Common Module - AY25.26 WOII

Overall, I learned to understand the world isn't just there, it is something we interpret every single day.

Semiotics is everywhere and shows you that everything is a sign. While going out with friends to different stores, there is signage everywhere. Walking past a Cat Cafe, the signage will have cute cat sign letting viewer without reading to know what the store is about. Signage is better because pictures and symbols tell people what a store sells much faster than words can. It uses a "universal language" that everyone understands instantly, even from a distance or without reading.

Post structuralism taught me that words and rules aren't fixed, so when I feel pressured by a label like "failure," . While doing photoshop project, I was always worried about it not looking like a traditional, professional design. It is easy to label my work as a "failure" because it doesn't match the "perfect" image. But post structuralism remind me that the definition of success is actually fluid and changes over time. 

Postmodernism is breaking the rules of being "perfect" and "simple. My bookshelf is a postmodern rebel. Instead of following the "rule'" of keeping things separate and simple, I mix my action and romance comic books with my romance novel and school work. It’s a colorful, chaotic blend that cares more about how it makes me feel than how "organized" it looks. It proves there isn’t just one right way to be a student or a reader, it can be all of those things at the same time.

Phenomenology is the study of how you personally experience a moment through your own feelings and senses. It focuses on how things feel to you rather than just what they are made of. When I drink my coffee or matcha in the morning, I focus on how the warm cup feels in my hands and how the smell makes me feel calm. Instead of just waking up, I treat it as a special moment that helps me start my day with a peaceful mind. This shows that my personal experience is more important than just the drink itself.

Reference:

-Wong Sin Huei, 16 April 2026

Post Structuralism is never stable and depends entirely on the viewer's 'life-world while structuralism is finding logic and permanent rules for everything. It taught me that design is not just about sending a fixed message, but creating interaction where the meaning can shift and evolve.

Roland Barthes artwork have been wide-reaching and have had a profound impact on how we interpret artworks. One of his work, "Death of the Author," Barthes shifted the focus from what the artist intended to what the viewer experience. Meaning that the person looking at the art is just as important as the artist. It taught me that once I finish a piece of work, my own opinion about what it "means" isn't the only one that matters. Instead of there being one "right" answer, every viewer brings their own feelings and ideas to the work. Letting us to create freestyle arts, not having to control how everyone sees our work. I just provide the "signs" and let the viewer find their own story in them.

In our group activity, I realized that objects don't have a fixed meaning and have no fixed voice. For example, I took a photo of a dirty, abandoned chair that looked unwanted on its own. However, when my partner paired it with the word 'Premium,' the meaning completely changed. The text forced the viewer to rethink the image, making the chair seem ironically luxurious or 'exclusive. I learned that an image is a question, and text is an answer. By putting them together, my partner and I weren't just showing things, we were building specific messages, teaching me that as an artist, I can use text to 'control' my art, or I can leave it out to let the audience be more creative.

References:

Postmodernism is a design style that broke the rules of being "perfect" and "simple." While older designs focused only on being useful, postmodernism focuses on being entertaining, colorful, and full of personality, teaching us that design doesn't have to follow a single "right" way. Instead, it can mix different styles and materials to create a unique meaning. It cares more about how an object makes you feel and how you interpret it, rather than just how it functions.

Like a standard office or hospital that is designed only to be useful and organized while a themed restaurant or a pop shop are designed to be entertaining and full of personality. The design isn't just guiding us to a seat but it is actively shaping your experience and mood through its playful and unexpected choices, showing that in our daily lives, design can be a mix of many different meanings rather than just one boring, logical purpose.

Robert Rauschenberg was an American painter and multi-media artist that broke the "rules" of traditional painting by mixing everyday objects with high art. Through his famous "Combines," he used a process of pastiche, blurring the line between a painting and a sculpture by attaching real-world items like tires, blankets, or street signs to his canvases. His works are showing that art is not always something perfect but can be distant to something that felt like a messy, real world interaction.

