Assignment 5

Postcard Version 3: Final!

Finally, after so many last minute revisions, I finished the postcard. I decided to choose the “Shinto” colour scheme because the yellow-tone look seems to suit the postcard theme best without being overly glaring or weird looking. It also provides enough contrast for the symbols and is not too boring. Here’s the front:

Some triva: the statues on the first row from left to right: Godness of Mercy, Confucius, Buddha, Ganesha (Hindu Deity), Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ.
The symbols on the second row: Cross (Christainity), Wheel of Dharma (Buddhism), Swastika (Hinduism/Buddhism), Star of David (Judaism).
The symbols on the third row: Star and Crescent (Islam), Khanda (Sikhism), Yin-yang (Taoism), Confucius Institute
The languages on the fourth row: Fo (Chinese for Buddha), YHWH (Hebrew for Yahweh God), Aum (Hindi chant), Dao (Chinese for Taoism), Jesus (English for Yeshua), Allah (Arabic for God)

Here’s the back:

Postcard Version 3: Colour Scheme

Ms Jing suggested that I can use some Andy Warhol style. Building upon Ms Jing’s recommendations, I decided to create a Andy Warhol-inspired postcard, using statues, symbols and written languages of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism. Some of the colour schemes were based on the Adobe Kuler.  The title “Asia – Where Truth Lies” was chosen because the phrase has an oxymoron, pun intended.

Here are the colour schemes, with the names adapted from Kuler:

Postcard Redone Draft

Based on Zhixiong’s comments, I removed the non-religious icons and here’s what I got. I added a sun-ray-like thing at the back to make it look more interesting, and reduced it to 5 symbols. However I still had some problems with the colours and some of them look quite weird. Couldn’t decide whether a shadow or glow is better, or whether a darker or lighter outline is better.

During consultation, Ms Jing mentioned that the symbols used are of a different type, e.g. statue, building, icon etc. And why is the cross in the middle? Why is Buddha and the Hindu temple rotated? Well I did it for aesthetic reasons to form a ‘curve’ around the words. Looks like this won’t work either. I’ve to re-do again!

Postcard Redone Tryout

I decided to re-do the postcard from scratch after realising that it is quite difficult to trace human photos. I make used of some of the landmark icons I drew and focused on religion instead. Here’s a postcard with the major religions as a main focus: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam, along with the little landmark drawings of places around Asia. See how many you can recognise! Personally I think the colours are very very awful, running out of inspiration of what colours to choose for the background. Somehow it is too messy. Should it be monotone? Will definitely refine again.

Draft for Assignment 5

This was what I presented in class. I had much problems in thinking of what to create for this one as the topic is quite open ended and there is a limitation as I don’t have much resources/photos to tap on. Initially, I wanted to draw a map of asia and draw mini-icons of the landmarks on the map. After that I thought it was too tedious and too touristy – which was what Ms Jing did not want. It is difficult to think of something that is unconventional and not touristy.

I don’t really think it is very original work as I just used the faces of movie stars online – Red Cliff, some Japanese manga and Slumdog Millionaire. The Japanese manga character is definitely out as it is a direct trace of the vector artwork. The other two probably needs re-tracing. However, I wanted to create a movie poster as I thought it is quite unique and is something that I am passionate about. Besides, Asia has quite a few well-known movies and stars.

Some of the comments from the class is that there needs to be a balance of male and female characters. Another thing is that maybe I should use another idea instead of this? Also “Coming Soon” can be changed to “Now Showing”.