Saturday, 2 August 2008

Treasure our food!!!

I created this design from a mixing emotion due to various events of our world nowadays. As everyone knows, fuel , not just in VietNam, but on the whole world, has had its price increased surprisingly lately. Also there is a serious shortage of food occurring in many countries. Value of everything has been changed dramatically these day, and thanks to that i realized some thing, simple, but important.




The message is simple: "Rice is gold". This message is answered automatically in viewer's brain without difficulty after seeing the hidden text "What is gold", which is also easy to figure out. The pictures are cropped carefully for them to fit with each other perfectly. Furthermore, light is adjusted with much efforts to give out a golden radiance from the rice. It's just like the hand is holding gold, not just rice. I just want to emphasize the importance of every single drop of rice in this unstable era.

Really, i expected more from this design, but i can't find any better way to express the feeling as well as the message. Anyone has an idea of how to give better typography or where to put more text which will support the design? Please give me some advice. Thanks in advance

Friday, 25 July 2008

The BLACK HOLE

ok, let's leave our annoying global warming aside, since i bet you guys are getting tired of it already. Don't worry, i will have you enjoy "Global Warming" until you cry in near future :D. Enough with nonsense talks, this time we will have another topic to talk about.



The topic is Black hole. As you can see, what i tried to achieve is not a real visual of a black hole, but a artistic view of it. I used some elements of Indian's mandala as its theme, giving this design a cool look. All details are not clear and seems to be sucked into the center, this is to make the visual image of a black hole more clear, and i also don't want all of those details confuse the concentration of viewers. The lightning is also taken advantage of in order to add more impact to the design. I also put effort into the typography so that it can fit into the design with as less flaw as possible.

This time there is not many things to talk about because the contents of the design is clear, and there is no really special meaning behind it. I just think that it's a good design after all, which can be a newer view of the black hole.

Friday, 18 July 2008

Global Warming series - 2

This time is another poster for Global Warming. I will continue working on this topic for a while because it's a hot topic nowadays.

No more complex explanation about global warming because it was posted with details last week. We will take a direct look at the poster now:


This time the main theme is desert. In the endless wasteland which in which exist no living creature, nothing else can be seen except for a dried dead Earth. The text itself talk the message behind this poster: "Is our Earth itself being turned into a desert or is it becoming a part of a bigger wasteland?"

That's right. The meaning of putting our Earth in such a large desert is not only to describe the current state of our Earth. As you know, talking about desert keep expanding and through global warming, plants can be harder to live, lands is getting worse and worse, and that's why i want to express how our Earth is on the verge of becoming a huge desert.

One thing which every people holds pride in our Earth is that it's the only planet which has life in this vast universe, or if there is another, we still don't know yet. In such a lifeless "desert", Earth is like an oasis with full of energy and filled with green and blue. Being dried everyday, it's inevitable that our Earth will, in near future, turned into a part of this hell.

The Earth is modified carefully so that it can has a natural gray color that fit in the theme. Its shadow is adjust with care too. I also added many effects and combined many elements to make it dried, which can only be seen on large mode. Efforts are spent heavily to the texts too, because i'm bad at creating effects for texts, thus i really tried hard this time.

The texts are put so that they can balance the Earth on left side, furthermore, with the relationship in size of those text, they can lead viewers' attention to the other from any direction. Their colors are for the same objective. In order to see them clearly, i advice watch it in large mode.

Friday, 11 July 2008

Global warming

Global warming is an emergency problem which the world is currently worry about. Although it's still doesn't give much serious damage to our living daily life, the day when we can't help but to regret about our childish thinking about global warming may be not too far away anymore. In order to point out my thinking as well as support the movements preventing global warming throughout the world, I made this design using Photoshop. First, let's take a look at it:




The general image which anyone can see is fire on the sea. The idea of firing the sea comes from the thought of "how can i give a really effective impression of heat?". Firstly, i have to recognize that the fire is made not too well. I've tried my best and this is all i could do using my little photoshop knowledge. But it's still enough to deliver a good image of "burning sea" to everyone. With the starry sky above, we can all know that this event take place in a night. The fire's light is bright enough to light up a night. All colors can give a hot, very hot feeling to viewers. The point here is to make as if the Earth is burning, thanks to an incredible heat. I also added a text "Global warming" there. The text's color is made carefully, and it has a nice effect of putting the text conveniently into the design. Furthermore, with that color, it's just like the text is affected by fire's light too . And that's it, not too complicated huh?

