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Post forum presentation, I added a cover page to my brand style guide to provide a quick introduction of myself to the reader instead of showcasing my brand logo straightaway which was too abrupt. My name “Marcus” and “Brand Style Guide” are given the brand gold colour so that they stand out to the reader and capture their attention first because they are the most important information on the cover page.

As my intention is to enter the events and hospitality industry primarily catered towards high-level clientele, I decided that I wanted my personal brand and hence, brand logo to look classy and luxurious. I chose to create a simplistic version of a crown, like a king, to signify elegance and grandeur. This logo takes inspiration from the Rolex logo, the difference being that the crown is simplified through abstraction and personalised to my brand. In the space enclosed between the 2 triangles, diamond and line used to create the crown, you can see the letter ‘M’ shape form which matches the initial of my name “Marcus”. The logo also has 2 variations, 1 suited for use against white backgrounds and 1 suited for use against dark backgrounds. The logo used against white backgrounds has a duller gold colour so that the contrast between the logo and white background is greater, making the logo more prominent. For the logo used against a dark background, a gold gradient is used to make the logo pop and shine just like a reflection. In most instances, using the logo with the gold gradient colour should be used unless it affects visibility such as when it is placed against a white background. The chosen typeface for the logo is a serif display font (Minion Variable Concept Display Medium) which is meant to be eye-catching while maintaining the luxurious vibe of the brand.

For the business card, I wanted the luxury theme of my personal brand to be kept consistent, so I decided to also use another serif typeface (Georgia) for the finer details such as email, phone number and LinkedIn on the back of the business card. This provided some contrast between the header typeface (name and job designation), which utilised Minion Variable Concept Display Medium and the contact information. A dark green colour was chosen as the background of the business card because it represents luxury, professionalism and calmness which are qualities that I want to exhibit when conducting myself in the aforementioned events and hospitality industry. My name is kept in the gold gradient colour because I want that to be the most noticeable feature when others first look at the business card. The other details are kept in a cream colour, which is a duller version of white as it provides a good contrast to the dark green background while being easier on the eye compared to a pure white colour. The amount of information kept on the business card is meant to be as minimal as possible, with only the most important details being left on it, as I wanted it to look refined and not overwhelm the person looking at it.

A mock-up of how the business card looks like while displayed. Textured paper and cardstock material are used when printing out the business card.

For my resume, I chose the most important factors such as language proficiency, technical skills, soft skills, personal information, educational history, work experience and contact information to be featured inside because these are key aspects that employers look out for when hiring job applicants. The resume is meant to display a clean, structured and organised look that emits a feeling of professionalism and masterfulness. My name and the headers use the brand gold colour to make them stand out and clearly demarcate each section of the resume. For the remaining body copy, they utilise the cream colour which allows the resume to be easily read against the dark grey background. The text in the resume is kept either left-aligned or justified to provide easy reading for the viewer. Post forum presentation, I made the “About Me” section easier to read by breaking it up into 2 paragraphs while reducing the amount of text present inside. I also increased the spacing (leading) between each point under “Ministry of Social and Family Development” in the “Work Experience” section to allow readers to digest the information more easily.

After testing different variations of the logo, I have curated a list of DO NOTs regarding the usage of the logo which is presented above.

Some modifications that are allowed to be made to the logo include allowing the crown (the entire crown) to be used in isolation without my name “Marcus Ee”. Reducing the transparency (not the same as blurring) of the logo is also allowed. These techniques are demonstrated on the back of the business card if you look carefully at the background.

Only serif typefaces were chosen because I wanted to maintain the highly luxurious feel of my personal brand and allow viewers to easily read the text displayed on my logo, business card and resume. San-serif typefaces did not fit the aesthetic of my brand even though it may have provided better contrast, hence the decision to use 2 different serif typefaces instead. The Minion Variable Concept typeface also has many different weights (16 in total) which adds to the versatility of its usage when necessary. I have included only Minion Variable Concept Display Medium and Bold in my brand style because they were used in the creation of my logo, business card and resume. Post-presentation, I removed a lot of unnecessary text under the description of the typography system and separated it into 2 different paragraphs that define the reasoning behind my use of each typeface.

These colours are perfect for representing my personal brand which stands for elegance, sophistication yet retaining formality and professionalism. I believe these 3 colours are sufficient in portraying my personal brand while keeping the colour palette minimal so that the colours feel pleasant and inviting to the viewer.

