Storybook

Creating a storybook was as tiring, as fun, as enriching as I thought!
Through this process, I did learn a lot of things from brainstorming, to conceptualizing, to drawing of the different frames, to the different layout, to the various ways we incorporate text, dialogues and visuals, to the different typography. (wah, I never knew there was so much to consider when creating a storybook)

As our target audience are kids 6-7 years old, our story emphasis on teamwork and cooperation, as well as honesty, friendship and forgiveness.
We spend quite a bit of time on building up our characters, we hope to make our characters cute but also mirror the real life counterparts in some ways.
As for our colour scheme, we choose mainly brightly coloured tones to create a bright and cheery atmosphere.
For the layout of our storybook, we chose to combine the main copy with the settings and characters on the same page as we feel this allow for better visual flow.
We tried to make it more fun by implementing the concept of 'speech bubbles' into our storybook:
In addition to the interactive of our storybook, we also have an activity page for the kids to help find Mr Carrot in this picture:
Yups, that's about all for my storybook!
OH, and its really expensive printing hardcover storybook, it was 20bucks for the content of our storybook and 60bucks for the hardcover itself. A grand total of 80bucks!
No wonder paperback also cost so much cheaper than hardcover books. :)

This is probably my last post for NM2208.
I feel that 2208 can be rather taxing and draining at times. However, there are definitely times when I enjoy doing this module. I especially love the tutorial class when we get to see others' work and get others to comment on your own work!
All in all, NM2208 was fun and a great experience. I would say its a module in which stress meets fun. haha.
Lastly, I would like to say a BIG THANKS to Jing, for her guidance and encouragements, my friends, Eunice, Sam, ACJJ for constantly giving comments, helping me in any other ways.
and someone special who helped me a great deal through this sem, listening to my complaints, helping me out, encouraging me and always being there for me:)

The Case of Ellie and the Missing Carrot!

Storyline

Just a little update!
Here's our storyline:

Scene 1:
Ellie the elephant waits for the school bus.
He can’t wait to get to school fast!

Scene 2:
“Good morning, good morning everyone!” (Ellie)

Giraffe gives Ellie a pat.
Bear snores back.
And Penguin waves hello in his special air-conditioned hat!

Monkey refuses to sit.
He climbs up on railings and hangs from his feet!

Ellie waves to Rabbit and her favourite toy, Mr Carrot.
He sits with his best friend Hamster, who was anything but quiet!

Scene 3:
Finally the school bus arrives at School.
All the animals thought School was cool!

Mr Zebra stands at his crossing
to make sure all vehicles are stopping.

“Come on guys!” (Ellie)
Little Ellie hurries to class.
The elephant didn’t want to be last!

Scene 4:
Each morning before the teacher comes in,
the animals would make a big scene.
All laughing and running
Except for Monkey who never once looked happy.

Scene 5:
Finally, Mr Teacher the Tortoise stepped into the classroom.
And back to their seats everyone zooms.

Scene 6:
Hurray hurray! It’s time for recess,
time to play games and see who’s best!

Suddenly, Ellie sees Rabbit sobbing,
and he wonders why she didn’t go hopping.

“I’ve lost Mr Carrot!” (Rabbit)
“That’s terrible!” (Ellie)
Rabbit cries and Ellie wishes it was a lie.

“Don’t worry Rabbit, me and Hamster will find it!” (Ellie)
Ellie makes a promise
while Hamster gives Rabbit a kiss.

Scene 7:
Ellie, Hamster and Rabbit look at the schoolyard.
Finding Mr Carrot shouldn’t be too hard!

Scene 8:
“Let’s start with you Bear, did you see Mr Carrot anywhere?” (Ellie)
“Zzz,” Bear snores in reply, and Little Piglet giggles until he cries.

“Have you seen a carrot anywhere?
Its orange in colour and kind of bare!” (Ellie)
“Hmm, Is this it?” (Little Piglet)
“That’s an Orange, Little Piglet!” Ellie laughs.(Ellie)
And so the three friends left to look for Mr Carrot.

Scene 9:
“Miss Giraffe, have you seen Mr Carrot anywhere?” (Ellie)
“Oh dear, I think I have it here.” (Giraffe)
Giraffe looks at her mouth and asks.
“That’s an orange flower, Giraffe!” Ellie laughs. (Ellie)
And so the three friends left to look for Mr Carrot.