During my craft workshops, I get to explore about experimental spectrum of typography with cyanotypes, moving away from standard, readable layouts toward a more postmodern approach. I learned that by varying the scale, weight, and placement of letters, typography becomes a visual subject rather than just a tool for information. 

For group activity, we create our own advertisement. We created a poster with my used hand cream using digital fragmentation as our primary technique by using fragmentation and pastiche. With layering textures, newspaper clippings, shattered glass and CDC to create a chaotic visual context showing that it is a reliable tool that stays "with you through ANYTHING", no matter how crazy your day gets. This style breaks the rules of traditional, clean advertising and represents the chaotic "life-world" we move through. This activity taught me that through postmodern design, even a simple handcream can represent a deeper social context of reliability and emotional comfort in our busy daily lives.

References

Phenomenology is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view. Instead of asking "What is this object made of?", they asks, "How does this object appear to me, and how do I experience it?", focusing on perception, emotion, memory, and personal context.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty's quoted “The world is not what I think, but what I live through,” explains reality is experienced directly through embodied existence rather than through abstract thought like same situation can feel different depending on our mood and environment. As I grow older, time feels faster and more meaningful compared to the slow, carefree days of my youth. Even though the world stays the same, my experience of it has changed. This reminds me that design isn't just about how things look, but about how they feel to the person using them helping me become more aware and human-centred in my creative process.

Olafur Eliasson’s The Weather Project functions as a monumental exercise in phenomenology by prioritizing the "lived experience" of the viewer over the scientific data of meteorology. By using a monofrequency sun and artificial mist to alter the room's atmosphere, forcing a state of embodied awareness, where visitors don’t just observe the weather but become part of it. Through the use of a ceiling mirror that encourages "seeing oneself seeing," the installation dissolves the boundary between the subject and the environment, turning a shared sensory phenomenon into a collective Life-World where raw feeling takes precedence over objective fact.

In our class activity, we had interpreted time as an image. Instead of seeing time as clock time, phenomenology asks how time, different situations and individual experiences actually feels. I created a mind map exploring about showing that even though we live in the same timeline. My final sketch interprets time not as a universal clock, but as a live image shaped by environment. By juxtaposing a desert heat with a winter chill at the same chronological moment, I illustrated how weather dictates the rhythm of daily life and atmosphere. This exercise taught me that design can transcend "literal time" by focusing on phenomenological reality, proving that while we share a timeline, our experience of time is profoundly subjective and anchored in place.

References:

-Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge, 1962, https://voidnetwork.gr/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Phenomenology-of-Perception-by-Maurice-Merleau-Ponty.pdf, Feb 26, 2026

Semiotics is the study of how signs create meaning. A sign can be anything that represents something else like a red light meaning “stop” or a heart shape meaning “love.”, but its meaning is not natural or fixed. It can be shaped by culture, context, and shared understanding. People interpret signs based on their experiences and background, different people may understand the same sign in different ways. Overall, semiotics helps us understand how meaning is constructed and communicated in everyday life. Without semiotics, we would not understand how signs create meaning, and communication through images, symbols, and visual messages would become confusing and easily misunderstood.

An example of semiotics in design can be seen in the pixel icons created by Susan Kare. The image itself is the sign, and the meaning we attach to it comes from what we have learned culturally. For example, a house icon usually means “home” because we associate that shape with safety and return. If someone does not share the same cultural understanding, they may misunderstand the symbol. This connects to semiotics because it explains how signs and symbols communicate ideas without words. Being my studio research artists, I created pixel icons that we used everyday. I learned how small visual "signs" can immediately communicate a specific meaning. These icons serve as a bridge between my research and design, showing how even minimal shapes can trigger a clear emotional or mental response for the user.

