Artwork 09: 95th Anniversary School Celebration Card

So this year is Nanyang's 95th Anniversary and there is a giant celebration and there was a musical for it, so yes I would say that it is really big-scale. But anyway, being the AEP students that we are, we were required to do an artpiece each in an effort/contribution to the 95th Anniversary Art Exhibition. The Secondary 4s were assigned to design cards for the anniversary.

Below, I will be documenting my process and preparatory work for the card.

PART 1: INSPIRATION

Below is the first page of my prep work, and basically it shows the direction and style I was going for, by firstly exploring the possibilities in terms of inspiration. 

I am and have always been drawn in my the idea of geometric elements, and this is evident in my inspiration page as shown. 

Firstly, looking at this portion (below), it is looking at the the artworks by CDS photography, in a series named 'Geometric Dance'.

 

Above: A clearer view of one of the works in the series

As quoted from the artist about his work, he said:

"My intent is to use a digital montage as a means of creating in a Vorticism style in order to add a sense of beauty, expression and movement to what would otherwise be singular, frozen images of dancers"

Evidently, the artist had used the simple concept of layering geometric elements over the photograph strategically, sometimes to highlight the limbs in the way a wood mannequin would be portrayed, complementing the shapes of the subject matter:

I found the concept of Vorticism extremely interesting as it was the clashing of the two worlds of Cubism and Futurism merging to form one movement. It encouraged dynamism and much movement in the works, which I thought was a fascinating way to create movement in the work, instead of simply using a flurry of brushstrokes, as demonstrated in Boccioni's The City Rises (1910) (below). It renders the work less messy yet not lacking the energy stirred within the work.

Below is a geometric "colour wheel", which I only took interest in because of its geometric element.

 I did not really dwell on the symmetric idea of the "colour wheel", but instead I went on to explore more inspirations for my geometric design. I referred to Gotye's music video of 'Somebody That I Used to Know feat. Kimbra', as the music video used these geometric shapes in a rather artistic manner and I really adored the design they used, and I wanted to take some of the goodness from there to possibly apply to my own work; the music video had really made an impression on me when I first watched it.

Music Video of Somebody That I Used To Know:

PART 2: NATURE & REFERRING BACK TO THE MUSICAL OFFICIALLY

 I started on some referral to nature, and the first thing I actually thought of was the idea of tree stumps. This was because I remember reading up as a child and I recalled that the number of tree stump rings represented a tree's age, and I instinctively drew a link. Perhaps for 95 years of rich history, I could represent it through 95 rings on the card?

 I did a little cross hatching to see the effect but later on I realised that cross-hatching in itself involved crosses and gave a slightly negative connotation to the school's 95 years of history if crosses were shown. So the idea of cross-hatching would be confined to my exploration and experimentation, but not for use on the actual card. 

Below on the upper portion of the picture, it shows another small experimentation, this time with a more direct representation through a picture referenced drawing, but this stump had wooden cracks and it was another element I knew would be better to avoid in any case if I used the idea of a tree stump and its rings. 

As seen in the two pictures above, I chose to refer back to the official musical poster, which actually due to the shade of pink used, as well as the floral motifs in the chinese character pronounced as 'xing', reminded me of cherry blossoms. Although the general idea of cherry blossoms gives impressions of Japan instead of anything directly related to the school, I decided to go ahead and make sketches of cherry blossoms and observe it more carefully. I had gained two concepts from the blossoms; firstly, the  idea of falling petals as if signaling the passing of time (95 years of history), and secondly, the way the flowers branched out in bunches beautifully.

PART 3: GRAPHIC PATTERN

Regarding the process of this portion, please refer to my other blog post where it is described in greater detail and also please do refer to the annotations I wrote through the pictures.

Link to the blog post:

http://jubilartfolio.blogspot.sg/2012/09/artwork-08-handmade-birthday-present.html

PART 4: LOOKING TO THE SCHOOL+CRAFTING IDEAS

 In this portion, I started to refer back to the school itself and the Chinese characters of Nanyang and started to craft and develop on how Nanyang as a word could be possibly integrated into the design. 

 As seen above, certainly as a school celebration, it is impossible to tear away from the idea of using a school icon, and in this case, it would be Nanyang's signature clock tower, which overlooks the main road. I simplified the building, wanting it to be broken down into smaller elements in which I could see the details and elements of the building unobstructed by shading and concerns over a 3-dimensionality. 

