Week 3: 2/12/2023–2/18/2023 | Featured Image by Vivian Li
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The final deliverables for my first project have been completed. It has been a busy week, so I was unfortunately unable to go see my monitor slides up on the college monitors, but I at least got to see my web banner up on the faculty commons website. Being able to see my work up on a website is very different from seeing it as a completed standalone PDF on an image/PDF viewer application. I feel like I’ve gained perspective. Although I have successfully completed the project, I should be mindful of the platform my work will be displayed on and the other content it will be in the company of.
Fortunately, I had two days of rest before I was assigned a new project. For the new project, I will be creating mascot graphics for the Liberal Arts and Sciences department. Unlike the previous project, this one does not have an immediate deadline. The client has suggested that the mascot for the department be a funny looking animal, and one of my mentors has asked that I illustrate an array of emotions for the mascot so that they can be reused on future posters for the department. I have decided to begin with some drafts of character designs for the client to choose from.
During the status meeting, I was able to receive helpful feedback from the team. While the drafts for the mascot were well received for the most part, one of the mentors who have experience with illustration kindly pointed out that I should be mindful of the proportions for the mascots. It’s hard to spot these faults when I am the one who is staring at my own work, so her feedback was much appreciated. I still have much to learn.
The next steps are to refine these drafts some more so that they can be sent to the client for approval.
Week 2: 2/5/2023–2/11/2023 | Featured Image by Vivian Li
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During this week, I met with the client and my mentor to go over the deliverables for the project. I am working on a workshop that promotes and informs interested faculty members of how they may use an upcoming exhibit to enrich their students’ learning in the Fall 2023 semester. For this project, I have been tasked with producing 3 sets of deliverables:
• 1 poster for the E-Mail blast that will be sent out to the faculty
• 2 monitor slides for the college monitors (vertical and horizontal)
• 1 web banner for the faculty commons website
The meeting took place on Wednesday morning, and I was informed by the client that he would prefer to see drafts by the Friday of the same week as the E-Mail blast had to be sent out on the Tuesday morning of next week. This would mean that all deliverables must be approved by both the team as well as the client by Monday latest. The project is highly time-sensitive, so time management was one of the skills that I developed throughout this week.
On that same Wednesday, I had a status meeting with the team to discuss our progress. I shared my thoughts on the meeting thus far with the team and received feedback on how I should approach the project. My mentor also met with me after the status meeting, and I shared some rough drafts that I had come up with between meetings on that Wednesday. She offered feedback and suggestions as to how my layout can improve with minor changes.
I was hit with another roadblock, however, when I was informed that the client wanted three paragraphs of text to be included in the poster. I discussed my concerns with my mentor as I did not believe that a poster should be so text-heavy. Furthermore, the abundance of text would decrease readability of the poster as I would have to fit all elements (textual and graphic) into an A4 poster, which proved to be difficult. With some encouragement from my mentor, I eventually followed through and produced a few concepts for a very text-heavy poster.
As I am currently balancing the school work of a full-time student along with the internship, I was worried that I may not have enough time to complete both. After the client had decided on one of the few concepts presented to him, I proceeded to create the other deliverables.
My mentor and supervisor advised that I meet with them on Monday before sending any other drafts to the client. As such, my current priority is to complete all drafts for the deliverables so that I can receive feedback on Monday’s meeting.
At the time, I have completed training for my internship in January. The team and I also met this Wednesday, and it was determined that myself as well as the other intern would be assigned a mentor for the first project we are given.
I was tasked with designing a poster/flier for an E-Mail blast, a web banner, and slides for monitor displays for an upcoming exhibit, which means that I will be working in the RGB channel for the most part. So, I won’t be limited with color usage. Still, I will first need to develop an identity system/branding for the project, which will be a welcomed challenge.
I am excited to work with my current mentor as I have previously received feedback for my work before from her, and I found her to be very honest and straight to the point. Her portfolio also shows work that I am interested in learning how to create myself. I’m sure I will learn a lot from her and I’m looking forward to developing my existing skills as a designer.
Before I get started with the project, however, I must first meet with the client. Thus, I have touch-based with my mentor and sent out an E-Mail to introduce myself to the client. It seems that they already have an image that they want to work into the deliverables. (See featured image above post). I am currently waiting for their response to set up a meeting time either via Zoom or in-person. During my training, the senior designers as well as my supervisor reviewed the basics of professionalism when working with a client. Although I am quite introverted and not much of a speaker, I intend to apply this to my meeting with the client so that I can produce the best results to my abilities.
It is slightly nerve-wracking, but I am aware that public speaking is a hurdle I must overcome and grow accustom to—even if I would prefer not to do it.