This is an eye-level shot that is neutral and familiar to most people. This shot directly introduces the FILA water bottle and is clear in communicating what the object in the shot is to the audience. It is also symmetric through the center which makes the shot more pleasing to audiences.

This low-angle shot makes the FILA bottle look powerful and prestigious. This shot is meant to showcase FILA as a brand that is of high standing and respectable to the audience. Audiences will then perceive FILA to be a brand that is esteemed and of a higher class, making them feel that owning a FILA product elevates them to a higher social standing. The brand name and logo are also especially prominent in this shot, bringing more attention to themselves rather than the object (bottle) as a whole.

This top-down shot makes the FILA bottle feel attainable to audiences and empowers them as a result. Upon looking at this shot, audiences feel a sense of superiority over the FILA bottle. Hence, audiences feel that they can afford to buy such a product even if it is priced unreasonably high because they are deceived into thinking that FILA products are something that they can easily afford. This in turn improves sales for FILA because the shot lowers the perceived barrier of entry to buying a FILA product.

The signifier: Slices of tomato are stacked on top of one another in a rather haphazard manner. The tomato takes the form of a tower and has labels with wordings such as “Heinz”, “Tomato Ketchup”, “57 varieties”, “300ml-342g” on it.

Signified: It signifies a bottle of tomato ketchup that is produced by Heinz, one of the largest American multinational food companies in the world.

For this assignment, we were tasked to communicate complex information (that we chose for ourselves) through effective visual representation. Upon reading the assignment brief, I chose a topic that I felt was extremely relevant to myself and ongoing university students. I wanted to deal with information regarding the career prospects and average salary of the different majors available at FASS in NUS. I utilised the NUS Graduate Employment Survey 2021 (GES) that was conducted by the Ministry of Education as my dataset. However, I realised that the data regarding the average salary of FASS majors were combined together and presented either as Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Arts (Hons) or Bachelor of Social Sciences. There was no differentiation between the different FASS majors in the NUS GES. Hence, I decided to work with the NTU GES instead, as the data presented in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences were separated by major. I also used Indeed.com which is an employment website to search the career prospects available for the different majors.

Next, I proceeded to do a sketch on a piece of A4 size paper to get a rough idea of how I wanted to present the acquired data and the positioning of the different elements on the design piece. I also chose to limit the number of majors presented to only 8 because anything above that would affect the readability of the infographic.

Afterwards, I brainstormed different designs for the icons that I wanted to use. I crafted several designs straight from my head and referenced icon images online to get a better sense of how to design icons that signified the major as closely as possible. Below showcases the various icon designs that I drew out on paper so that they could be easily referenced during the actual designing which would be done in Adobe Illustrator.

For this infographic, I decided to go with a space theme as the aesthetic because I wanted to relate it to the word “Dream” where it is boundless and beyond the stars. The headline “Dream Major” has letters which are all different colours to represent the variety of majors/jobs available. Each major is denoted by a rectangular box that contains an icon (that showcases the major visually), average salary and 5 possible career paths that a student of that major can pursue. The colours chosen, blue, beige and reddish-pink were based on what I felt looked harmonious and suitable for presenting information that could be easily absorbed by readers.

Post-critique, I received some extremely thought-provoking comments that made me question what I was actually trying to present in my infographic. For starters, was I trying to help students pick a major or was I trying to help them choose a job? I didn’t know the answer to this question when it was asked in class. This immediately signalled to me that I had lost track of what I was trying to achieve with the infographic and the header “Dream Major” was thus problematic. After the critique session, I decided to focus solely on helping students pick a job based on their major and changed the header to “Dream Job” instead.