During our group discussion, we had different interpretations of the advertisement. One of my classmates focused on the political conflict, while I saw it simply as a product advertisement. Through discussion, I realized that advertisements often sell emotions and ideas rather than just products. We chose an advertisement about JBL, two figures are shown shouting loudly on both sides, while a calm person in the middle wears noise-cancelling headphones. The faces are exaggerated creating a feeling of pressure and conflict with the person in the center being peaceful. From a semiotics perspective, the shouting figures represent political noise and social conflict with headphone being a white spacing using gestalt principle of closure becoming a symbol of escape and control. This advertisement is not just selling headphones, but the idea of peace in a noisy world. This activity made me more aware of how often I unconsciously interpret signs in daily life. Having to see advertisements everywhere, I question what message is being constructed and how designers use visual elements to influence viewers.

white spacing using gestalt principle (JBL headphones)

Reference

Susan Kare, Apple Macintosh icons, January 24, 1984, https://99percentinvisible.org/article/designed-with-kare-influential-macintosh-graphics-of-early-apple-computers/, April 1 ,2026

The Design Analysis Framework helps me understand objects beyond their basic function. It encourages me to think about how they are made, what they represent, and what materials are used. It also reminds me that context and culture influence how we interpret everyday objects. In Week 4, I analyzed everyday objects by looking at the purpose and form of my AirPods, they are useful for phone calls, but they also entertain me by playing music. While my wallet context is all about security, so it is very useful but not entertaining at all. The hand cream is in the middle being useful for my skin, but its material also gives me a small moment of enjoyment. This exercise taught me that design isn't just about what an object does, but how its material and meaning change how I feel when I use it.

For my Week 5 field trip, I explored how design objects facilitate different types of engagement. I selected a promotional poster, public signage, and a handcrafted object to analyze through the theme of "Interaction, focusing on how they guide my behavior and emotions.

Poster

Form: Using bold visuals and typography to attract attention and create visual interest .

Function: Designed to share information in an engaging way that catches the eye.

Context: It is used in public areas to grab the attention of people walking by.

User interaction: For the viewer to stop and look, turning information into entertainment, hows how design balances being fun to look at with being useful to read.

Signage

Form: Uses clear branding and symbols (semiotics) so it can be recognized from a distance.

Function: For customer to identify the store and invite people to enter.

Context: Located on the front of a shop to stand out to people walking or driving by.

User interaction: A practical interaction guiding the viewer behavior by telling them what the shop is and where the entrance is, working effectively without needing to be entertaining.

Handcrafted Objects

Form: Uses natural materials and has a unique texture because it is handmade rather than factory-made.

Function: Designed to provide a personal and emotional experience for the owner.

Context: Used in personal or home settings for people who value quality and effort.

User interaction: The user engages with it physically. They can feel the weight and texture, which creates a stronger emotional connection than a mass-produced item.

The theme connects to daily life, when a poster catches my attention, I pause and look at it. When shopping, I often pick up handmade items. Holding a ceramic cup or textile piece allows me to feel its texture, weight, and the effort behind it. This feels more personal and emotional than mass-produced objects. Choosing the theme “Interaction” highlights how design is not passive. It actively shapes how I respond, move, feel, and experience a space. Through my personal experiences, I realize that design constantly influences my behavior and emotions, often without me noticing. This understanding deepens my appreciation of how everyday objects are carefully designed to guide human interaction.

Reference

Critical thinking is the ability to carefully analyze, evaluate, and reflect on information, ideas, and processes before making decisions. It allows me to question why certain choices are effective, how different approaches influence outcomes, and whether the information I rely on is trustworthy. Critical thinking helps me move beyond immediate solutions to consider deeper meaning, connections, and implications. It also encourages me to explore multiple perspectives, anticipate challenges, and refine my approach based on evidence and observation. By practicing critical thinking, I can develop more thoughtful, purposeful, and impactful work while approaching problems with clarity, adaptability, and confidence.

