PROJECT 2 - SENSE OF PLACE

19 October 2022 -  2 November 2022/ Week 8 - Week 10
Sim Jia Min 0349784
Design Principles / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Project 2: Sense of Place

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INSTRUCTIONS (MIB)

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PROJECT 2:
BRIEF DESCRIPTION
- Use design principles to express the places of your choices
- Observe the surroundings and capture the particular location (sketches, photography, video, etc.)
- Locations can be anywhere (place you have been to, place you dream of, place you don't like, place you currently at, etc.)
- Select the interesting visual elements and put them into a design work that reflects your interpretation of the place.

- Can use any material that can express your ideas the best
- Deadline: Week 10

Self-taken photographs

I have a habit of taking photos whenever I see some things or scenes that interested me, so I decided to start doing my project by taking photographs and pick the old photos in my phone gallery.

Figure 1.1: Interior of a cafe (Hide and Seek Coffee, Taman Paramount)

Figure 1.2: Lovely red couch (Hide and Seek Coffee, Taman Paramount)

Figure 1.3: Seats (Hide and Seek Coffee, Taman Paramount)

Figure 1.4: An interesting corner (Hide and Seek Coffee, Taman Paramount)

Figures 2.1 to 2.4 is a unique cafe that I visited during independent learning week with my friend, it is located at Taman Paramount, but in a quite hidden place because it is on the second floor of shophouse, which is not easily noticeable. Looking through these photos I am still so amazed by the interior of the cafe and now I hardly even remember how the food tasted like. The characteristics of this cafe are there are many interesting pieces of furniture, especially the seats they provide to customers, and also there are many cool posters and artwork hanging on the wall. For overall experience, it is a very comfortable and interesting place for me, almost like an art gallery instead of cafe. 

Figure 1.5: Empty MRT

Figure 1.6: LRT station

Figure 2.5 & 2.6 were taken a few months ago when I was going somewhere by MRT and then transfer to LRT. I remember it was about 2pm on weekday, so there were not many people taking public transportation during that particular time. It was quiet and comfortable, a strong comparison with the crazy peak hours of public transportation.

Figure 1.7: Taylor's lakeside at 6pm

Figure 2.7 is taken at Taylor's lakeside a few months ago during my last semester of studying in foundation, there were not many people around that time because campus was not fully open yet, so the lakeside was a quiet and peaceful place, especially during the evening. I used to like eating my dinner there.

My decision of place is the unique cafe (Figure 1.1 - 1.4), especially figure 1.2 since I really like the red couch and want to add it to my work and emphasise it.

VISUAL REFERENCES

Figure 2.1: "You Are Intriguing" by Tishk Barzanji

An interesting artwork of an interior of a building. I like how the evening sunlight is passing through the arch and create some highlight area on the dark lighting interior. The place gives off some oppressive atmosphere from looking at the lady sitting in the middle while a man is standing, looks like a master-servant relationship. The dark green colour tone of the dark area makes the oppressive atmosphere stronger.

Figure 2.2: "Two Chairs and One View" by Maritzell Cázares

The place gives off a relaxing atmosphere and sense of warmth by being located near the sea and having sunny weather. The colour scheme of the building is warm orange and red colour, while the sky and the sea are light blue and grey, which form a strong contrast.

Figure 2.3: "The Simple Life" by Jeremy Booth 

The armchair, the book, and the unlit fireplace (not sure about this but it looks like a fireplace to me) in the picture form a comfortable atmosphere. The shadows presented in this picture make the place look near the window, which makes the sunlight go indoors.

I think that my chosen photo (figure1.2) is suitable to develop into vector art like figures 2.2 and 2.3 by using Adobe Illustrator because I want to create something clean and minimal like them, which can easily fit the sense of a comfortable place. Also, the shape of the main objects in the chosen photo is curvy (couch & table), so the pen tool & curvature tool in Adobe Illustrator is going to help a lot in tracking the shapes.

IDEA EXPLORATION & DESCRIPTION

Sketches

Figure 3.1: Idea sketch 1

This is a sketch based on figure 1.2. I want to present a comfortable atmosphere in the cafe, so for the overall colour scheme, I plan to go for a warm type of colour, and make the couch the emphasis by presenting it as red. The idea of adding posters on the wall is inspired by figure 1.4. The size of the artwork will be a vertical A4 size. 