The next issue was that my infographic was too wordy. The paragraph of text underneath the header was confusing and did not add much value to the infographic. The purpose of an infographic is to display information as visually as possible with minimal use of words. Thus, I decided to shorten the paragraph of text into only 2 sentences which I felt was essential in giving the infographic some background context. Next, I took my TA’s advice to showcase only 3 jobs per major, and this time around, I would use icons to represent each individual job as appropriately as possible. This process took me an excruciatingly long time. Creating icons for some specific job roles was significantly harder compared to creating icons for general disciplines. The icons had to be much more targeted and showcase the uniqueness of the job. For example, I researched how a career counsellor does his/her job which is through dialogue and conversation with the client. Hence, I used 2 speech bubbles to represent speech between 2 individuals and placed a briefcase which represents work underneath it. Another example would be the human resource manager whose role is to help the company source outstanding candidates for recruitment into the firm. Thus, I used a magnifying glass to isolate a specific individual from a group of 3 to showcase a keen eye necessary for this job role. This process of researching the job, figuring out key elements of the job, and then proceeding to design was extremely tedious. I honestly thank Assignment 1 which taught me how to abstract ideas into simpler forms. Designing icons is very much like stage 4/5 of abstraction where you need to keep the design as simple as possible yet still retain important aspects of it that make it recognisable to the audience.

(Note to self: the shape builder tool is insanely useful for creating icons)

I would like to point out that I left out the average salary of majors during this reiteration of the design process because I felt the information added little value to readers. For example, a psychology graduate who works as a clinical psychologist will earn substantially more in comparison to a psychology graduate who works as social worker. Also, including the figures of average salary would affect the readability of the infographic, thus I purposefully left out this information.

Lastly, I changed the colours of the overall design to follow that of the brand guide provided by NTU. As my infographic is based on CHS majors from NTU, I felt a need to better connect this piece to follow that of the primary colours, red and blue, that are used to design the school emblem. The colours in my infographic look more pale-ish dark blue and purple-ish red because I reduced the opacity of the Pantone red and blue colours that I felt were too saturated which affected the readability of the infographic.

For this assignment, we were tasked to create an engaging storyline via the use of effective visual storytelling techniques and principles. There were also certain constraints set such as a limited number of frames 6-9, no text in the images presented and minimal photo manipulation.

Upon looking at the assignment brief, I was initially uncertain as to what I wanted to do, so I decided to look at some of the past sample works by previous students of the module to garner some additional inspiration. I realised that there were 2 main routes that students took to creating their storylines. They either used themselves (and their friends/family) as characters for their storylines or used non-living objects such as plushies, toys, etc, to act in their storylines. For myself, I decided to follow the latter, by using inaminate objects to craft my storyline, primarily because I was afraid to appear on camera. This lead to the next step which was to come up with a plot for my storyline.

On Friday night, I was eating dinner and decided to tune in on a TV show that was airing “The Lord of The Rings: The Ring of Power”. The show was about elves and men fighting off a bunch orcs in the fictional land of Middle-earth. This compelled me to create a storyline based on fighting, where there were two opposing factions aiming to destroy one another. One side would be the “good guys” and the other side would be the “bad guys”. Basically, a story of Good versus Evil.

I decided to search through my old Lego pieces that I played with as a child and eventually dug up a Lego chess set that was previously purchased in Germany during one of my family holidays there. 

I decided these were the perfect Lego pieces to use because they clearly showcased one faction against another. I chose to use only 3 characters for each faction because I did not want to overwhelm the audience with too many characters that will divert their attention away from the main characters which are the “King” and the “Wizard”. The King would serve as the protagonist of the storyline while the Wizard would serve as the antagonist.

I first drew up a sketch to serve as a rough guide as to how I wanted to capture my images and present the storyline to the audience. In some images, I drew dotted lines which served as grids to help provide a sense of how I wanted to position the different elements in my image. I also utilized arrow signs to show the direction of my camera and the angle of the shot. In addition, I had written several camera angles; front view, side view, over the shoulder, and top-down view in text to help guide my decision-making process during the photo-taking and selection. These systems helped me craft my scenes more easily and provided me with an initial look at my storyline without me even touching my camera yet.

I then proceeded to take photos using my phone camera, utilizing the sketch as a primary guide for the camera angles, direction and flow of my storyline. It is important to note that not all the scenes drawn in the initial sketch made it to the final product. For example, in scene 9, the image of the dead Wizard was rotated to become potrait instead of landscape because I felt it looked better and fitted the framing of the scenes. Many exploratory camera angles and images failed to make it into the final cut and are showcased at the end of my pdf submission.