 I also worked on using the geometric elements I had previously been inspired by, and tried to use the "geometric fragments"to form the school's two chinese characters, 'nan' and 'yang'. 

As seen above, I also wrote 'Nanyang 95th Anniversary' in Chinese characters, but once again applying my one-liner drawing technique in creating my unique font.

Below, I started off with a wacky font of the Nanyang Chinese characters,and gradually I found myself to be improvising and drawing continuous abstract and geometric shapes surrounding the characters.

Gradually, to soften the feel of the design as well as to create a sense of growth and beauty, I decided to 

draw in flowers as well. Also previously applying the possible concept of fluttering and dropping petals, I also extended the design downwards such that bits and pieces of the geometric shapes would seem to break off along with some of the flowers.

Above this floral design were two other experiments of fonts with the Nanyang chinese characters. The one on the left was using the idea roughly of positive and negative space, where the areas which overlapped one another would be negative space. As for the one on the right, it was simply made of jagged and geometric shapes, but also gave a rather threatening feel to it, which was opposite of what I would trying to work towards to.

PART 4: FINAL DESIGN IDEAS

At this point in time, I started to draft out a few ideas for my final design.

 This first design would employ the concept of Vorticism, where on the front, I planned for a soft and slightly blurred image of the clock tower, and it would be layered over by some geometric shapes, but they were not meant to fit the shapes of the elements of the building. Also I wanted to achieve a pop up effect by keeping the design confined to only one piece of paper and I would make a cut such that there would empty negative spaces in the back of the card where the cut out would be, while in the front those extra cut outs would be attached to the front instead as positive space.

 My second idea would also be using the size of a regular A5 card, except placed horizontally. I wanted to incorporate the idea of the tree stump rings and also the geometric design with flowers, as well as the idea of a pop up protrusion at the end of the card, similar to the previous design (above).

 I was thinking of using two A5 papers and arranging them as shown below, but yes, I considered that it might not have been functional. 

 I also considered using a circle-shaped card with the geometric, angular design in the middle, serving as a contrast between the round and the angular, the smooth and the rough.

PART 5: FINAL DRAFTS+FINAL

I was finally approaching the final stages! :) I made a draft piece first though and attached it to my prep work, which would be the one on the left. On the right is a photocopied version of my draft piece and it was where I did some final experimentation...

 So for the draft card, I did not use any colour, but I tested out the message inside saying "Happy 95th Nanyang!" This proved to be useful when I did the absolute final piece, as I could better estimate how and where to write the message, and also improve the internal design. I was happy with the external design though! However, inside seemed rather plain and empty. I also realised that I had forgotten to do the protruding pop-out effect. Then again, the draft was there for me to make mistakes!

 Below shows the back view of the external design of the card, and the text shown says "I wanted to use a square card and I think it would be more aesthetically pleasing for this particular design."

I truly find the shape being complementary to its design extremely important.

 As for the photocopied version, I tried to do some paper chromatography on normal white paper, but certainly if you don't use your materials right, it won't be successful. It did not achieve the effect I had been hoping for, but rather the ink just diffused through the water and there were just coloured water marks on the card. No doubt, it may look nice, but I did not want to fully embrace it, and decided to abandon the idea, also because I would not be able to get the materials in time for the final piece.

PART 6: FINAL!

Finally, my finished product!

 Before I cut out the slit for the protruding portion of the card.

 This silver area is not actually done by using any kind of absolutely special paper, but actually, it was material recycled from a food packaging and I cut it out slowly, millimetre by millimetre. It was actually the most painstaking process of making the final piece. It was slightly matte which made it not too garish or in-your-face shiny, which would have made the design rather tacky, but rather giving it a little class :)

 I actually just photocopied the draft, but before doing so, I made sure I had cleared out any blemishes with correction tape so that they would not be visible after I photocopied it.

I really liked this design because it had one special point, which would be that when placed out flat, it would seem as if the fallen petals are flowing from either side and it would be like a never-ending interplay and flow, in a way hinting at Nanyang's continuous legacy. The flowers symbolised growth and beauty, especially being in a girls' school. The curves of the flowers juxtaposed against the strong, bolded and rigid font of chinese characters as well as '95'.

 On the inside, I had written "Happy 95th Nanyang!", with the flower and geometric design surrounding and bordering the text.

 As seen standing up!