Week 4 The Beings

Having to deal with moving stuff into a new flat this week, with band practice and work at the same time was super crazy! 

Still having managed to have studied all the materials that have been provided, I love self-reflective stuff: What are my values? How do I know the,? What is a value to me? Do I share a value with those around me? How am I influenced by those around me? Who am I? Where did I come from? There were lots of flashbacks to the psychology 101 I took in university: Nature VS Nurture, Fast Unconscious decisions VS Slow Conscious decisions. An interesting one i’ve never put into words was “Advertising can bypass the conscious.” by Edward L. Bernays.  

Well to start with the materials, Ill say I think I have a good grasp of myself, but then to put them into words and visuals is a totally different animal. So I started off with jotting down some adjectives and then had the plan to sketch them out directly as typefaces, so they could smoothly translate into mood board with colors and some textures. 

But the moment the line work was done on computer, I instantly think that it too plain…I would say the type designs don’t pop as much as I thought they would. 

Having told my “weird stories” in the previous blog, I thought of a Buddha head I did before which I loved but never applied it to anything really. So with my eyelids heavy and the clock hitting 1am I desperately grabbed it, took like an hour to match colors and slapped my type designs on top and called it a night.

Yet the whole next day I have that image of that smiling Buddha stuck in my head ; It doesn’t work. It’s face without emotion, and without that the story cannot be told. Antsy all day long I was spinning this project in my head over and over. 

Finally the guest lecturer for the day requested a class in one of the computer rooms for some Photoshopping for the kids (again I work and teach at a college), leaving me not having to teach anything for the day AND a Mac with Illustrator installed. I fired it up and just toyed around in Illustrator with the intentions of lifting the mood of the class by just casually building something simple myself for them to see. 

2 circles, merged them and a funky pattern with silly faces…..EUREKA! I’VE GOT IT!

Instantly I remembered the Pixar animated movie “Inside Out”; but instead of emotions, I will make my 5 in to characters that fuel my graphic designing, how I present myself and all, and here they are!

Convivial is a pleasant, sociable lil’ guy, and his colors were inspired by a tropical island paradise type scenario. He’s well mannered, comfortable to be around with a smile on his face all the time. (It’s how I’d like to further grow in to? A more tame, sturdy, approachable designer). 

Kooky is a wacky, hyper clown of a guy. He doesn’t mean any harm and all, but might appear uncool and a bit too goofy for others’. His colors were inspired by the most well known, annoying clown in the world! (I keep my crazy at bay now, Id say i was a bit socially awkward during my teen years. But I after I learn to slow down more and just stay chill, the kookiness could be fed in to my graphic design work.)

Logic is a robot compiled from the many images, sounds, performances and books. Logic is automatic and fast calculating, trained to turn ideas around, connect with another, cross things between English and Chinese and guide Andy to locations he might need to go. (It was about 3 years ago I developed this hunch, I often refer to the feeling to a calculation and the more I use it the more I feel confident about it.) 

Determination happens when Zen mode is turned on, he’s the guy which kicks in when there’s still a long way to go, the phone still ringing at 3,4 am with new requests for edits coming in. As sturdy as the rocks and the trees that gave him his colors. A bird shits’ on his head and he still stands, deep in his Zen mode. 

Passionate is the guy that supports it all. Without him there is no interest in graphic design, no staying up late to finish work, no browsing online and reading books…He got glasses on because others can’t tell when he’s looking at or that he is looking at all, but he is vibrant and full of energy all the time! ( And in my mind, this passion will always feel cool and hip, a general enjoyment of what I do).

I am generally pretty pleased with them, and I think Kooky is my favorite out of ‘em all. But for this course, I’d very much like to display other sides to my work and not having to go the “cartoon” route for later assignments, but this time I think everything just clicked and this will do.

ANDY was here