Blood

This is the play time in Illustrator. :P
This time is with the word BLOOD and the Filter and the Effect in Illustrator.
I have 2 versions of it: with white background and the other is with black background.

I always like to play with the letter form and words as well as their meaning. So here they are:

Blood with White Background

Blood with Black Background

With 2 different background, they create different feeling as well as the affect on the color of the word "BLOOD". Even they have the same saturation of red but with white background the red seems a little bit lighter and with the black one, it seems darker.

These ones are kind of disturbing, twisting..............

Text Flashing

Try new things again. This time is flash and word, letters.



As we have to make a flash with a word, so I choose the word tower, me and my friend kind of come up with the way of the word "Tower" looks.

It's kind of funny with how it ends. :D. Because the "w" is quite small, not long enough to close the tower so I kind of adding some stuff to it. Haha.

Guide line in flash is fun though, wanna try the masking stuff next time.

Choosing the right font is kind of important too, because it helps building up the image of the whole tower look.

Hope you all enjoy it.

Famous Logo with De Stijl style (inspired by El Lissitzky's design)

After searching and writing a report on El Lissitzky's style and design, I am kind of inspired by the De Stijl style.

De Stijl style:

"An art movement advocating pure abstraction and simplicity — form reduced to the rectangle and other geometric shapes, and color to the primary colors, along with black and white"
(from ArtLex)

I love this style, because it's simple but kind of cool playing with stuff that was plain and create something out of it.

I believe that I'm not that good at performing this style, just a beginner, but hope you guys enjoys it, welcome comment. BTW, hope you all can recognize these things without looking at the caption. HAHA

Apple Logo

First of all, APPLE LOGO, I just obsess with this brand, just seeing the new technologies from this company, pretty amazing. I want to present this logo with triangle and rectangle with the same thickness (weight) but quite different size. And then move it around to get the overall shape of apple logo

Pepsi

Second and last, Pepsi logo, :D I choose it because...................................................: I love to drink it. :D:D. Just kidding. I just wanted to challenge my patience and my level of preciseness. Putting those circle is not as simple as it looks, especially to make the whole thing seems to have the curve of the original logo

And my friend suggest that it look even closer to the original Pepsi logo when it small so I resize it as below

Style: hopefully it seems like De Stijl
Tool: Illustrator (Yay, positioning, how cool is that)

AIDS Campaign

(Click on the picture for Full view)

This is what I came up with after several hours of searching, imagining and whatever it is. >_<. That's right, it's an AIDS Campaign since Dec 1st is the World AIDS Day.


Recently I quite obsess with Negative space, haha, which I would rarely think of before. I use to put a lot of stuff in my design. But through what I've learned, negative space is very important and powerful if we know how to control and use it.



The idea is pretty simple. When there is nobody left, the world will be a deserted place (represented with Black and empty), only "you" are there. San-serif seems to be appropriate this time.

"You" - lonely in the whole empty world, far edge corner.
And below is the message I want to say from my design, the reason why it is that deserted: because people didn't care what happened around them, they saw the Pain that AIDS bring to others (maybe even themselves), but they just stay put and do nothing.

Human are social kind, we need others to survive so if people don't want the world to become the place that only them left. They have to STEP UP and TAKE ACTION.

Those words are all capital kind of yelling at them, pushing them to do this. Red create tension and attract attention. Next to it is the AIDS ribbon for represent the World AIDS Day.



Tool: Illustrator (Typography with this is absolutely cool and easy to manage :D)
Source: (for the ribbon) Student Global AIDS Campaign

without Hope no Love

This entry is made for my friend. Actually, I pretty much push this out of him (Haha). He gave something to me to look at and comment, but I kind of into it, so I asked if I could do it for him. (BTW, mostly force him to say yes).

And here it is:


So ok. That's it: without Hope no Love. I'm not really sure what and how actually my client will depict this piece.
Actually what I think he wanted is that something to describe the loneliness together with Hope and Love.
At first he showed me his work on this. And then I captured what I really understood in this. And then asked my friend again if it what he wanted.
Then I showed him the progress of my work.
It took me 1hour finishing this piece. Make a lot of version. Now I understand that it's so hard to please a client. :D (I have 4 versions of this)

He actually really like it. :))
I think lonely is something deep, dark and black, empty. So I using photoshop to make the background (wall style looks :D). I want a hard surface, texture to emphasize the feeling. And then blending with a cloud layer.