I would like to state that during the sketching stage, I had not considered the proper organisation of my scenes. During the image compilation stage, I realised that the size and positioning of each frame in the final product also contributed to the storytelling visuals of my narrative. Having well-captured images was not enough, its presentation was significant as well. I decided that my storyline should be divided into 3 phases. The first phase represented by the first row, directly introduces the protagonist and the antagonist side by side, allowing the audience to compare the two and creating tension between the two opposing factions. For the second phase represented by the second and third row, it builds upon the previous phase by showcasing different angled shots that further enhance the anticipation of an eventual fight which is ultimately seen in scene 6. In the last phase represented by the last row, it zooms in onto the two main characters; the King and Wizard, which results in a 1-on-1 duel where the King emerges as the victor.

Post-critique, I received some valuable feedback that could help elevate my images. It was mentioned that for scene 4 and 5, the backgrounds were not suitable for the narrative and backgrounds were also an important element for visual storytelling. I wished I could include a Lego castle or wizard tower to bolster the narrative of the story. However, given my limited props/decor, I had to make do with using just the wall as a substitute for a white background.

For scene 4, I captured an image where the wizard was positioned slightly higher on the table compared to the original image. This made the Wizard seem even more menacing and posed as a greater threat that the King had to overcome.

For scene 5, I decided to use a different image whereby it is a back shot of the Wizard and his subordinates at a wide angle. Replicating the original image from scene 5 with a white background was too difficult given the short length of my table. Thus, I improvised and used a different image which to me, sufficiently conveys the intended nuances of the scene. 

Lastly, the image for scene 3 was also changed because I felt that the new image taken at a low-angle shot, really demonstrated the tension between a stand-off between the two opposing factions.

In-Lecture Exercise B

The art piece “A short History of Modernism, 1982” showcases three panels of oil on canvas paintings side by side one another. In the first panel, a woman can be seen standing outside her home holding a water hose washing the windows of a house (presumably her own). She is wearing a hat and in a dress whose style reflects an earlier period of fashion in the 1950s-60s. In the second panel, there is a man who is wearing an office attire smashing his head against a brick wall. The brick wall although tall, is not very wide and the man could have walked past it via the sides if he wanted to. For the last panel, a chicken is seen on top a small flight of steps staring at itself in a mirror. The colours used in the panel are also monochromatic, with colours purple, blue and red being used for each of the panels respectively.

At first glance, the paintings seem rather nonsensical and have no meaning at all. However, upon further inspection, one can deduce that this artwork shows a change in attitudes towards Modernism (which is an art movement) over time. The title of the piece, “A short History of Modernism” gives us context as to what the art work is about. Without it, the piece really does feel illogical and senseless, with typical audiences like myself having no clue what it is about.

The first panel refers to the more olden Renaissance aesthetic where art pieces strive to be as accurate and representative of the object of study as possible. Clarity and realism were key elements for art during this period, alongside a promotion of humanely virtues and moral ethics and symbolism. Hence, the woman in the painting is seen washing windows to give the clearest view possible. The second panel refers to what I feel are current artists (at that time, 1982) attitudes towards art which is depicted as the modernist era. They are portrayed as being stubborn and unwilling to change their mindsets towards new artistic forms, which is why they are drawn by the artist, Mark Tansey, as purposefully smashing their head into a brick wall. Since Mark Tansey was a postmodernist, it can be viewed that his perceptions of such artists were a little extreme and demonstrates his frustration towards them through his painting. For the last panel, the chicken represents what I believe is an artist’s self-reflection of himself/herself about his/her place in a postmodernism artistic world. The use of a chicken could be interpreted as artists not knowing who they are or what the future holds for them in this new period of time. It could also reflect Mark Tansey’s own insecurities regarding his own place in the postmodernist world. Although he seemingly looks forward to this new age of postmodernism, he seems apprehensive about it, even though he strongly detests the current era of modernist artists.  

When I first read the assignment brief, I thought of doing something related to food. Food to me, was best suited for the process of abstraction because you could strip it down to its most basic components by removing each ingredient one by one, layer by layer until you obtained its simplest form.

In the beginning, I believed that pizza was a relatively easier object to do given my lack of artistic ability and inexperience with the Adobe Illustrator application. But oh boy was I very wrong. I faced many problems utilizing the pen tool effectively and my curves often felt awkward and out of place.

I realised that designing on a digital application was significantly different from drawing in real life. Drawing in real life afforded more control to the designer whereas digital applications required mastery over various tools to effectively communicate your design. The image below showcases my poor attempt to draw a pizza.

