Self Love Manifesto

A MANIFESTO ABOUT

SE LF LO VE WRITTEN AND DESIGNED BY JESSIE THAO 1

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TABLE OF CONTENTS SYNOPSIS MANIFESTO 04 RESEARCH & HISTORY INSPIRATION BOARD 05 MANIFESTO DRAFTS & FINAL 07 MANIFESTO INSPIRATION BOARD 10 PROCESS & SKETCHES INITIAL CONCEPT 14 PHOTOS EDITS & TAKES 22 FINAL CONCEPT PROCESS DIGITAL PROCESS 24 FINAL PRODUCT POSTERS & CARDS 28 PRESENTATION SET UP 32 SOURCES LIST 33

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SYNOPSIS MAN•I•FEST•O (NOUN) A public declaration of policies and aims, usually issued before an election by a political party or candidate.

WRITING COMPONENT A public declaration of policies and aims, usually issued before an election by a political party or candidate.

Utilizing the resources provided as a guide define/frame/ shape your essential creative vision/principles/convictions and ultimately communicate why you are a designer and what you stand for...

Personal design manifesto 100 words minimum / 750 words maximum.

Writing a manifesto is a great way to • Clarify your beliefs • Examine your motivations • Create personal “policies” • Describe what kind of world you’d like to live in • Write down your goals Distilling these “policies and aims” down on paper helps you think about what you truly want out of life, which in turn helps you: • Make better decisions • Evaluate opportunities • Stick to your priorities when conflicts arise in your schedule or otherwise • Reach your goals

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VISUAL ARTIFACT Based on what you construct in terms of the written framework, develop a corresponding design project that actively translates and transforms your beliefs into a artifact that visually reflects/illustrates the words. This new work can be analog or digital, static or dynamic or temporal, flat or dimensional... or any combination.

RESEARCH & HISTORY HOW WOULD YOU CURRENTLY DESCRIBE YOURSELF AS A DESIGNER? Currently, I feel like I am gravitating more towards minimalistic design that utilizes small details, has purpose, and is clean cut. Some might think that designing in this way is too simple or plain. However, I want to keep pushing myself to explore styles and use more color.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT DESIGN THAT YOU ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT? I think for me, I have always like the arts and being creative.

With design I feel like I am able to use that creativity to explore work with a purpose. I’ve also found that design can be applied to other aspects of art. I also find it really cool that designers are able to control appearances of brands, projects and more because that has a huge impact on viewers and affects the type of vibe an audience will feel.

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WHAT ESSENTIAL LESSONS HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR MISTAKES? • • •

Be humble even when it’s hard, everything is a learning experience.

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable, maybe even force yourself not lean on what you normally do.

Pick yourself back up and keep going.

WHAT ARE THE THREE MOST INTERESTING THINGS YOU HAVE DONE/EXPERIENCED IN YOUR LIFE? I went to Kamogawa, Japan, a sister city of Manitowoc, when I was in high school for a few weeks as a exchange student. It was really great to just go site seeing, experiencing Japanese culture with host families, and trying new things. It was an amazing experience and has inspired me to travel the rest of the world.

Another experience I’ve had was I was able to teach some beginner piano courses in the summer for my church. I noticed that I most of the time I don’t have a lot of self-confidence and never would have thought I would be teaching.

However, once I started teaching the course, I realized that I know more than I think I do. Although it doesn’t seem like much, I learned so much about myself and have grown to appreciate teachers to much more.

I’ve also recently discovered a passion for makeup. I took a theatre makeup course and realized quite quickly that as an artist I enjoy painting my designs on my face or models.

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MANIFESTO INITIAL CONCEPT As my visual for my manifesto I would like to create a book that is a mix of a high fashion magazine and a sketch book.

However, the book will be exclusively about makeup. I plan on taking photos of extreme detail shots of makeup and models wearing makeup. I have yet to decide if I should only focus on editorial looks or mixing it with glam shots and everyday makeup. Either way, the shot will mimic the text of my manifesto. For example, when it talks about being confident and brave, the model will be shown wearing a bold like and the photos will be fierce and the body language will show confidence. All the photos will mimic the text so on and so forth. All the makeup and photos will be created and shot by me.

I also plan on creating the sketchbook side of this mix as well. I will hand draw either on paper or a tablet a face with no makeup and users can experiment on their own with makeup or other coloring utensils to create their own looks. I will of course create examples of the faces that already have makeup on the drawing. Makeup looks could range from editorial looks, animal looks, glam looks, and even artistic looks. These drawings could then be transferred to the models in the photos to see the creativity come alive. All the while text will be woven into this book.

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MANIFESTO

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FIRST DRAFT

Take a breath. Feel the air go in and out of your lungs. Embrace the moment. Leave your self-doubts and just jump. If you fall, pick yourself back up. You’re going to fail. So just do it. Try again. But now you know how to do it better.

Surround yourself with people you love. People who support you. People you make you be the best person you can be. If you love someone, you encourage them and don’t hold them back.

Family is important. Money isn’t. What can you do when they’re gone? We can’t always plan for a tomorrow. We don’t know if we will have another tomorrow together. So breathe. Enjoy everything. Enjoy right now.

SECOND DRAFT

Be confident. Be brave.

And wear that bold lip!

Leave your self-doubts behind—just jump.

With failure comes strength.

So get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Surround yourself with people you love.

People who support you.

Who make you be the best person you can be.

Who hype the glow from your poppin highlight.

Because at the end of the day, it’s the bonds that mean the most.

Everyone has creativity.

Why not see what you can do?

Express and play to see where your limits lie.

Life needs a splash of color.

Make it yours.

Feel your best.

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FINAL DRAFT

Be Confident.