The client likes it. So I finished the piece in Illustrator. Because playing with stuff like fonts, typography, Illustrator is the best (at least for me). I chose a San-Serif and a Script font, with a lot of contrast. (The script font is: A Lolita Scorn).

Then I alter the size of it to get the final product. Lonely is when Hope and Love falling down, without Hope there will be no Love.

The final product satisfied both me and my client.


That night my friend suggested to put some snow in to emphasize the emptiness, mixing with the coldness. I don't really like that idea, but I think my job is trying to satisfy a wide range of certain target people, so I try it out.

This is how it turned out.


Personally prefer the other one, but I also like this. :)). (hours of hard work)
I have to manually put each snow flower in. @_@. "Fun" job.

I feel that, Hope will falling like the sky with a lot snow, support the Love (snow flower making the base of the "Love").

---> sometime, when loneliness is all over, dark and empty, a little bit of white snow will bring some happiness to your hollow darkness.


Many people like this version but, others people like the first one. So I realize that make all of them happy is a very difficult job. :))

Heart and Heart. >_<

Funny enough, this week I finish my 2 entries quite early :D, around Thursday, but until now I have the time to post it. :P.

And this entry all about Heart and Heart. Yeah Go Figure!

By the way original Picture from DeviantArt, by Falconia (Three hearts - "Two hearts").
Ok the first heart is this: (Have a look, probably you should click on the image to get the bigger view to read the words)


This is kind of a flyer for my own website. :D. Because the background of the website is not that informatics. And I think that good design not only for looking good but also deliver a message.

I think what written on it is exactly what I meant, and what I wanted to tell everybody.

The reason why I choose this color and Chocolate as the main theme because: my friend said that the background of the webpage is like the wrapping of chocolate, and my heading is like piece of yummy dark chocolate. So I think why don't make it the main subject ---> Chocolate Flavour. (Dominance)

The other words is kind of supportive information, so I had it as an outline except for the first letter. The less important the words, the smaller the sizes.

It took me ages just to get thing right. So playing with typography is surely fun, but it a patient and perfect job. :D.

And I love my piece.


This is the second heart:


I thinks the way the rings join together is kind of "Unity Together". So I made this. :">
I don't know it really............... (Stupid me couldn't even depict myself -- haha).
This is more fun than meaning. I just wanna try something different.


The last heart is the blend stuff I play in photoshop.
It feel like milk chocolate though. :D

Gentle Sweet Website Layout and everything related

This entry is all about the Gentle Sweet website I have made:


Ok. The above is the banner which my friend help me make it (Thuy`). I told her my idea and she made it, and I edited the final version for the website.

The whole website is kind of monochromatic look, I want to use the hue of the chocolate color. Because I think chocolate is relate to sweetness, to love and this is a dating website as well.

Everything in this is done in illustrator.

Below is the Title look for each page. It include a logo and the name of the page. The reason I made this logo look like this is that I want the word "Gentle" sits gently on the "Sweet", to confirm that they are one. Font choice is of course Bickham Script Pro.


And this the background for the homepage which is a free image from DeviantArt (Three hearts - "two heart" by: Falconia). Then I alter the color cast to this color (originally it has a red cast, I think red of course represent love in some way but for me this color give more warm feeling). And my friend help me arrange the text on the background


And finally this is how the website will look like. I like the simple theme. It's easy to navigate, the whole website has the same tone and style. I want it to have unity.
Through this I learn a lot of things. Designing and Coding are 2 completely different parts. It's sure drive me crazy to make it the way I want it to be. Take me 2 consecutive days non-stop working. And I am satisfy with the result. Here it is:

Ok, here is the link again: Gentle Sweet

Font Play

Font play is kind of fun. As Maddy want us to put our font play on blog. So here it is:


I don't want just type in the word so I play around with it and make it. The word "Gentle Sweet" come from my friend after I made the layout of the website and she had a comment that: "This website give me a feeling of a gentle sweet". And I just thought that it's a brilliant name for the website.