After feeling frustrated at my first attempt at the assignment, I decided to play some games on my Nintendo Switch Lite instead. When I picked up the device, I noticed that the device contained many familiar shapes such as circles, squares and rectangles. It lacked the irregularity of a pizza slice where the crust, for instance, was not perfectly cut straight and sausage pieces came in different sizes. The Nintendo Switch was more structured in this sense with clear borders and boundaries for each individual element. Hence, I chose this device as my new assignment material. I decided to use a photo of the Nintendo Switch taken from a top-down view so that I could do a flat 2d drawing instead of one which required perspective.

For stage 1, I mainly used the rectangle, ellipse and polygon tool for drawing the various elements. The pen tool was used only to create the L and R buttons of the device because of its irregular shape. For colours, I used a grey colour palette that I found in the dropdown bar in Adobe Illustrator. Using the different shades of grey allowed me to achieve a more accurate representation of my chosen object. All the buttons which can be pressed are represented by a light grey tone that differentiates itself from the darker parts which form the main frame of the device. The screen is given a 3pt stroke to more clearly showcase its boundaries and its inner fill is lowered to a transparency of 60% to give the design a feeling of depth.

For stage 2, I removed many aesthetic choices of the device that did not directly impact the functionality of it. For instance, the arrow keys of the up, down, left, right buttons were removed alongside the A, B, X, Y letters on the buttons. A secondary border around the screen was also removed because it did not provide any additional functionality to the device.

For stage 3, lesser used buttons on the device were removed because they were not essential to the functionality of the system. Buttons like the screen capture (represented by the button with the circle on the bottom left), home button (represented by the button on the bottom right), plus and minus buttons were excluded as a result. The 3pt stroke of the screen was shifted back to 1pt because I felt it could still be identified as a screen whilst making it less conspicuous.

For stage 4, I removed the L and R buttons and also the circular joysticks because they were not key features of what constitutes a Nintendo device. My frame of reference was the old Gameboy Advance which mainly comprised of the cross-shaped joystick and A and B buttons. From my own experience, the L and R buttons were less commonly used, so I decided to exclude it during this stage of abstraction.

For stage 5, I changed the cross-shaped button to 2 intersected lines and circular buttons to dots, in an attempt to further simplify the image.

At this point, I felt confident in my stage 1-3 abstractions but was a bit apprehensive about my stage 4 and 5 abstractions. Thus, my main goal of the critique was to focus on getting opinions on these 2 stages.

During the in-class critique, I was given many helpful suggestions which helped inform my decisions regarding changes to improve my abstractions.

For stage 1, a student mentioned how I could consider adding reflections to enhance its look further. I took into account that in my original image, a reflection of myself could be seen on the screen. Hence, I decided to add a simple reflection using slanted rectangles that were in a lighter grey tone, which shows light hitting the screen.

Secondly, another student mentioned how there was still too much colour in stages 4 and 5 of my abstraction. She suggested using just black and white to more effectively simplify my design. After tinkering a bit with my designs, I felt that there was no need to use any black due to the fact that the outlines/strokes were sufficient in demarcating each specific element of the device. Thus, I completely removed all fill colour and left it as white for all the elements in stages 4 and 5.

Thirdly, a student brought up how the L and R buttons felt significant in helping her identify the design as a Nintendo switch. As a result, I decided to include the buttons in stage 4 of the abstraction since I felt that I had downplayed the significance of those 2 buttons given my own personal experience with it.

Lastly, another coursemate pointed out how in stage 5 of my abstraction, the circular buttons looked like speaker holes and could cause a misinterpretation of my intended device. This made me scrap the idea of simplifying both the circular buttons and joystick further, reverting it back to its original design in stage 4. The only difference between stages 4 and 5 is the removal of the L and R buttons.

In-Lecture Exercise A

This device stimulates the user’s brain and enhances creativity by combining a cap and earpiece into a single apparatus. The cap itself is meant to scan and analyse the user’s brain and the input it receives differs depending on the user’s current state of mind, emotions and stress levels. Based on all these factors, the device determines which type of music is best catered to the current state of the user and chooses the type of music to play. The earpiece functions by emitting specifically chosen music that helps the user get their creative juices flowing. The device is named “Kreate” as the intention of this device is to help users create new things and generate new ideas.