“Critical thinking requires us to use our imagination, seeing things from perspectives other than our own and envisioning the likely consequences of our position” by Bell Hooks. I believe it is true because critical thinking is not just about analyzing information, its also involves empathy, imagination, and understanding the potential impact of our decisions. In my own learning and creative journey, stepping outside my own perspective helps me approach problems more thoughtfully and develop work that resonates with others. It reminds me to consider not only my own ideas but also how they affect others and the world around me. By envisioning consequences and exploring multiple viewpoints, I am able to create more meaningful, purposeful, and responsible outcomes.

In daily life, I used to struggle to keep up with assignments because of poor time management. By thinking critically, I learned to analyze how I approach my work, prioritize tasks, and consider the consequences of leaving things until the last minute. This reflection allowed me to create a schedule, allocate time effectively, and anticipate potential challenges. As a result, I not only meet deadlines more consistently but also produce higher-quality work, showing how critical thinking can transform both efficiency and productivity.

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Reference:

-Bell Hooks, September 2009, scribd.com

CTS A | Week 2 Collaborative Skills

Using collaborative skills in creative projects means building up ideas as a team.One person’s concept inspires another, and the whole project becomes stronger because everyone adds their creative voice. By showing how they progress visually so others can give feedback or continue the idea or suggest improvements.

Without collaboration, the work only reflects one person’s view, leading to fewer ideas, less innovation, and a weaker final concept as group projects depend on diverse perspectives.

For example, Behind the Scenes at Studio Ghibli. EVERY SINGLE FRAME is hand-drawn by animators, before being put together to give the illusion of movement and create the film. As each hand-drawn making it into a feature film will need to make lots of frames which one person will take years to finish. With group collaboration, staff members are expected to accelerate their workflow “Often new employees need to be hired towards the end of production to ensure that the film is completed on time.”

In class, I practiced collaborative skills through our group activity, creating what we were actually growing up with. We had to combine our ideas and work as a team to finish the activity. We discussed different approaches, listened to one another’s perspectives, and giving ideas. This experience taught me how teamwork helps strengthen ideas, improves workflow, and creates a better final outcome than working alone. I also learned about what other people perspective towards this generations. Most of us have the caught up the generations of memes and also what they do with their friends. Some may find memes as dark humor while some doesn't. Having this activity helps me viewed about different perspectives of things around us.

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References:

 Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli (18 April 2013) ghibligabble.blogspot.com

CTS A | Week 3 Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, understand, and manage one's own emotions, as well as recognize and influence the emotions of others. It involves a range of skills including self-awareness, emotional regulation, empathy, and social skills, which can be learned and improved throughout life. Emotions are intertwined with our everyday experiences, affecting how we perceive the world, interact with people, and make decisions. Its easily changed as its dynamic influenced by internal thoughts, external events, and interactions with others. A person may feel happy one moment and frustrated the next, depending on circumstances or new information.

An example, while scrolling tiktok I scroll through a video about woman rights. Man would be commenting about them not being involved and seen enough to be having their own rights. Where some thinks its should be equal where talking about women and men rights. Those lacking emotional intelligence may misinterpret statements, assume negative intentions, or respond defensively, reinforcing stereotypes and mistrust.

In our class activity groups, we were given a topic to act out a scenario where my group have to act about a classmate having no participation giving no suggestions in group projects. This is a great understanding about emotional intelligence letting us understand that one person might not have self-awareness might change the group atmosphere. But given as group with classmates that are not participating much brings difficulty to our works,  creating extra workload  and can slow down progress. However it link back to my own topic which brings real life experience to solve which is a relieve. Hoping this brings our group knowing their own responsibility brings them to help the group move forward. This understanding reinforces the importance of emotional intelligence in fostering cooperation and maintaining a positive, productive group environment.

298 words.

Tiktok, 16 November 2025

CTS A | Compulsory Questions 1:

Critical thinking is the ability to look at information with an open but questioning mind. Instead of believing something immediately, you pause, analyze the details, and consider whether the information makes sense.