Actually I choose Bickham Script Pro to be the font for the Title for this website and my layout based on. But then I want to experience other fonts as well so I made this little thing.

On the right top corner is A Charming Font Superexpanded (a free font I download in dafont.com). It make the "gentle sweet" feels sweet but only slight sweet. The little bit of sharp edges give the feeling of this "sweetness" might be a little bit sour.

Near it on the left is Bleeding Cowboys (also a free font in dafont.com <-- this is a good source of free font). It doesn't seem sweet at all. It even bringing a feeling of bitter, hurtful, nothing sweet. It is the exact opposite of sweetness. Next to it on the right is Bickham Script Pro. This give the true feeling of sweetness. the curve is so smooth, with script style it give off the feeling of gentle, lightness.

Below on the left is A Lolita Scorned. It's kind of the thorn of the Rose. Yes, rose is sure sweet but be careful with the thorn. Sweet but dangerous that what this show.

Below on the right is Adorable. One of my favourite font. I simply use it because I like it. With this word, it give the feeling of elegant sweetness. Sweetness that a little bit over your reach, it feel so close as well as so far.

The last on is akaPotsley. It has sharp edges, as well as curves like the spiral. Actually, it quite strong, even I didn't bold it. It's kind of statement about sweetness, but maybe a little bit of gentle in it.

That's all with this playing.
Actually I choose the background because it kind of represent chocolate color, the sweetness that kind of irresistible.

And here is the link to Dafont.com in case anybody wants it: DAFONT

Available thing in an Unavailable place

This entry is made out of madness (anyway most of my work are made out of that anyway). :D (why why?)
The idea for this is hard to describe. I don't know how to describe that maybe that what the title said.

The story behind this is: the school is full of students, there is no place for me and my friend sit down and try to review our lesson for the webtest. And we can't really discuss in the library(cannot make any noise there). And also so we need 2 sockets for our laptops (there is no available school computer that time - usually rarely available anyway). We found a corridor and 2 sockets so we decided to stay there.

After a while, there's someone coming and yelling at us that we are not allow there, but where should we go now? @-@, we need the sockets. But still have to go.

So you see that why: Available thing (sockets) in an Unavailable place (the corridor).

The picture on the right is the background of this enty (made in Photoshop). I like that kind of texture, so I just make it. (By the way, originally I want the RMIT stuff - the previous entry to be the background, but feel it so crowded so I made this one)

And I play with the word and letter in Illustrator (Now you can understand why there is a socket here - photograph by me and than tracing it using Illustrator)

I tend to break things up and then connect them together again but in a different position, size as well as color.

The P is part of the word "Place", but head of the "P" is part of "Unavailable".

Love to play with words. :D

Getting something else while doing something else (UNTITLE)

I am kind of out of my mind when did this. Originally this supposed to be the background of the other entry but then it doesn't fit so I just made it a separate entry with style. :D

The picture on the left is the original work (made in Illustrator). Want to make the word "RMIT" in a different style but still keep the main theme Black and Red.

I like the idea that we can mix words in different way and then create pattern or image of something. :P

Hope you all can read these letter in this entry. :D. I think the "M" with staircase style is really good at connecting one thing the another.

I want every element be part of another element so this is how it works: "P" is part of "M", "M" is part of "I" and "I" is part of "T".

This is an unbalance image. At first the white was intended to use for another thing (socket) but then I think it's quite ok with the way it is.

But I feel it quite plain just like that. So I take the picture to "magic" Photoshop. :D

Here I have (3 next images):
I made a layer with cloud. And then blending, mixing, playing, crazying with it so here you go.





I personally like the last one. It feel more comfortable for the eyes, the other the 2 is quite disturbed, uneasy feeling.

The 2nd is quite cool. It feels like old building that has been burned.

Gestalt - >_<

Ok. This is my work for gestalt in last and at home in 2 different style.

1st one is:

- This is the one I and my friend working together in class. :D but then I did some changes at home. And above is what it look like now.
- I took some advices from Maddy to change the size of the font and use closure to place the word "Sex"

2nd one is:

- And this is the one I made at home. I want to try to add another picture of flower to this, so it quite hard try to put all the elements together. But it came out not too bad though. >_<. - I want the words "the Secret" kind of going around the flower. The main words are either in Capital letters, different font or bigger size.

