Reflection: Parting words

In week 1, we were warned that this module is not for the faint-hearted. I didn’t quit then, but saw myself week after week, questioning my decision to stay. This module consumed most of my time on the Adobe Design Suite (although it did get me well-acquainted with it) and left me little time for other modules. I agonized, panicked, cursed and lost sleep doing these assignments. But upon completing my work, I beamed with pride and self-satisfaction.

It’s only been what, 12 weeks? I cannot deny that through the process of forcing every creative bone in my body to design something for this module, I have learned plenty and more. Not only did I learn more about design elements and the design process, I also saw a side of myself that was creative, determined and motivated. Only by pushing your limits will you realize your potential.

Well, I shall not bother you any further with my mushy rants. My NM2208 journey is finally coming to a close. It’s feeling of ambivalence; of relief and dread, achievement and disappointment. There were ups and downs. But I know I have grown through this process and now see myself more capable of communicating my ideas visually. And I will carry the lessons learnt, both design-wise and on a personal level, with me through this humble journal, a remnant of my experience.

Portfolio

After finally completing the final project and being somewhat demoralized by it, it was back to the first 5 assignments and the very last submission, the portfolio.

I gathered some inspiration from the previous cohorts’ works and began coming up with an organized layout and underlying theme for the portfolio. I decided to go with a white-grey-black color scheme as I preferred a minimalistic look to a colorful and vibrant but potential design massacre if not done right. These colors also attributed to a slightly corporate yet non-conventional and contemporary look which I felt was apt given the formal context of most of our assignments.

Each assignment was to occupy (at least) 2 facing pages with the left page showing the development process and the right page showing the final prototype. This was achieved for all the assignments except assignment 3 where I extended my development process to 3 pages to elaborate on the 9 frames I had for my photo-story. The final project was also included, dispersed across the last 4 pages.

Final Project: Yummy yummy in my tummy! (design)

With our plot fixed, my group began coming up with animals and sketching what these animals would look like. We finalized the following animals that were common enough to be distinct and recognized by children:

GiraffeElephant

Monkey
Panda

Each animal represents the culture of the country they come from. We included cultural elements/accessories to reflect their cultural background. For example, the monkey from Japan had a Sakura flower (coincidentally, her name is Sakura) while the China panda wore a Chinese hat. Hence, the final animals looked like this:

Front and back covers

Taking inspiration from other children’s storybooks, we also decided to put in a border around the illustrations in the book as we liked the clean, organized look of the pages. Having a uniformed layout may be conventional but we felt that it suit our edutainment theme. The font used also contributed to this overall feel we wanted to achieve. We chose Myriad Pro, a simple, non-fanciful font that was contemporary enough to appeal to children while still maintaining the formal tone.

Page layout

Finally, to complete the book, we included a glossary page and an edutainment page. The glossary page included words that might be too complex for our target audience while the edutainment page provided some interesting facts about the food cultures mentioned in the book.

Overall, our group felt the book achieved our aim of an organized edutainment storybook that integrated the theme of culture.