Project Report

Individual Practice Pitch and Development Boards

Pitch Boards for SYFY:

Extra/Development Boards: 

Live Brief - Ohh Deer - Mindmapping

So before moving onto executing the designs themselves, as usual, I quickly did up some mind maps to better absorb the brief's information as well as well as brainstorm on some design ideas and what techniques should be used for the cushions themselves. The questions presented in the study task briefs have already been answered in a previous post.

While I had somewhat of a rough idea on what I could dish out over the next few days, I still thought it would help to do a little brainstorm on what styles, colour palettes and mediums I could and/or should use, whilst I definitely should go with something I am familiar enough with that will allow me to create works in a decent amount of time, I always wish to see what types of designs appeal exactly to the masses on this site.

I do notice that a number of works submitted in by others are based around existing works (AKA, fan art), something that I had asked about from a classmate of mine when I had first heard about the competition. And so another thing to consider is whether I should take the easier way and do the same, or attempt to create more original works to showcase in my portfolio? A large part of me believes that it would be safer and more challenging and worthwhile to work on more original pieces (I can after all get fan art works done for Redbubble whenever I want), as I am also uncertain about the copyrights when it comes to the former choice.

Competition Brief - SYFY - Mindmapping

Overview

While it was clearly stated in the brief that no new shows or films should be suggested, or that we shouldn't refer to any of the past or present shows they have been showing on their channel. I decided to list a bunch of them for reference, as a little reminder as to what is considered part of the sci-fi genre, should I happen to accidentally find myself steering away from it without realising it.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming at this point in time is a little more challenging (Seeing that I couldn't decide on a specific deliverable just yet), though I suppose I could refer to this mindmap for inspiration once I begin sketching out my concepts. I still really need to figure out one product I really wish to work on before the presentation this thursday, yelp!

Live Brief - Ohh Deer - Submission and After Thoughts

The submission process was thankfully pretty straight forward, what did however bother me was the fact that I was unable to download the mock ups that they would make of our designs (Otherwise I would have posted them up here). Getting people (Even friends and family) to vote for these designs proved to be surprisingly difficult unfortunately, no matter how many times I actually forced myself to promote my designs. I am honestly not sure whether they had difficulties doing so, or were just lazy (Sure it's easy to share... but when it comes to voting... that is apparently a whole other story).

This was actually my first time entering such a competition, and hence it was also my first time experimenting with various designs to see what would especially appeal to the site’s audience. It was also my first time constantly promoting my designs in hopes of getting some extra support, and so I needed to gather as much courage as I could when it came to sharing my designs numerous times on various sites just so I could get as many people to vote as possible.

I did feel that this was more of a popularity contest more than anything else, as only those who already had a considerably large reputation got the most votes. I also cannot say for certain what designs truly appealed to the masses (Seeing that it once again appeared to be a popularity contest and nothing more). I believe one of the winning designs was actually ink sketches of different buttocks, which was appealing in its own crude humor. And regarding the feedback I received from friends, my dinosaur piece was the most popular out of the four cushion designs I did.

While I did not do all that well for this contest, it does encourage me to enter more design competitions in the future, seeing that I had never done so until this year.

Live Brief - Ohh Deer - The Designs

Design 1 - So Fly

A lot of effort was put into this design mainly because it was done as a dedication to my babies back at home, one whom I have mentioned, had passed away recently from cancer... Throughout the night, I ended up sharing my progress with my sister (Who also adored the bejebus out of our dogs) on this piece (It was morning in Singapore by that time), getting some feedback in making this piece better.

As you can see from the old design, there were far too many balloons, which clearly took the focus away from the dogs themselves, I was also really bothered over how the smaller dogs had far more balloons than the largest dog, and so decided to redo the balloons, counting how many each one had as I did. 

The other significant change I made was to the top dog's eyes, that initially looked a little too sad in older design. I also changed the harnesses to more traditional looking ones, as the older ones simply looked like colourful bandages wrapped around their mid-section...

I had a slightly tough time balancing out the details on the background, not wanting to make the entire image look too busy while at the same time not wanting it to be too plain and flatly coloured either.

Design 2 - Prehistoric Spectrum

I thought I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted with this design, and while it didn't take too long to paint out each silhouette (It did take a little time figuring out which dinosaurs to include however, I had ended up looking through several lists and charts, taking into account the most popular ones (Such as tyrannosaurus rex, stegosaurus and pterodactyl), and the memorable enough ones (Thanks to Jurassic Park)), it took some time figuring out how I would arrange them into an appealing enough layout.