Starvation

Starvation is something we in a country like VN may not be able to imagine how hard it would be. Death maybe the only way out for you. This entry dedicates for that meaning.

When Maddy asked us to layout a picture and a sentence to represent STEALING, I suddenly thought of African Children who have to face Starvation as well as Death everyday.

Stealing is simply to imply that someone, something has taken away from you something. That something may not only be money but also love, hope.

When you live in a place like Africa, you just eat to survive. But the starvation is like a nightmare that has haunted these people, these children for years

Death may not be the answer to everything but it would be a nice way out for someone. Especially for the one who wants to escape from the long last nightmare.

Death maybe bad but "Thanks to" that the child no longer suffers the hunger anymore.

Technique: Pretty simple, everything is done in Illustrator, the tricky part is to find out the sentences (thanks to Miss Thuy` and myself for that) and layout the words to serve the content.

I chose 2 fonts in this work.
- 1 font is standing out to emphasize the words "Death" and "Starvation". To show the weights of 2 things are equal. I choose the nice, fancy looking font because I want this to look like a postcard, to fantasize "Death" and "Starvation".
- The rest for the words a in the same font, pretty simple font.
- "my" is much smaller than "Starvation" to imply that how small the little child is compare to the enormous affect of "Starvation"
- Size of fonts are different base how important the meaning they are carrying.

And this is a little postcard for you guys made in flash.
Here is the link (for better view version of this): Starvation

Nelson Lake

After some "Evanescence stuff", I am kind of into landscape, nature............. So I go through my photos and find this picture.
This picture is Nelson Lake. Where I used to live last year. >_<. So beautiful, wanna come there again. ^_^

ORIGINAL:



FUN WITH PHOTOSHOP:

BTW, I am not a Photoshop expert. @_@. But what the hell, I don't care. >_<. So I made this picture by alter the channel, and then changing each Hue, Staturation, Brightness, Contrast in each channel. Then subtract one channel, then changing the Hue, Staturation, Brightness, Contrast again. So this is what I got.



There's really not true intention in this. I made this because of the third picture you will see below. When I create the third picture below, I suddendly feeling like playing with photoshop. >_<. :P


This is the main purpose of this entry (HAHAHA ---> Save the best for last ^_^):



When I am reading the book "The anatomy of Design" (by Steven Heller <--- the one I gonna write my report on ^O^), I come across a picture of the text like coming out of the city, stream............. That's so cool. I wanna have one. so I made this.

Actually I took me more time than I had imagined it would. But it turns quite satisfy me ^_^.
The idea is that, text and picture can "marriage together" like any other element even though the image you haven't really alter. The text like tree coming out of the forest or water come out of lake.
The reason I choose this font because I bringing the feeling of Winter, of Snow, of Coldness, when the picture have taken.

PS: Totally recommend that every design student shoud read the books by Steven Heller. He's so good. >_<

Evanescence - Good Enough

- Ok. This entry is inspired by The Video Clip: "Good Enough" by Evanescence. And here what I made using Illustrator and Photoshop.



- First I want to tell you guys why I made this based on what I understand about the lyrics as well as the video Clip:

+ IDEA: Pretty simple for this one. I want to express my own way how Evanescence express her feeling in this song.
I think that this singer like gothic style ---> that how I choose the font for her name, and then I alter a font a bit. And Dark Blue (nearly go to black) is the main color in the movie clip. As well as Dark Blue asociate with "out of blue", -> despressed, sadness.
The title "Good Enough" --> Red, because there a line in the lyrics: "crave my heart and its bleeding in your hand", hurtful feeling, make our heart aching.
The rose petals form the shape of a heart. Rose petals - softness,fragile - are flying, slowly breaking apart

+TECHNIQUE: Overall dark looking.
Illustrator for the typography
Photoshop for finishing everything up (add brushes....)

Through this I learnt a very IMPORTANT lesson that you HAVE TO know what kind of format you are saving with. Because I made the typography in Illustrator first so when I save the file as JPEG I forgot to choose RGB. Then I take it to Photoshop, it automatically use the CMYK model. After finishing, I upload len Blogger, and............. @_@ the color went totally crazy. OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Second I want to talk about the video because it's so inspiring. >_<

This is the cover for Evanescence Single - Good Enough:

http://www.evanescencefan.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/good-enough-cover.jpg

And this is the Video Clip:

Directed by: Marc Webb and Rich-Lee.