We’re all afraid at times and can easily be self critical quickly. It’s not always easy to be shot down and be able to pick yourself up again. But when you do, you come back stronger, taller, smarter. So leave your self-doubts behind— just jump.

Be Bold.

Be brave and try something new! Take chances while they are still presented to you. Apply for the job you might not qualify for but want. Change can be scary, but change allows room for growth.

Be Playful.

Lastly, get out of those books and straight A’s and just have fun. Surround yourself with people you love, people who support you. Go back to the personal projects you once had to turn your creative gears. Enjoy the moment.

So leave your self-doubts behind—just jump.

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INSPIRATION BOARD INITIAL CONCEPT

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My inspiration first came from my passion for makeup and modern magazine layouts. Makeup allows me to explore different sides of myself while pushing my creative limits. However, as I further reflect on the reason why I like makeup, it’s not because I’m trying to hide my flaws. Many people including my own boyfriend believes I don’t need makeup in my life, simply because I’m hiding the pimples and want to follow the makeup trends out there. Eventually it hit me, sometimes it makes me feel confident, sometimes it makes me feel bold, and other times it makes me feel playful. Makeup is a mood and attitude. Similar to fashion or how you choose your words, or even your body language, you choose certain choices because it makes you feel more confident.

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FINAL CONCEPT After further analysis of my goals and what I want to publicly display, I changed my concept. I realized that makeup advertisements these days constantly project on to younger women to be this ideal person, but that’s not realistic. For me personally, makeup helps me be creative and confident at the same time. After more thought though, its more than that, its about the attitude and fashion and body language. Therefore I decided to change my concept into typographical posters along with fun poses. This also allowed me to play with color, more variation in posters, and typography.

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PROCESS & SKETCHES INITIAL CONCEPT: MAKEUP SKETCHES

These are some sketches of the makeup designs I came up with. I wanted to play with illusion and special effects looks.

The sketches above show illusions to portray confusion. The sketches below have more a theatrical clown look that plays around with the phrase “clowning around”.

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Another illusionary makeup that plays on a mix of a regular glam look and skeleton look conveys the tough times students can go through, like late nights or all nighters leave you dead or like a zombie in the morning.

Change can be scary, but changes allows room for growth.

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INITIAL CONCEPT: DIGITAL SKETCH BOOK

LET’S BE

BOLD

Leave your self-doubts behind

swatches

——just jump.

With failure comes

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strength and growth.

uncomfortable with being

Get

comfortable The first draft of the sketchbook consists of design layouts.

The first page will have the makeup design that I have came up with and will reflect one of makeup looks I created on myself. The next few pages would be blank sketches, allowing the audience to design their own makeup looks. This sketchbook was meant to be give aways for the audience as well as consist of the rest of th manifesto content.

After some feedback from class, the sketchbooks need to be revisited again because it didn’t match the sophistication of the rest of the project.

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INITIAL CONCEPT: POSTER SKETCHES

The posters would be in a series and consist of different scales and angles to showcase the makeup. I’ve played with a profile, a close up and a more glam shot. I will also be playing with typography interaction with the photo to create dimension

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INITIAL CONCEPT: POSTER DIGITAL ROUGHS

BE BOLD BE

COURAGEOUS

wear that

BOLD LIP 20

Looking at the strongest sketch so far, I mocked up a digital draft to see how well I can take my own photos and edit. I also experimented with typefaces to see what works best.

In this draft, since I am using short phrases, its really important that the typeface is spot on. I’ve also decided that it would be really exciting to print large scale, 4’x6’ posters.

However, turns out I am not good at all photographing my own photos and there needs to be much more exploration on typography choice and placement. Also printing at a large scale means the quality of the photo will be really tricky to print out so the photo isn’t pix-elated or bad.

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PHOTOS EDITS & TAKES

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FINAL CONCEPT PROCESS PHOTO EDITS AND DIGITALS

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The posters sizes have been reduced to 28”x41”, making them large but not that large that it’s difficult to control the quality of the images. We can also see that having help from a student photographer taking the photos has immensely improves the outcome of the posters.

The type has been also changed to a sans serif typeface instead of the serif typeface before. The typeface chosen before gave more of a magazine look to them and a switch over to sans serifs give a more bold and temporary look.

The type also was arranged in a way to also interact with the pose to add dimension.

This specific poster was flipped to portrait to stay consistent with the other posters. Color gradients were also added to the poster for playfulness. Lastly, the phrase was cut even shorter to two words. The color of word “be” was eventually changed to a different color to differentiate the two words.

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PHOTO EDITS AND DIGITALS

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FINAL PRODUCT POSTER

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FINAL PRODUCT POSTER & CARDS

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BE CONFIDENT We’re all afraid at times and can easily be self critical quickly.

It’s not always easy to be shot down and be able to pick yourself up again.

But when you do, you come back stronger, taller, smarter.

So leave your self-doubts behind—just jump.

BE BOLD Be brave and try something new!

Take chances while they are still presented to you.

Apply for the job you might not qualify for but want.

Change can be scary, but change allows room for growth.

BE PLAYFUL Lastly, get out of those books and straight A’s and just have fun.

Surround yourself with people you love, people who support you.

Go back to the personal projects you once had to turn your creative gears.

Enjoy the moment.

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PRESENTATION SETUP UP

All posters will be hung about 5’5� off the ground. The posters will also be staggered and on the same height level.

In front of the posters will be the rest of the manifesto content on the cards on a pedestal.

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SOURCES LIST A huge thank you to Caitlin Raasch, a junior at UW-Milwaukee majoring in photography. She worked around my schedule to take photos for me and resized my photos Also thank you to Kou Yang, an architect and engineer and an alumni at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, for teaching me how to use “Sketch Up� to create a mock up of my presentation set up.

All inspiration photos were found on Pinterest.

Surround yourself with people you love, people who support you.

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