Design Principles | Project 1 :Self-Portrait
16.01.2022 - 30.01.2022 | Week 2 - Week 4
Yap Sze Ying | 0349172
Bachelor of Mass Communication (Hons) Digital Media Production
Design Principles | Project 1 :Self-Portrait
LECTURE
Who Am I?
Humans are social beings.
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| Figure 1.1 Self (20th Jan 2023) |
Self-Portrait Definition
- Self representation in the form of drawing/painting/sculpture/design
- Visual depiction of the self
- Exercise in self-exploration
It's important to mind-map the characteristics of oneself when creating a self-portrait.
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| Figure 1.2 Mindmap (20th Jan 2023) |
Listed below are several examples of portraiture:
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| Figure 1.3 Janice Sung's Self-Portrait (20th Jan 2023) |
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| Figure 1.4 Henrietta Harris's Self-Portrait (20th Jan 2023) |
INSTRUCTIONS
Project 1: Self-Portrait
1 Project 1 brief -Recap
- Create a portrait by applying various principles that learned through these weeks.
- Select visuals and materials that are relevant and apply design principles in the design.
- Contemplate your life experiences, which include culture, family, schooldays, favorite hangouts, favorite music, food, musicians, etc. Observe your surroundings – people, vehicles, buildings, plants, signages, nature, and activities.
2 Design Process
2.1 Self Research
In order to be able to create a more accurate representation of myself, I knew that I had to delve deeper into my own self. To learn more about myself, I started by taking the Myers-Briggs personality tests. For this, I got ISFJ-T. Throughout this result, I'm able to better understand my inner self, my difficulties, and how to overcome them in order to achieve my life goals.
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| Figure 1.1 Myer-Briggs' Personality Test Results (22nd Jan 2023) |
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| Figure 1.2 Mind Map (22nd Jan 2023) |
2.2 Visual References
Initially, I was unsure of how to convey my identity in my own self-portrait. Thus, I began by looking up and studying how others portray their own stories and personalities. Below are several designs that inspired me.
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| Figure 1.3 Anwita citriya's design | Source: shorturl.at/beM35 (22nd Jan 2023) |
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2.3 2-3 Idea exploration with descriptions
Proceeding on, I decided to create a simplistic and straightforward design to indicate my favorite things. I found myself returning to "Music" as I went over my mind map. It then created the thought of me singing while surrounded by flowers. Besides that, I also think of listening to music when I immersed myself in my own world. I then started to sketch out the design.
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| Figure 1.5 Sketch 01 (22nd Jan 2023) |
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| Figure 1.6 Sketch 02 (22nd Jan 2023) |
Following receiving feedback on both sketches from Ms Jin Chi, I decided to proceed with Fig 1.6 Sketch 02 as I think it provides me more flexibility to express and reflect on myself. To begin, I take several photos of my own belongings and settings, including my bed and headsets.
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| Figure 1.7 Image References (27th Jan 2023) |
With that, I move on to my digitization process in Illustrator. I began by drawing the headset, then the figure, the piggy doll, and lastly the background. In order to make this design more engaging, I also applied the gaussian blur effect to it.
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| Figure 1.8 Headset drawing (30th Jan 2023) |
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| Figure 1.9 Figure drawing (30th Jan 2023) |
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| Figure 2.0 Add Piggy doll (30th Jan 2023) |
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| Figure 2.1 Add Background (30th Jan 2023) |
Here is Attempt 01 shown.
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| Figure 2.2 Attempt 01 (31st Jan 2023) |
I tweaked the headset and included more musical notes to create movement after receiving Ms Jin Chi's feedback in order to create the appearance of dynamic.
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| Figure 2.3 Adjust the headset and Add musical notes (2nd Feb 2023) |
Thus I came up with the end result.
Final Outcome
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| Figure 2.4 Self-Portrait: Music World (2nd Feb 2023) |
Music World
Music was something that came to my mind when I think of myself. Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. I enjoy spending most of my time in a comfortable atmosphere by listening to music and cuddling up with my favorite piggy doll. Therefore, I came up with this title and design to simply express what I loved.
This piece holds several design principles that I had learned thoroughly in the past few weeks. The first is Balance. It is an approximate symmetrical and diagonal balance. It's located in a diagonal manner, and she is facing straight, which seems to be equally balanced in this design. Next, the design holds contrast. Pink and black are examples of complimentary colors, which are those that complement in terms of brightness and darkness and also create the strongest contrast between the hues. Furthermore, Emphasis is another design principle in this design. Its focus is the figure cuddling a piggy doll whilst listening to music. Last but not least, there is also repetition design principles. Several musical notes were repeatedly used to provide a guideline for the audience's eyes and how they should flow around them. Not only that, it also created a movement to this composition to make this design more dynamic, avoiding a monotonous feel.
FEEDBACK
25/01/2023
Sketch 01: Interesting design. Ms Jin Chi suggested that I include references, such as a photo of my own bed. Instead of just creating something up, it would be better to take photos of my own place to make it more accurate to what I want to convey about myself.
Sketch 02: Had to provide the actual photo to make it clear where the reference came from. Ms Jin Chi advised me to include the things I like, such as adding flowers surrounding me to make it less plain. In addition, thinking about design principles can enhance my work. For instance, it can be emphasis or repetition of flowers to enhance the mood.
01/02/2023
Nice design. It has a good sense of balance and maintains a diagonal balance. Besides that, the design principles must include in the rationale. Ms Jin Chi noted that this design can be improved by tweaking a few changes. First, the headset needs to adjust as using it wouldn't be able to see the ear pads. Second, add a few musical notes to make the design more dynamic by creating movement.
REFLECTION
Creating a self-portrait is my favorite type of artwork to create. It provided as a good practice in developing self-portrait ideas, learning more about ourselves, and figuring out a way to express what I think is my most authentic self. In addition to this, I gained knowledge about art and identity and incorporated design principles into creating an effective self-portrait. All in all, I had a great time completing this project and felt myself grow both mentally and practically in creating an artwork.
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