Exit Through the Giftshop explores the differences between vandalism and art in terms of street art. In the previous video watched in class—Banksy: How Art’s Bad Boy Became An Icon—the question of how one can place value onto art is posed. This is further explored in the documentary where the lifespan of street art is imposed. At timestamp 12:00, Banksy explains that art is normally created to last decades, but the same does not hold true for street art because of the stigma over it. Banksy attempts to remedy this by capturing the moments of street art via video footage in order to immortalize the street art itself. Thierry Guetta echoes this idea of immortalizing important moments via video footage at timestamp 26:40 so that those moments would “live forever.” This idea of immortalizing art or immortalizing a single moment is interesting because one must also consider this: whether it is that you record a moment or a street art of fleeting lifespan, is it (as in the created record of said moment or street art) the same as said moment or street art? Or is this record that immortalizes the original a separate work of art in and of itself? In my opinion, I find that the latter holds true as a work of art is not only optical. Rather, what the original work of art has over the record is the emotions felt by one in experiencing said work of art for the first time. The fleeting lifespan in and of itself attributes to the aspect of art. To immortalize said work of art via recordkeeping through film creates a different quality in art.
Banksy: How Art’s Bad Boy Became An Icon
Despite his run-ins with the law, I feel that Banksy makes several good points in his rejection of societal standards through his art that is often construed as “vandalism.” His art very much resembles his own identity in that they are both very raw, honest, and unfiltered when it comes to the ugliness of the society we live in today. The self-destruction of the auctioned composition of the girl with the balloon was absolutely brilliant because the act itself speaks on the art market today. Banksy’s decision to sell his signed art on the streets of New York only for a mere 7 people to actually purchase it is yet another comment on the art market today. What is high art? Is it “high art” because it is something to be coveted or is it “high art” because of the technique and ideas behind a composition? Banksy poses an interesting question: how is value placed on art? How can art be owned when it’s the action of destruction that led to the shredded painting?
It was interesting to learn about the differences between live action and animation, which are two different disciplines among the many that Mr. Wiehart is experienced in. I enjoyed seeing the example of his pitch. It was enlightening to see a professional pitch versus the work that I had recently just done in class. I think the 3D animation was an especially nice touch. It has definitely given me incentive to pick up the skill myself after seeing how much it added to Mr. Wiehart’s pitch.
Mr. Wiehart mentioned that he is self-taught due to the lack of classes that focused on the area of his interest when he was in school. I find this especially impressive because he mentioned that he did not have the convenience of technology that our generation is allowed to today. I am interested in learning about the methods he used to approach his study on these areas that he had no guide for at school. Mr. Wiehart makes it apparent that in the field of graphic design, one must be constantly willing to learn, which is a wonderful philosophy that I wholeheartedly agree with.
The quote used for this project comes from League of Legends’ Burn It All Down ft. PVRIS. The lyrics are sung from the perspective of an underdog who is looked down by those around them whilst they bide time to strike back and show the world their potential.
Sketch Concept
For my initial sketch, I focused on the literal meaning of the quote and drew fire burning from the words of “burn” and “down.” I left the words “it all” in tact as I was unsure of how to assign meaning that phrase. I decided that I wanted the phrase to stand out just like the attitude of the song itself, so I chose to sketch each letter out to resemble a condensed bold sans serif typeface. I smudged each letter as well to give the text dimensionality.
Draft 1
Draft 1 Concept
For this draft, I had decided to rearrange the text so that it is more dynamic rather than just floating at the center of the page. The typeface chosen is Futura. I decide to keep the idea of the flames coming off of the word “burn,” but I forewent this idea with the word “down.” Instead, I wanted the word “down” to hold the image of the aftermath of what is left after it has been burnt by the fire. In order to depict this, I drew ashes around the word and added a grunge texture to it. For the words “it all” I wanted to show that the things around us are fragile and will break if we seek for and work towards a way to accomplish the act—just as the song implies. To portray fragility, I decided to have the text “it all” appear as glass—a highly fragile material. I also added shattering pieces of glass in the background and added a motion blur effect to some pieces.
Draft 2
Draft 3 Concept
In the second draft, I added caution tape to the background as the previous draft’s background felt too plain. I wanted to convey the feeling of danger. I also realized that the texts “burn” and “it all” were difficult to read. To remedy this, I darkened the top of the graphic by airbrushing a dark gray under the the text “burn” and changed some values of the HSB for the “burn” layer until I was satisfied. For the text “it all,” I raised the opacity of the layer whilst maintaining the glassy look of it by gently erasing the bottom of the text with an airbrush. I also readjusted the text altogether as it was not centered to the canvas in the previous draft.
Final
Draft 3 Concept
In the final revision, the issues addressed were in reference to the word “down” in that readability was impaired due to the closeness of the color of the word and the background. The second issue was that the word “down” was not consistent with the chaotic theme in the postcard and appeared too structured. I added visibility to the word “down” by brightening the bottom of the white portion of the background gradient. A damaged effect was also created by selecting pieces of the word and either deleting it or moving it so that the word looks less stable.
exercise 1: Use the brush tool (B) to draw a line, triangle, and 3 different types of curves to create a template layer.
exercise 2: In a new layer, create a line (red stroke/no fill), triangle (no stroke/red fill), and a parallelogram (no stroke/red fill) with the pen tool (P).
exercise 3: Create two curves (red stroke/no fill) in a row using the pen tool (P).
exercise 4: Convert the anchor points of three curves into angles using the pen tool (P).
