Mab's Designs

Assignment 6A- Poster Design Critique (Gestalt's Principles)
Wednesday, November 28, 2007

This assignment was to test us on Gestalt's Principles that were covered in the lecture. We have to scout for designs that we define as a good or bad design based on Gestalt's Principles.

I worked with Fuzzy to look for and criticize 2 posters. The first poster that we classified as a good poster was The Constant Garderner's poster. The poster conveys a simple message and made use of several Gestalt's Principles such as continuity and flow.

The other poster that we looked at was a poster that supposedly is a valuable one announcing a Beatle's Performance. It as very cluttered and badly designed as information is located everywhere in the poster. The design made the poster very difficult to read and to refer to for information.

I learnt more of analytical skills during this tutorial as I was exposed to not only my group's findings but also the posters that others found. It was very interesting to see that while some people might think that the poster is very cluttered, does not follow principles and classified as a bad design, it might actually be considered good to some who could see its underlying meaning.

Posted bymadguitarist at 8:42 PM 0 comments  

Labels: critique

Assigment 2 - Abstraction : Critique and changes
Wednesday, November 21, 2007

The main issue was that the final abstraction I produced during the first draft was not as obvious that it is a dog. The 2nd last abstraction was deemed to be a better one. A coursemate suggested leaving the nose on the final abstraction as the nose is quite a significant part of the dog when we want to recognise something as a canine animal.

For the developed design, I traced it out on Photoshop using my Tablet pen and coloured it black for the first abstraction. Then I start removing details from the dog. Using the computer to do this is much easier as the dog remains at the same size except for the changes that I made.

This abstraction seem much better than the first and the final icon do look like a dog, which was quite an accomplishment.

Posted bymadguitarist at 11:08 PM 0 comments  

Assignment 7: Children's Storybook : Storyline Creation and Design Processes

Today we got together to finalise the colouring details which Elizabeth and Furzanne have been busy with for the past few days. I was busy too, drafting out a rhyming storyline, which we have agreed on, as rhyming helps the children readers absorb and remember the story better.

Using Illustrator, Elizabeth and Furzanne

Posted bymadguitarist at 10:23 PM 0 comments  

Assignment 7- Children's Storybook

Being the most important part of the entire portfolio, this was one project that I placed a lot of emphasis on. My group, Elizabeth, Furzanne and I got together to decide on the main storyline together the very lecture at which this was announced.

We decided on the theme of " Being loved even when you are different". This was partially inspired by the original theme which Julian gave us : God Created fly and forgot why

The main theme was forgotten; the character was created differently by God and was afterwards forgotten by its peers and left being ignored and unloved. This is a common situation even among young children, those who look different from most of them will be ostracized.

Thus, this is one important point we want to bring across to young children, whether they are the ones being bullied or are ostracizing others. We want to teach them that it does not matter if they are different, they might be given a special difference to be a hero to the others.

After showing our individual stories to the class, we decided on Elizabeth's story of a rabbit borned with wings. However, we were told to make some changes to the story. One point brought up was the theme of Death that Elizabeth added in to her story, was deemed to be not suitable for children . Elizabeth's rationale was that no mother will abandone the child even if the child is different. So, we have to think of a way to not let the mother be in the story, but yet still make the little rabbit sad enough to leave home, which was part of her storyline. In conclusion, we have decided to use her story but change it according to suggestions.

Posted bymadguitarist at 10:10 PM 0 comments  

Assighment 6B - Website Critique

We were given a random list of universities to choose from and we were instructed to go a critique based on the website. Besides commenting on the design and how it does not follow Gestalt's principles and other principles at that, we have to think of ways to improve it in order to make it look better.

This is a build up of what I have learned int the previous tutorial on criticising posters. Besides knowing how to indentify the problem with the design, we must be able to think of ways to amend it. That is probably what visual communications is about.

I used functions on Powerpoint to highlight the problems and suggested ways such as rearranging the website using Photoshop in order to make it look better.

I have attached the slides to let everyone see what I did for the presentation.

Posted bymadguitarist at 9:02 PM 0 comments  

Labels: website critique