Clare Cheng - Semester 2 Portfolio

puiclare@yahoo.com.hk http://www.puiclare.com

O

verview of the Semester

Type of brief: In this semester, we had several briefs from “tight” to “open”. I feel that an “open” brief could let me explore and come up with more different ideas. I think the Ministry of Sounds Project for D&AD was the tightest brief, with the constraints of using specific colours and including many activities’ information. This made me feel hard to manage the data with my design well. However, in the final project – Manifesto+, I could really enjoy designing it by using my very own style as the brief was exactly related to myself. We could also use whatever medium to communicate our ideas with the audience.

Integral elements: During the projects, I found that I liked using graphic illustration in my design, which was especially strong in the Little White Lies brief for D&AD and the Manifesto+. I like making something complicated into a simplified shape. This may be related to my past drawing experience such as doing too many boring still life drawings with accurate details. Graphic and illustration can always turn something dull into fun that is what I like. However, I think I still have to continue the life drawings in order to improve this element by finding the most interesting perspectives of different subjects.

Success: My strength is learning new things quickly. I didn’t have any proper design experience before this exchange programme. Therefore, having improvement in overall design performance probably is the most successful things I have been in this semester. Having chances of trying different design topics, I learnt a lot together with reading examples of different foreign graphic designers’ works.

Problems: Making the final work into a print version was one of the problems arisen. The uses of printing papers and layout always affect the quality of printing, so I had to trial and try when the photo book and manifesto were printed in order to overcome the problem.

D&AD Ministry of Sounds Posters

University Logo

D&AD Little White Lies Cover

Manifesto

Meltdown Festival Posters

Photographers Book

D&AD Ministry of Sounds

Little White Lies

I chose the Ministry of Sounds brief for the D&AD project. The typography brief provided me an opportunity to explore different areas of type composition. In fact, typography is always the area that I feel difficult to handle with. Although the client Ministry of Sounds is a popular club, I had never been to a club before I came to the UK so I found difficulties in understanding the club environment. Alcohol and strong beat music were the elements about a club that I could think of initially. As a result, I wanted to use the two elements as the main components in my poster design.

Another brief is Little White Lies project, which was looking for an illustrative cover design. The constraints were relatively simple that we only had to make a portrait by choosing one of the selected movies. I chose the tree of life, as I initially thought that the use of natural elements could help me develop the portrait easily. However, I spent most time in understanding the movie and finding the best shooting angle of the main character, which I thought he should be the 11-year-old boy.

For the final concept of the design, I played with the Ministry of Sounds Logo by using the DJs’ names to form the easy recognizable logo, which is a valuable asset of a popular brand. Instead of forming the original dance floor light ball with the names, I made them into a disc shape in each poster so as to make audience focus on the events’ music. Beside, I replaced the words “MINISTRY OF SOUNDS” in the logo into liquid form “SATURDAY SESSIONS” in order to specially reflect the events. The whole poster could be considered as – Ministry of Sounds’ Saturday Sessions provide you good alcohol and music by the honourable DJs. However, I felt the contradiction showing the power of music was not strong enough as this was constricted by the colour of alcohol. This should be improved next time.

I used a simple portrait of the main character, with the wood texture overlaid. I paid more attention in making the typography, using branches to form the word “the Tree of Life”. And the wing indicated the heaven and the concept of god in the movie. Life is just like making choices. We have to select different branches of road in our entire life.

Originally I planned to use the front face of the character. However, that couldn’t match the composition with the wing. And I am satisfied with the composition now.

Investigate Ministry of Sounds

Little White Lies

Shape Ministry of Sounds

Little White Lies

Refine Ministry of Sounds

Little White Lies

Articulate - Ministry of Sounds

Articulate - Little White Lies

Meltdown Festival Posters

University Logo

Manifesto In the initial written Manifesto, I tried to list out what the important things were in my life. They might be related to my daily life, habits, interests or meaning of life. I couldn’t expect I would have so many points after the listing.

This made me to give up some less important points.

I tried to find a medium to translate my written concept into a visual artifact. Then, I thought of the travel I had recently. I always send postcards back home when I go travel as this can remind me the trip experience. Therefore, I wanted to make something similar – make my manifesto as postcards so I can send them like a reminder of life when I get lost in the future. For the image of the points, I combined them as a whole piece of map showing different elements related to the points. This means each point is interrelated while the “HOME” at the middle should be the most important.

After the project, I confirmed I really like map art and maybe I can develop more series of map after the end of my travel later on. Furthermore, the exploration of typography and abstract images are also interesting. With the help of this set of manifesto postcards, I hope the clients can understand more about my design and illustration style.

Written Manifesto+ Art: Find Yourself Through History and Arts

Childish: Be A Child Is Not A Bad Thing

Time: Don’t Let Rabbit Steal Your Time

Dream: Always Dream, Make Them Come True

Smile: Be Positive, Smile, Every Day is Sunny Day

Night: Enjoy Every Night with Inspirations

Music: Release Yourself Through Music

New: Explore, Dare To Try Something New

Home: Remember, Home Always Wants You Back

All: All Cannot be Separated

Investigae

Shape

Refine

Articulate

Articulate

Photography Book

Photography Book

P

ersonal Development Plan

1. How will you develop and broaden your technical abilities?

Practice makes perfect. I will try to create more design projects by finding freelance. Reading others’ works and books can also help me develop my technical skills. Instead of only focusing the computer and software skills, I think hand drawing is also an important technique in design, especially if I want to further develop illustrative graphic. Therefore, I will keep practicing these.

2. How will you develop and broaden you knowledge of contemporary practice in relation to your own interests?

I will try combining illustration into design as a practice of developing my own style. Furthermore, I will also use more design elements into my visual arts projects when I return to home university. It would be interesting if design elements can be put into chinese painting or space design.

3. How will you nurture and develop you current strengths?

My current strength is that not only do I know graphic design, I can also use different media to present my ideas. I will nurture and develop this advantage by finding more interesting media like the areas of wearable, space or sculpture.

4. Where do you need to strengthen your game and more importantly how are you going to make this happen. What action needs to take place?

I would like to strength the typography skill which is important to make each design look harmonious. Not only do design need the typo skill, the other art areas also need it to compose a whole piece of finished work. I will try to have more practices and explore new media by observing in daily life.

CLARE CHENG PUI YI puiclare@yahoo.com.hk http://www.puiclare.com