Please note: for exercise 1, the template layer was changed back into a regular layer so that it would be viewable when exported. Also, exercises 2–4 were originally done over the template layer, but they were later moved over to the side for a better view of all exercises completed.
A Look Into Digital Artist and Designer Yuumei and her Influence
Wenqing Yan A.K.A Yuumei
The artist chosen for this assignment is Wenqing Yan, who is better known as Yuumei to her fans online. Yuumei is a Chinese-American digital artist and designer who became popular in the early 2000s via the online art community DeviantArt. It was some years later when I, an awkward teenager who spoke more words to online trolls than to my own family at the time, found myself making an account in that same online community where I discovered her work. The work that captivated me was an illustration titled “Tape It Back Together” which depicted a young girl (who is presumably Yuumei herself) holding up a torn up drawing of her family that she had desperately taped back together followed with cleverly placed text that both tells and shows of the rift between the little girl’s torn up family. The illustration had struck a nerve within me because while my own family was nowhere near the physical separation depicted in her illustration, there had always been a divide that separated us from one another despite our façade of a happy family. The more I learned about Yuumei, the more I began to realize that “oh, I relate to her because she’s like me. There’s others like me out there. I’m not the only one suffering.” Her works helped me recognize my depression, which in turn prompted me to desperately work towards a better outlook in life lest I wish to spend my life wallowing in self-pity.
“Tape it Back Together”
The creative process is an interesting journey to explore because no matter which artist one might ask, the response for said process is always different from one artist to another. In the words of Yuumei, “Art is the language through which I interact with the world and with myself. It is a flurry of emotions, a stream of consciousness and subconsciousness. The creation process is also a journey of introspection. It helps me process and understand the events in my life, the society around me, and where I stand within it all.” For Yuumei, art is something that is closely linked with her emotions and outlook. In her retelling of her childhood, she explained that she created her first activist drawing titled “Selfish” when she had returned to China to visit her father. At the time, the government had issued an order for all dogs in the neighboring provinces to be slaughtered and had explained that it was done so as a precaution of rabies despite the fact that vaccinated dogs were not excluded from the tragedy that took place and despite the fact that the international free vaccines that were offered were refused. Yuumei’s activist drawing “Selfish” received countless responses from netizens who expressed that Yuumei’s art had “opened [their] eyes.”
“Selfish”
Due to a split in her family, Yuumei grew up in the care of her grandparents and spent the first nine years of her life in China where she had attended Chinese art classes that focused on realism. She eventually obtained her visa and traveled to America to live with her then single mother. Yuumei was at the center of a custody battle between a father who had one too many lucrative get-rich-quick schemes in China and a depressed and suicidal single mother in America. At the age of 12, Yuumei joined the online art community DeviantArt and began to garner much recognition there. Much of her work is influenced by nature, personal experiences, and the “beauty and complexity of life” in her words. She is known for her webcomic “Fisheye Placebo” and her participation in founding the Axent Wear company. Despite having a very apparent gravitation to illustration, Yuumei also practices sculpting, photography, design, and storytelling when she is not illustrating.
Yuumei’s Axent Wear Headphone Design
Much if not all of Yuumei’s works are created with purpose. She has previously described herself as both an activist and a lover of animals and nature, which is apparent throughout her works. One of her first activist drawings, “Selfish,” was done so in response to China’s choice to indiscriminately slaughter all dogs in her neighboring provinces. The positive response to this piece is what propelled her to continue her expressions of activism via her art. In her webcomic “Fisheye Placebo,” she tells the story of how the main character is roped into a conspiracy to expose the corruption of an authoritarian regime in a world overrun by extensive censorship. Despite this webcomic being vastly successful at first, it was eventually linked to the 2019–2020 protests in Hong Kong. As a result, Yuumei was spammed with hateful and negative comments over her social media platform which even led to her being temporarily shadowbanned on Instagram. Not once did Yuumei stand down, however. In fact, the artist, spoke up against the wumaos (internet commentators who are hired by authority figures in China to essentially manipulate the public opinion) who tried to discredit her, solidifying her stance in support of Hong Kong and earning the much approval from her growing audience.
Fisheye Placebo Panel
Yuumei’s art is inspirational and she has served as a role model for me from my early teenage years. As an introvert myself, I resonate with her thoughts on the creative process in that art is not just something to look at. It is a language, it is an expression of emotions, and it is something that can deliver a powerful message. Through her activist drawings, I had my eyes opened to the ugliness and cruelty of the world countless times. Through her art, I am encouraged to express my emotions in its truest forms. Rather than just inspiring me to be a better artist, I feel that Yuumei also inspires me to be a better person overall.
