Concept Development

For this assignment, I had quite a lot of trouble deciding on the celebrities I wanted to include in my design. I toyed briefly with the idea of using Shakespeare (famous historical playwright) and a modern movie director (such as Steven Spielberg or Peter Jackson). I considered putting the two on a set of scales to indicate that they are counterparts in different eras, since Shakespeare's works were commercial "blockbusters" in his time, although they are considered fine literature now. However, I found this idea a little too simplistic, so I tried to think of something more multilayered.

Another concern was the distinctiveness of the celebrities involved. In this respect, Lady Gaga came to my mind first, as she has many extremely unique features that cannot be mistaken for anyone else, for instance her hair bows and outrageous clothing. This led me to try and think of another distinctive celebrity to put next to her. I considered several options, including Michael Jackson and Madonna.

Eventually, after some research, I found that Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert actually have a lot in common. They have cited similar musical influences, and both are versatile, talented musicians able to perform in multiple genres. Adam Lambert is openly gay, while Lady Gaga is a staunch supporter of the LGBT community. They both also have a common tendency of giving provocative, sometimes even controversial performances. Lady Gaga has written a song for Adam Lambert, and they are reported to be friends as well.

Thus I decided on the two celebrities to work on. Moving on to the actual concept, I initially thought of sticking with my original idea of a set of scales, representing them as equals. However, I didn't think such a presentation fully expressed what I think of these two celebrities. Being "equals" in "weight" (which I feel suggests that they are equal in ability) does not necessarily suggest similarity, and the similarities that I want to highlight are not expressed as well. I then thought of using a "mirror image" concept, but decided that it was too difficult to execute as a simplified pictogram. I struggled over this for a while, but eventually it came to me that the royal cards (King, Queen, Jack) in a poker card deck consists of two identical figures reflected across the middle axis, so that the image will look the same whether the card is upside down or upright. This variation of the "mirror image" concept is easy to execute in pictogram form, and also expresses the main similarity between Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert - they both "gamble" with their careers as they dare to be different and provocative.

Abstraction Process

Since I was doing a poker card, I would need shots of each celebrity from the chest up. The photos should ideally include the celebrities' defining features as prominently as possible. After sifting through some images on the internet, I picked the following two photos:

Creating Step 1 of the abstraction process from the photos was quite challenging. There needed to be a high level of detail in the illustration, which would make tracing with the pen tool very tedious. To make life easier for myself, I decided to use some of Photoshop's preset filters to help me along the way. First, I used the "Poster Edges" filter to make the photographs look like illustrations. I then reduced colour saturation to zero, making the image greyscale. While this creates a detailed illustration, I felt as it was not clean-cut enough, as there were too many grey gradients. So I used another filter, "Photocopy", to reduce the image to pure black and white. The results are as follows:

Of course, this was not yet enough to create Step 1. I cleaned up each filtered photograph by erasing the background and some parts of the body. I then used the pen tool to draw in new torso outlines for the celebrities. For Lady Gaga, I also had to outline some of her features, as well as her hair, to make the image look more clean-cut. For Adam Lambert, I drew in spikes for his hair as the original photo was cut off at the top. The completed images for Step 1 are as follows:

For Step 2, I removed most of the clothing details, filling in solid black for the bodies. I also erased unnecessary details, such as lines in Gaga's hair and highlights in her sunglasses, as well as Adam's hair. Additionally, I traced Adam's facial features in clean lines, removing the shadow details that were there in Step 1. Results as follows:

In Step 3, I altered the shape of the torso, removing the rigid human form and replacing it with some abstract shapes. I also erased non-essential facial features. Results as follows:

While the past three steps have been about simplification and removal of detail, Step 4 is mainly about exaggeration. I did simplify the shapes of both celebrities' hair, but the main change here is that I increased the size and prominence of the essential, defining features of each celebrity. For Adam, it is his distinctive eyeliner, and for Gaga I exaggerated her sunglasses and hairbow. Besides the increase in the size of the defining features, the simplification of all other features into simple geometric shapes also calls these defining features to attention. Completed Step 4 as follows:

In Step 5, I completely removed everything that does not, in itself, "define" the character. For Adam, I left only his eyes, with a rough outline of his ear and earring to "frame" them. For Gaga, I removed everything except her sunglasses and hairbow, reducing the image to a pair of sunglasses wearing a bow. Obviously, this stage represents an extreme, where the main features are presented in isolation, with no context. This makes it difficult to really identify what the pictogram represents.


Final Prototype

Because of the oversimplification in Step 5, and also because I needed vaguely human forms for my poker card concept, I chose Step 4 to use in my final prototype. The defining features are obvious enough to take centre stage, while there is enough of a context to identify the celebrities represented by the pictogram.

The final prototype looks like a poker card, with Gaga and Adam "mirroring" each other across the central axis to suggest that some of their traits mirror each other. As such, the image can be viewed both upright and upside down, just like a real poker card. For the symbol, I replaced the usual spade, heart, club or diamond with a treble clef, to indicate that I refer to these two celebrities within their field of musical entertainment.
16:36

Neo Yu Han
NUS NM2208
A0069752U

Home

Class Exercises
Class Exercise A
Class Exercise B
Class Exercise C
Class Exercise D
Class Exercise E

Assignments
Assignment 1A
Assignment 1B
Assignment 2
Assignment 3
Assignment 4
Assignment 5

Final Project
Idea Development
Concept and Design
Storyboard
Font and Typography
Grid and Layout
Colour Exploration
Interactivity
Group Reflections
Final Prototype!


Ben
Zhi Kai


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