Scene 10:
“Hey Penguin, have you seen Mr. Carrot anywhere?” (Ellie)
“Is this it?” Penguin points to the sky.(Penguin)
“Oh no, that’s a orange butterfly!” (Ellie)
“Don’t worry Rabbit, we’ll find Mr Carrot soon!” (Ellie)
And so the three friends left to look for Mr Carrot.


Scene 11: (ask him, he say no, confront)
They arrived at the monkey bars and saw Monkey playing alone.
“Have you seen Mr. Carrot anywhere?” Rabbit moans. (Rabbit)
“No, I haven't! Go away, I don't care!” (Monkey)
And poor little Rabbit looked so blue.
Just then, little Hamster spotted a clue!

Scene 12: (refuse to return)
“Hey everybody, I found Mr Carrot!” Hamster shouts. (Hamster)
He jumps and dances while everyone looks about.
“Isn’t that Mr Carrot you naughty Monkey? Don't you know stealing is not very funny?” (Ellie)
“All I wanted was a friend and maybe one day to hold someone’s hand!
Mr Carrot is so fine, he’s my friend and he’s all mine!” (Monkey)


Scene 13: (return)
“Don’t be silly, dear little Monkey! You didn’t have to steal Mr Carrot to be happy.
Let’s shake hands and let’s be friends.
We’ll laugh and run and have so much fun!” (Ellie)
Monkey hangs his head as his face turns red.
“Sorry Rabbit, here’s Mr Carrot.
I promise you I’ll change my habits!” (Monkey)

Scene 14: (go school)
“Thank you Ellie for helping me!” (Rabbit)“And helping me even when I was guilty! (Monkey)
“You’re welcome everybody,I’m glad we solved this mystery!
Oh look it’s the end of recess,
Time to study and prepare for tests!” (Elephant)

And so, the animals returned to class
Everybody was happy at last!

Final Project

WHEEE!
FINAL Project. the last lap of NM2208.
storybook or comic script?
my group chose to do STORYBOOK for kids 6-7 (I LOVE KIDS!)

Meet some of our characters!
Ellie the ElephantRabbit who loves her carrot!Monkey who is always lonelyPenguin with an air conditioned contraption GiraffeBear who is always sleepy

Poster

Sorry for the lack of updates!
has been really busy with final project, other datelines and presentations.
will be updating about my final project soon.

But before that, I did some changes to my poster!
Before:After:Firstly, I changed the NUS logo. I had a hard time looking for the NUS logo against a black background. The website given in lecture only gave me NUS logo against a navy blue background. A BIG THANKS to Eunice for finding it for me!
Jing gave comments that my words look a little too thin and might not suitable, so I played around with the fonts and decided to use this as the lines of the alphabets are thicker, making it easier to read.
I also changed some alignments so that my poster looks more balanced on the whole.

Poster Development

When I started drafting my poster design, I wanted something that most people could relate to. As issue that everyone is concerned about and wouldn't mind stopping for 2secs to take a look.
The first thing that came to mind was environmental issues. There have been much news, issues and concerns about our environment and I believe that if everyone do their part, it will definitely make a difference.

I started off with a sick Earth talking to his 'friend':I think the general public can relate to the thermometer and the plaster on Earth, understanding that Earth is sick and 'injured'. I think most people know that the planet with a ring around it is Saturn. Next, I add some text and website link for more information.Then I played with different colours and layout of my poster.
I shifted the few short sentences up to the top of the poster. I didn't really like this idea as I still wanted the Earth to be the focus. The public should see the sick Earth first:)

So I shifted the words back down and reduced the sentences as I want to keep the poster as simple as possible, with minimum words. I also changed the colour of their conversation so to add more colours to the posters, hence, being more attention grabbing:)
Now, will be to show it to Jing and my friends and see what they say about it!

Assignment 4

Finally, getting down to do my assignment 4 before shifting all my attention and focus to my final project!
P-O-S-T-E-R!
Poster is something that everyone is very familiar with. We see them along the walkways and corridors in school, on notice boards, at bus-stops, interchange. However, how many of us do actually take a look or two at these posters? How many of us read the details on the posters or do we just simply take glance at it?
If the poster do grab our attention, how effective is the message? Does the reader interpret the meaning of the poster correctly?

I personally like posters with attention grabbing pictures. Posters with illustrations, few, simple words or sentences and if I am interested, I can more details from a website or something. Therefore, I feel that its important for posters to be 1) attention grabbing, 2) convey message in the simplest way, 3) give information about where to get more details.

