Assignment 4
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Concept
The requirement for this assignment is to design a postcard based on a chosen travel theme. I was quite keen on doing an international theme instead of focussing on a particular country or region. I like animals and interesting architecture, so I considered world wildlife and world architecture as my themes.
Eventually, I settled on architecture as I found it easier to execute. The idea for the design I had in mind was that of a city skyline silhouette made up of famous buildings from around the world.
I wanted buildings from various countries and regions so as to be representative of the whole world. I also wanted to have a mix of both old and new buildings, as the theme is the appreciation of architecture across countries and across different periods of time. The structures that I considered using were:
Asia / Middle East
- Tokyo Tower (Japan)
- Forbidden City (China)
- Oriental Pearl Tower (China)
- Taj Mahal (India)
- Sphinx (Egypt)
Europe
- Saint Paul's Cathedral (Britain)
- Big Ben (Britain)
- Leaning Tower of Pisa (Italy)
- Eiffel Tower (France)
USA
- Empire State Building
- Statue of Liberty
I couldn't fit all of these into one postcard, so I had to shortlist. I eliminated the Sphinx and Statue of Liberty as I'm more interested in functional architecture (buildings), while these two are more like building-sized sculptures. I also removed Eiffel Tower and Tokyo Tower as the two look too similar.
Ultimately, I wanted a good mix of buildings from different countries without too many from one particular region, so I decided on five:
1) Taj Mahal, India; completed in 1643, 35m high
2) Big Ben, Britain; completed in 1858, 96m high
3) Empire State Building, USA, completed in 1931, 381m high
4) Oriental Pearl Building, China, completed in 1994, 468m high
5) Tokyo Sky Tree, Japan, estimated completion in 2011, 634m high
Execution
At first, I thought of drawing the buildings to scale relative to each other, but it wasn't practical as the Tokyo Sky Tree is about 20 times taller than Taj Mahal. So I settled for at least getting the relative heights in order (i.e. Tokyo Sky Tree will be taller than Oriental Pearl, etc).
The first step is to get the building silhouettes. Using reference photographs from the internet, I drew the silhouettes of the five buildings using the brush and pen tools in Photoshop (each building is drawn on a separate layer). I also added in some details in a smaller brush diameter to make the buildings more easily recognisable:
I then arranged the buildings to make the composition less imbalanced. Also, I felt that the space above the shorter buildings was a bit too empty, so I added in the silhouette of a plane (drawn based on reference picture of real plane), which also fits the travel theme. The original colour scheme that I drew this in is a black background with pale yellow lines, resembling a night view of the city skyline:
After this, I proceeded to use the hue/saturation adjustment tool in Photoshop as well as the gradient tool to create 7 other colour schemes for my design:
This colour scheme is based on the actual colours of the buildings in real life. The Tokyo Sky Tree is primarily blue and grey, so I used blue. The Oriental Pearl is white with dark pink areas on the round portions, so I simplified the colour to just the dark pink. Similarly, I used the actual main colours of the buildings for the other three landmarks as well. The background is light blue, like the sky. This colour scheme gives off a cartoonish feel.
This colour scheme is just an experimentation with deep, warm colours. I used a gradient of varying shades of red, and I made the lines black. This colour scheme is probably not very appropriate as it gives off a rather sinister feel.
This colour scheme is an experimentation with strongly contrasting bright colours on a black background. The buildings look like multicoloured glowing neon signs (like those at nightclubs) here, which is an interesting effect. However, my focus is on the architecture, not on the nightlife of the world, so this might not be the best colour scheme to reflect my theme.
This colour scheme uses two colours of similar shade but different tonal value. The beige/brown shade that I chose gives the design a nostalgic feel, like a sepia photograph. This is one of the colour schemes that I strongly considered for my final prototype.
Since my theme centres around architecture, I also decided to try a blueprint-style colour scheme. Once again, the background and lines are of similar shade but different value, except the darker tone is in the background instead. The blue that I used, especially for the lines, is quite cold, which makes the design seem a bit stark. Nonetheless, the blueprint idea fits well with my architecture theme, so I considered this for my prototype as well.
The next colour scheme is a warm, vibrant sunset/sunrise scheme. Scenery with sunset is often considered particularly beautiful, and this ties in with my theme of enjoying the beauty of architecture around the world. The warmth and vibrance of the colours also gives off a romantic feel. I chose this colour scheme for my final prototype.
An experimentation with the colour green, as I didn't really make use of green in my other colour schemes. I was aiming for a sort of peaceful, zen feel with green and white, but the effect is not quite there.
I then created the back of my postcard, with a box for sticking the stamp and lines to write the receipient's address. I also included a watermark of the city skyline in my design and a short line of text: "See the architectural delights of the world."
My prototype is thus, front and back:
Further Refinements
After presenting my prototype in class, the areas of improvements highlighted to me were:
1) make the plane silhouette smaller as it is stealing attention from the buildings
2) since it is a simplistic design, there is a need to play with line thickness more in order to emphasise the right areas of the design
3) change the aspect ratio of the postcard to make it longer horizontally, to extend the city skyline
I could not really act on the feedback about the lines as I wasn't really sure of how to change the lines to achieve a better effect. Also, it would require me to redraw all the buildings, which will be very time-consuming (I took about 7 hours to finish the original prototype). Thus, it is more of a learning point to consider for similar work in the future.
The other two comments, however, were easier to follow through, so I made improvements based on them. I extended the design horizontally, rearranging the buildings to make them fit better. It also gave me the space to draw more filler buildings for the rest of the city skyline. I also find the positioning of the plane more comfortable in this version. My final prototype is thus:
posted at
15:35
This colour scheme is based on the actual colours of the buildings in real life. The Tokyo Sky Tree is primarily blue and grey, so I used blue. The Oriental Pearl is white with dark pink areas on the round portions, so I simplified the colour to just the dark pink. Similarly, I used the actual main colours of the buildings for the other three landmarks as well. The background is light blue, like the sky. This colour scheme gives off a cartoonish feel.
This colour scheme is just an experimentation with deep, warm colours. I used a gradient of varying shades of red, and I made the lines black. This colour scheme is probably not very appropriate as it gives off a rather sinister feel.
This colour scheme is an experimentation with strongly contrasting bright colours on a black background. The buildings look like multicoloured glowing neon signs (like those at nightclubs) here, which is an interesting effect. However, my focus is on the architecture, not on the nightlife of the world, so this might not be the best colour scheme to reflect my theme.
This colour scheme uses two colours of similar shade but different tonal value. The beige/brown shade that I chose gives the design a nostalgic feel, like a sepia photograph. This is one of the colour schemes that I strongly considered for my final prototype.
Since my theme centres around architecture, I also decided to try a blueprint-style colour scheme. Once again, the background and lines are of similar shade but different value, except the darker tone is in the background instead. The blue that I used, especially for the lines, is quite cold, which makes the design seem a bit stark. Nonetheless, the blueprint idea fits well with my architecture theme, so I considered this for my prototype as well.
The next colour scheme is a warm, vibrant sunset/sunrise scheme. Scenery with sunset is often considered particularly beautiful, and this ties in with my theme of enjoying the beauty of architecture around the world. The warmth and vibrance of the colours also gives off a romantic feel. I chose this colour scheme for my final prototype.
An experimentation with the colour green, as I didn't really make use of green in my other colour schemes. I was aiming for a sort of peaceful, zen feel with green and white, but the effect is not quite there.