Figure 3.2: Idea sketch 2

The sketch is based on figure 1.1, I changed the perspective. Since the table and chairs are close to the windows, so the sunlight will shines into the room, and shadow will be present in the work. Since sunlight will be in the design, and I personally prefer morning sunlight, so the place atmosphere is probably going to be something like peacefully eating breakfast at the cafe window seat.

Figure 3.3: Process on Adobe Illustrator

I first start with tracking the shapes of the objects from original photo by using pen tool, curvature tool & direct selection tool, also refer to my sketch since I added cushions, a cup of drink and a book which is not from original photo. 

Figure 3.4: Week 10 WIP (*The colour is not accurate here due to mistakenly export as CMYK colour model)

I was planning to use warm colour for the whole artwork, so I initially use a light brown colour for background, but I noticed that it makes the artwork looks bland and it doesn't make the couch looks stand out, so I tried a cool tone colour, which is dark blue. I think that dark blue works well with the red couch by making a really strong contrast, it also creates a calming effect for a comfortable space, so I end up decided to keep it like this. 

I apply warm light for the lamp because I usually feel comfortable under warm light, cool light will however make me feel tired and headache. For the poster on the wall, I applied warm colours on them to make a contrast with the dark blue wall.

Some refinements for final submission:

Figure 3.5: Added steam on the cup of hot chocolate (I prefer it to be hot chocolate instead of coffee) & adjusted shadows

Figure 3.6: Adjusted the arrangement of posters and added more patterns by using circles and rectangles (some with adjusted corner radius)

Figure 3.7: Adjusted the shadows & add simple details on paper

Figure 3.8: Use gradient tool to create a darker shade of couch that is not included in the lighting area

Figure 3.9: Adjuted position of light 

Figure 3.9.1: Colour palette of final design

Editing process on Photoshop:

Figure 4.1: Added film grain effect to create fuzziness and texture

Figure 4.2: Adjusted brightness, contrast & colour balance

Figure 4.3: Before & after

FINAL DESIGN

Figure 5.1: Final Design "The Quiet Corner"

The final design somehow gives off a quiet and calm atmosphere. Calm and quiet is exactly my ideal type of comfortable place, sitting on a couch, drinking hot chocolate and reading book under warm lighting, seems like a perfect place to stay. The place is also slightly dark except for the lamp lighting part, because I imagine it is located in some corner area, which is my favourite seat of all time. Corner seat in cafe & restaurant not only brings me peace, but it also won't be seen by others easily, so I can just eat my food comfortably without caring too much about my eating expression. 

Design principles applied:

- Emphasis: The red couch stands out due to its strong red colour, the lighting and also the biggest size out of every object.  

- Contrast: The contrast between warm colours & cool colours, the bright area (the lamp lighting) & other darker area.

- Symbol: The cup of coffee and book on the table, they indicate the comfort of sitting on the couch while drinking coffee and reading in a cafe.

- Unity: The posters on the wall are all made from rectangles and circles, but with different sizes and corner radius.

Figure 5.2: Final design outline view

FEEDBACK

Week 8: ILW

Week 9:

- should state the reason for doing vector art 

- sketch 1 is more accurate for the cozy atmosphere (coffee, book, couch), and more comfortable compared with sketch 2

- since the original photo is taken by myself, so it is ok to follow its composition for final work

Week 10:

- add a little bit of steam coming out from the cup (to create the symbol of a comfortable place)

- the book shadow should be darker, also for the cup

- the light should be warmer

REFLECTION

Just like the previous assignments, design principles can be applied to literally anything, but sometimes they don't even need to be applied, because they are already everywhere in our surroundings, which needed some observation done to capture them. Like the photo of the red couch I have taken, the photo itself already has an emphasis on the red couch, what I do in my design is basically to enhance it, and add some little features and details of my ideal kind of comfortable cafe environment, and then express the features with other principles. I have acquired that the elements and principles in the design can influence the meaning of the work easily, so applying the right elements that are able to express my interpretation correctly is significant. The thing that I have struggled with is adjusting the shadow because shadow is quite confusing for me, I was unsure about what the size should be, where the direction of shadows should go, etc. I looked up some shadow examples on the internet and tried to learn from them, and that is how I get the shadow works done, but I am not quite satisfied with them.