This initially had a black background, but the contrast did not appeal to me all that much.

For quite some time, I was having trouble deciding whether they should all be scaled to similar sizes, or be scaled to their contrastingly more accurate sizes... And so after much struggling, I ended up looking through some dinosaur wrapping paper for reference, and while I had finally found a suitable one, I grew ever more displeased, as I realised just how overdone this idea actually was... though I suppose, you can never have enough dinosaurs.

Design 3 - Idiogenics

Based on a game concept of mine, I wanted to show that this one actually had a little story to it, through the strangely disgruntled expressions of the characters, and the gritty background (Scroll down) that contrasts to their clean and brightly coloured selves, signifying that not all is well... and that they don't belong in this place.

Anyway back to the design itself, I thought that this was a great choice for one of my cushion designs, mostly due to the cartoony art style used. I have received surprisingly positive responses from several people (From various parts of the design industry) whom I deeply respect, and thought that this would be a good time to bring it back (Not to say I will stop here, someday I hope to expand further on this universe of mine, but that will have to wait for another time I suppose).

While the outline looked alright at first, it didn't sit right with me once I
added in the texture to the background. It probably might have looked fine if I
had gone with a plain background instead.

From past experience, I remember how much darker prints tend to turn out as compared to the digital file itself, and so before submitting this design, I decided to lighten the texture used for the background, while also making sure that there was still enough contrast between it and the characters.

Design 4 - Princess Hanabi

Another design based on one of my original characters, I just worked away on this one, forgetting to take progress shots as I did. Before the final design shown below, there was one where the character was simply surrounded by a pink mist, and another where the petals were actually pink. I feel that so much more could have been done with the layout... in all, this has to be my least favourite out of all designs, especially since it looked so much better done in marker... but I am glad that I was able to get it out of the way.

Anyway, with this brief finally completed, it is time I moved onto the next one, and perhaps this time it will be an animation based one.

Live Brief - Ohh Deer - Sketches

As I had mentioned awhile back, there was no time to lose, and so quickly, I did up some sketches based around several art styles considered to be contemporary and as well as reused some original concepts I have done in the past that I never had the chance to further expand upon... before working on the final products during the same night. 

Aside from looking through examples of what was considered to be contemporary, I did also look through the works of my competitors, wanting to see what was popular (Though I suppose that it all comes down to how many supporters you have when it comes to this competition, still however, it wouldn't hurt to take a look). 

While I do want to make sure that my designs will appeal to a large enough audience, I did not want to accidentally create something that has already been done a dozen times by others (Like photo realistic cats, owls and wolves...).

Aside from looking back to my mind maps, I was also looking through my folders of old original works that I could reuse for this project. Taking into account that they were looking for contemporary as well as the amount of time I had left, I ended up modifying some of my original ideas into something simpler, if they were originally done in a realistic looking style.

This gave me the chance to design some new characters for this series too,
which I can hopefully use for something else in the future.

Live Brief - Ohh Deer - Overview

I was glad that some of my classmates shared this competition on Facebook (As I have been worrying from the very beginning about not being able to find enough live briefs to meet this module brief's criteria), it helps that it is also a simple and enjoyable enough one to carry out:

Who
Ohh Deer Quirky Illustrated Gifts

What
With Cushions being one of Ohh Deer's most popular products with their online customers, we are given the chance to see how popular our designs can be when placed in a public domain.

How
Submit in a cushion design (Maximum being 4), you can increase your ranking by getting your posts liked, tweeted and pinned (Ugh…). Winners are picked based on designs that fit well within the brand itself, it will need to be contemporary at most, and have been shared by purchased by their audience.

When
Uploads close on the 15th November 2014

Why
For them? It's the usual opportunity to get in large quantities of new products to put up for sale and earn money from. For me? It will not only meet one of the 5 briefs, but can also be added to my resume once completed (Which is still embarrassingly short).

There isn't much I can show for progress when it comes to this brief, I however might be able to show some sketches as I rush to meet this brief's deadline, while we can only submit 4, there is no need to design them all as a matching set, and so I can also experiment with several different styles in hopes that one of them might be well received by the audience. So all I can do right now is simply get to work before it's too late for me.

So, wish me luck!