Assignment 1 Critique 1

The feedback was that the color of the dogs should be lighter, so as to not distract the viewer from the name. I can also use one color for the name to make it stand out.

The letters should be aligned properly to facilitate easy reading.

I should also consider this design, and work on it.

Really valid feedback, thanks! :))

Assignment 1 Roughs

Music
For the rough sketches of the music theme, I made them more legible by making the lines of the letters much thicker than that of the drawings.

Music 1
I had the most problem with the letter “n”. The drums were not joined, and the letter was not obvious. Hence, I removed the toms and used the arms of the drummer to bridge the letter. By reducing the height of the cymbal stands, “n” will not be mistaken for an “H”. I did not color the lower drums (low tom and snare) as they distort the letter. Overall, the letter is clearer.

I have also switched the positions of the two letter “i” s to make the design more balanced. As “X” and “n” have straight lines, the “i” with the arms that are more “curvy” should be placed next to these letters.

Since I have a larger space, I added more details. For example, I did not color the faces of the stick figures, but added hair and laces to the boots of “X” and “Y”. I hope it is more interesting while the design remains clear.

Music 2
I developed this design as “Music 1” looked a bit stiff – the letters are straight and maybe a bit boring. Thus I changed “X” and “Y” to be more curved, and this resulted in an out-of-proportion band.

In order to improve on the letter “n”, I made the drums more abstract. It looks more like an “n” now, but less like drums.

Dog
For the rough sketches of the dog theme, I made the letters more legible by introducing color, so that the lines of the drawings will not be confused with those of the letters.

Dog 1
The paws in the original design were distracting, and they did not look like “i” s. Thus I drew the legs of the dog from side view. The “n” was drawn higher to stand out.

Dog 2
This design was developed as the “Y” and “i” s in “Dog 1” were hard to read. For variety, I changed the direction the dog was facing, and also changed from the chewing toy to a cloth (scarf/blanket?). However, the cloth looks unconvincing, so I will probably combine the two dog designs, i.e. combine the dog with the clearer letters with the chewing toy.

After the designs had been finalized, I have tried to trace them in Illustrator using “Live Trace”, but it did not work out as it unnecessarily captured the fine lines of my pencil shadings. Different settings did not work as the drawing was not clean enough. As a result, I manually traced them. However, I found it difficult to draw the hair of the stick figures using lines, so I traced similar shapes and filled them with black.

I tried to match the fonts of the words with the designs, but they are default settings for now. I plan to change them in the prototype to make them unique.

Assignment 1 Thumbnails

I have decided to base the assignment on a music theme and a dog theme, since I am familiar with both subjects. I had studied music and I have a dog.

For Music, the 4 thumbnails are based on (left column, from top to bottom):
- Musical notation
- Chinese instruments
- Pop/rock band
- Sound equipment

For Dogs, the 4 thumbnails are based on (right column, from top to bottom):
- One dog per letter
- (Parts of) A dog and its chewing toy
- ≥ 2 dogs per letter
- Dogs, food, toys

In the attempt to make the design more interesting, I varied the size and positions of the letters. For most designs, however, “X” and “Y” are still the largest letters since they are my initials, and it is easier to read my name this way.

For both themes, I realized that the ones that look nicer are harder to read. The problem of “Art versus Design”! However, I have decided to choose “Art” and see if I can improve on “Design”, since this is only the first part of the design process.

I will work on the Pop/rock Band for the Music theme and the Dog with Its Chewing Toy for the Dog theme. For example, I have tried to make the letters more legible by introducing color, and there seems to be slight improvement. Of course, more work needs to be done and that will be the rough sketches in the next post.

Wonder what the other Xinyi is doing? :p

First!

This is the first exercise I’ve done in NM2208.

It is a self-introduction piece in which we are supposed to visually communicate about how we would like ourselves to be remembered.

For the title, I chose to use the first word of my Chinese name (歆). This is because the left part of the character, 音, means “music,” and music is one of my main interests.

Initially, I decided to illustrate my interests around the text. However, when I started on the Erhu, I realized that I can combine the other interests to form an Erhu. And that is what I have done :))