amicable . giggly . messy . ear-piercing scream . virtuous . patient . bubbly . scary when i'm having a bad day . reliable . never forgets . always worries . wears her heart on her sleeve . uber friendly . cute . colourful . loves God . emotional . enthusiastic . takes friendships seriously . not confident . insecure . bouncy . sheltered

Okok I didn't really shortlist. Hahah practically everything is up! Well apart from giving myself an ego boost, this would really help in my first characteristic thumbnails!!

Labels: Assignment 1