Although the concept is simple, i believe it's not too bad. Don't know what to add in order to make this image better, i would really appreciate any constructive comments about anything related to this design (typography, color, layout, anything). The effort i spent on this design is, as you can see, really worth to mention, even though i know that it's not very good to be praised. Thus i really need advices to help this design more effective and meaningful. Thanks a lot.

Sunday, 6 July 2008

This is another image of sun and moon. This time, the design is made in order to follow the given brief as strictly as possible. I will try to explain the image as detailed as possible, but first, let's take a look at it:


On the left side, the sun is presented on a white background, while the moon on opposite side can be seen without difficulty with a dark color around it.

The sun's rays are made using illustrator, with the shapes of many arrows. All of them are organized around the sun, giving unity to the design. Though saying that, a single arrow is in different shape and point on top with a 45o degree. With enough concentration, you will be able to recognize that the only that arrow is in black, which is the same color with the sun, all other arrows are in gray. My goal is to emphasize the connection between that arrow and the sun, and with ease, everyone can realize that is the male symbol. Taking about sun, we always mention strength, heat, greatness, which are all famous tributes make up a man. Thus giving the sun a male symbol here is an effective method to express the importance of the sun to this world.

The sun's black arrows is not just for the male's symbol. Giving that arrow a special importance, it can attract viewers' eyes to its direction as well. The arrow can help lead your eyes to the moon on the other side, and thanks to it, the connection between 2 images - sun and moon- become tighter and closer. In other word, that arrow is like a bridge lead you from the sun to the moon.

With eclipse form, the moon is in pure white. I gave some lines below the moon, with some special meaning behind it. First, i want to present a famous image, "bleeding moon". It's like when you see a moon between a valley, and see its light pour between the space between those mountains. This scene can only be seen with a best position and in a cloudy night. It's just like seeing an eye overflowing with tears, or ones can have another concept in their mind : "a bleeding moon". The second meaning i want to deliver to you can only be seen with a text "moon" cutting through those lines. All of those elements become one, and that is a female symbol. That's right, if we often talk about the sun as a strong and reliable man, many tales in China, Egypt and Greek consider the moon as a Goddess. Having a female symbol here not only help the moon more complete, but also balance the structure of the design itself.

Hope you enjoy the design.

Saturday, 5 July 2008

I'm going to write about Yokoo Tadanori - a designer whose name is on the list. In the essay, these 3 designs are going to be presented:





Thursday, 3 July 2008

Sun and moon completed version

There are many comments telling me that they have difficulty in realizing the meaning of my last sun and moon's design, and i think that it's necessary to improve the design in order for the sun and moon's image can be seen easier. The problem is that i don't want to change the concept of them, thus i decided to improve them and add some details so that they can resemble the sun and the moon more effectively. These are the results (note: these images are for the sake of improvement, not for the first requirement which Ms Stephanie gave anymore):


I changed the background to black because it can help the sun easier to be seen . Then, i added some fire effect, along with some adjustment in the color. By giving some lighter color in the center, it gave some more "heat" to the sun and make the reflection of the crystals more beautiful. The fire around it really helps. With these improvement, i believe that the sun is now better than ever.


On the moon case, I gave it a starry background, along with some lens and glow effect. The glow is in light purple, which can give the image a mystical feeling. Talking about mystical feeling, it is now amplified even greater by adding some fog effect. The fog is also to strengthen the moon's "coldness".

I believed that those designs are now better than their previous versions. Hope to receive more constructive comments ;)