It can be involve in daily meals like hawker food prices in Singapore. Used to be affordable, accessible, and culturally significant but now 6.1% for some cooked hawker food, per government statistics. Now, Mcdonald's is cheaper than that, remembering hawker centre used to be cheap back in the days where I can save money. Local will be complaining about the sudden high rise of prices. "Why are prices rising? Are the increases justified by higher ingredient costs or rent? "

One of our group activities was to create a mind map with visual metaphor, helping us turn complex ideas into concrete images and see the relationships between concepts clearly. We tried observing what engine are there in a spaceship as our visual metaphor which link to what we learned so we create it as a mind map. With the help of my group mates collaborating together and analyzing all our ideas we managed to complete everything.

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References:

-Deborah Lau, "The Big Read: Singaporeans want cheap and good hawker food. Hawkers need to make money. How do we square the circle?", 22 Jul 2024, CNA

CTS | A Compulsory Question 2:

In creative and technical learning, developing skills is just as important as mastering techniques or software. These skills help us not only generate ideas but also evaluate them, work effectively with others, and adapt to challenges. Across all the module we have to learn, we are encouraged to think deeply, communicate clearly, and reflect on our processes.

I believe every module have personally helped me with having more creative mind like Studio Research framework. We have to draw out mind maps to brainstorm out ideas with only library books which is difficult for our generations now with the help of internets. Discovering unexpected connections, visual references, and design ideas we wouldn’t normally find through a simple Google search. I have a problem which its too relying on internet to find any source of information to answers which overall usage, it weaken in my learning because information online is often fast.

Being able to explore and learn something gaining both technical skills and a deeper understanding of how images communicate. I used to be an introverted person who likes to stay in but having project in photography allows me to explore the outside world able to capture a lot of beautiful details. I am able to change my mindset to step out of my comfort zone and push myself through trying new things.

Same as Jason Teale that have able to put "fixed mindset" and "growth mindset" into his artwork. "When I looked at these two mindsets while focussing on photography, it gave me some useful insight into what may be a sticking point for some people." Able to tell how much he learned with skills develop through practice, experimentation, and learning from mistakes. Helping me recognize that progress in comes from being open, patient, and willing to keep learning rather than relying on natural ability.

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References:

-Jason Teale, "Photography and the Growth Mindset", The Sajin, 9 June 2015, jasonteale.com

CTS A | Compulsory Question 3: In my journey in Lasalle, I realized that learning is not just about mastering tools or techniques it’s about navigating complexity, understanding people, and adapting to challenges. Working on group projects and creative assignments has shown me how ideas evolve when different perspectives come together, and how tension or disagreements can spark innovative solutions.

Developing emotional awareness helps me read situations and respond constructively, while a growth mindset encourages me to embrace mistakes as part of the creative process. Able to approach problems, generate ideas, and create meaningful designs that communicate clearly and authentically. Being able to do that also needs fulfill client's needs.

Wanting to have a professional journey about making short animation films spreading awareness. I used to watched films in Youtube where one film that everyone can relate is an animated short film “Overcomer” by Hannah Grace. Grace tackles her own anxiety and depression, yet the message is broad enough to resonate with many. She hopes everyone be able to find peace in their own life even though she have been suffering herself bringing empathy to else. Analyze "Overcome" uses visual metaphor, emotional narrative, and simplicity to deliver a strong message.

I plan to become a freelance graphic designer and short animator, creating work that can be seen and spreading awareness to the world. In our group activity, we were asked to reflect deeply on our choices and envision a clear path for our professional journey. Before this exercise, I had never considered the details of my final-year project or what I truly wanted to achieve. Being able to express my goals and articulate what I want to learn made me feel visible and more certain about my aspirations. It helped me understand not only the type of projects I want to pursue but also the impact I hope to make through my creative work.

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