This video clip is so marverlous. The whole theme is unique and unity, the gothic look. And the special effect is WAO. You cannot even recoginze the changing in the effect. It look so real, even you know it's impossible for the tree to grow that fast, but you cannot not say it's fake. The transition is very smooth, it flow with the lyrics.

At first I didn't even listen to this song but after seeing the video, I am so impressed by it, then I start to get interested in the song as well.

2nd entry (Week 1) - Moon Logo

I want to make both the Sun and the Moon Logo but only have time to sketch the Moon logo. My sketching is not that good so bear it with me. ^_^. I think in this case the idea that counts. And here are my 5 sketches of Moon Logo that my head can think of and get there: :D

I took me sometime to able to draw like these. @_@. Many papers were thrown away. :)) :D

1. Feather:
- I choose feather as the logo because I think:
Feather ---> Beauty, Softness ---> Women ---> Night, Moon.
- Because in many cultrure, the ruler of the moon is usually Goddess who is extremely beautiful.
- The feather will glow like a softness light arought the moon. And it will have the overall shape like a half moon. ^_^
- I also think that photography is the art that capture the beauty of nature.

2. Cresent Moon (Don't really know how to name it though) >_<
- ok this is what I take from the shape of the symbol of Khnos (Moon God in Egyptian Myth)
- I found it funny that in a culture Myth that the the Moon God is a man. So I am quite fond of this.
- I love the top of the symbol because it represent the Moon. The part (like a bird spreading its wings), this is what make it different from the original symbol.
- And also the decoration on the moon part like the surrounding of a mirror.
- Photograph is what we see, the mirror image of our real life.

3. The arrow and bow:
- This idea comes from Artemis (Moon Goddess in Greek Myth). I love Greek Myth since childhood. I always admire them.
- Artemis also the Goddess that look over for the Hunter. So arrow and bow are always parts of her.
- I think with the Bless from the Goddess the Moon will be even beautiful and brighter for anyone who want to take picture at night
- And also the bow has the shape of the half moon. The arrow in the position to be shoot, it'll give the active feeling.
- (BTW, out of my crazying I made the tail of the arrow a little bit round, because it will make the whole thing looks like a face of a puppy if you look sideway. :D --> but this will not be in the final one, if this one is the one I choose to make)

4. Half moon:
- I think this quite a common one to create a symbol of a moon.
- But I retouch it and put some detail in it. If you look at it carefully, you will see the moon is part of the aperture (a part in the camera --> get this suggestion from my friend) that open quite large (because at night aperture needs to be large in order to get more light in)

5. Full moon and a Snake:
- This one is completely crazy. ^_^ :D :P. Don't even know why I come to this idea. @_@
- Why a snake in a moon? Because I think snake is a night hunter.
- It represents for wisdom, luck. And Make it have the shape of the star. So in the night sky we have a moon and a star shining over.

1st entry (Week 1) - Bubbles

To celebrate the first week at school as well as my 18th birthday (Yes, I am officially can go to bar now >_<), I made this entry. I think it woud be like a wallpaper for desktop or background of something. And here it is:

IDEAS:
- I got this idea while I was playing with the feature in photoshop. I want some background for my director picture *_* (I will post this picture in this entry too :P), so I changing the color background but I think it's suck and I went online and see my friend's Yahoo!360 Blog background is quite cool and it's the picture of bubbles. I think that's great, why don't I make one too? :-?. That's how I come to this idea.

- Then I think bubbles are kind of related to my childhood. When I was young I love playing bubbles, I think many people are too. And it's near my 18th birthday so I made 18 of them with different colors to represent different things and problems....


TECHNIQUE:
- I used Illustrator to make these (because it's is to scale and play with the shapes).
- Everything is quite basic but it took ages to make it the way I wanted it to be especially the colors. @_@.
- Anyway I am satisfied with it.

I currently made it my desktop background.

And BTW, here is my director work that I made:

Because I want to make something nice to our photo for us as a director of our Final Flash last semester (^_^).