Our posters' theme is 'Save, Prevent, Kill...'
will be brainstorming tonight!

Postcard

After gathering feedbacks from my class and Jing, I decided to change my postcard.
Jing felt that the initial design was rather similar to assignment 1, so she suggested to change my design a little so that its different.I change the drawing of Petronas Towers to a bottom-up view so that it looks more like 'A', as well as extending the Great Wall of China into the background of my postcard. I also experiment with my design by removing one coconut tree but I thought it makes my postcard too plain. I gave Petronas Towers 2 different shades of colours to allow my postcard to have different layers and to add more colours to it.

Below is my new colour scheme:

Postcard Development

I thought of the various things that represent Asia and 'heritage' came to my mind. I love all the different landmarks from Asia (Merlion, Great Wall of China, Angkor Wat, Petronas Towers, Buddhist Temples etc) and being a tropical country (Singapore) with sunny weather throughout, I believe we all love the BEACH!
so I tried out some stuffs:added some colours:tried to give it a horizon:I decided to change the background to a rainbow as we usually able to see a rainbow after a rain in Asia. The colourful rainbow also gives a cheery 'feel' to the whole postcard!
After doing up my 'draft' in Illustrator, I transfer my work to photoshop and experiment with the different colours. I think its so fun trying to come up with the colour scheme!
I tried different adjustment layers using hue/saturation, colour balance etc. Its amazing what I can do with just a few clicks on the mouse!
Presenting my colour scheme:
I decided to have some fun and gave each of them a name (with some help from my bf too!)
I have suede, amber, summer, evening glow, calm, sunset, oceanus and autumn!
I kind of like the 'calm' one as it looks really clear and nice. However, I think the original one convey my message better of a colourful Asia.
Looking forward to class to see what the class and Jing has to say:)

Assignment 5

Before I can even start on my poster, here comes another assignment! I guess my poster will have to wait first as I will need to present my fifth assignment during my upcoming tutorial. I would say that assignments are getting more and more interesting. From representing our own names to posters and now postcards! I am definitely looking forward to doing this assignment as I love postcards and I personally collect them too! :) 'A postcard is a rectangular piece of thick paper or thin cardboard intended for writing and mailing without an envelope and at a lower rate than a letter.' (wiki)
A postcard that represent my notion of colourful Asia, be it the cultural,
 political
 or 
social 
aspects
 of 
Asia. My targeted audience will be from all over the globe. This will definitely be a challenge.

The first thing I did was to take out my stack of postcards and look through them. I realised it wasn't easy to convey a message in an A6 size. The layout, colour as well as focus of the postcard will affect the way it looks and the message it is trying to convey.
I did some research online too and I found this image.
I think its really cool, see how the different colours give a different 'feel' to the various postcards.
Its interesting how colours can help to change perspectives :)

Class Exercise 2!

A class exercise during the lecture that I didn't attend as I was sick.
Jing was nice enough to let me do this class exercise alone:)
We are supposed to pick 2 words from a list and use basic elements to convey the meanings.
My chosen words are:When I saw the word 'blissful', I thought of heart shapes immediately. Therefore, I use heart shape, 2circles and a line to represent 'blissful'. I hope you manage to get it when you see it:)
The idea of lines came to my mind when I thought of speed. A few lines seems to represent the fast-moving motion and I guess this is kind of universal as most of my friends did get the word when they saw my drawings!

U C what I C!

I manage to go for tutorial this week, though I am still recovering from my sickness.
I thought it was horrible being sick for so long, but I guess what's worse is the pile of schoolwork waiting for me to finish after I went back to school. I hope I get well soon!

After attending this week's tutorial, I found that there was a class exercise during the last lecture and I need a partner to do the exercise with me. However, Jing said I could do it by myself since I could not find a partner now. :)
AND i have a poster to catch up with :(
will update about the poster soon!

U C what I C! :)







I hope everyone understands my photo story!
Whilst doing this assignment, I realised the importance of the different frames in a photo story. Every frames have to has its own focus and convey a message so that a story can be told in 8 photos. The various camera angles, such as top-down, bottom-up, front view, side view, close-up, far-away shots, actually affects the way the story is presented. Different camera angles also can convey different messages!

p.s: thanks to my bf for allowing me to take the photos! :)