Final project: Hype, crook and lyric – Comic magazine

Assignment: A comic book targeted at teenagers

Criteria: Print medium, 2-4 pages, copy less than 200 words, strip size approximately A3

 

This time round, our group decided to mimic American comic magazines. Hence, from comic dimensions, layout, paper, cover page, advertisements, we had intended for it to be as close to the real deal as possible.

 

As for the storyline, I suppose we did achieve the “hype” part of the project. The entire LT was in somewhat of an uproar.

Well, our storyline is basically a fresh take on fairytales / fables/ children nursery rhymes.

The existence of a darker side to the Grimm brothers’ tales is probably known to all, but usually, the darker side came from the characters already present in the story -  and that actually forms part of the moral of the story I suppose.

 

As for our “crook,”  instead of the characters themselves being darker, we made them remain innocent still.

Instead, we introduced a new character, a blood thirsty tree that blooms red flowers whenever it kills.

Our “lyric” in this case, is how each of these characters really met with their deaths. I won’t be revealing the entire story here, but we have

1. A  Jack and Jill + Rock-a-bye baby remix

2. The cow which jumped over the moon

3. Rapunzel

 

Here are they are.

 

And here are some pages of our comic magazine. These 4 are the front (inside, outside) and back (inside, outside) covers  of our comic.

Assignment 5: Post card – Your notion of colourful Asia

Assignment: To design a post card targeted at international publics, and that it conveys message about cultural/social/political aspects of Asia.

Criteria: Final prototype to be A6, front – in colour, back in B/W or grey + versions of post card in different colour schemes.

 

Initially, I hit upon the idea of representing Asia as a cube, to make use of the various colours of the flags to show how colourful Asia is but in hindsight, I wasn’t exactly sure how to execute it back then.

Let me show you.  

Hence the half-baked excuse of an open cube (and if it is open, it can’t be a magic cube!). I personally feel that while I like the idea, it is rather playful and unusual, it doesn’t really seem to mean anything.

And the colour combinations, in a later consultation, were described to be “rather boring.”

Worse still, a friend asked, “So if it is open and empty, does it mean Asia is like empty inside?”

T______T

So it was back to the drawing board. 

After spending some time developing the idea, this is my final prototype for Assignment 5.

 

From left to right, here are the names of the colour schemes.

(Top) Traffic lights, Morning, Ice-cream at the side-walk

(Bottom): Raining in the City, Bonding over Coffee, Psychodelic Night life

 

As you can probably tell, they are inspired by various slices of moments in the city. And this city, could  be any of the cosmopilitian Asian cities.

 

Colours of Asia
they flash, blink, swim, and swirl.
 
From the billboards, streetlamps and lights in the cities.

And to me,  if the whole of Asia can be
condensed into one building,

it would be the brightest tower  around the city that is known as The World.

 

In my new version of the postcard, there are two metaphors using the cube.

Firstly, Asia is a cube-shaped building radiating light in a city. But why is it in the form of a magic cube?

It is because it also represents the many combinations of colour that can be formed simply by twisting it.

Assignment 4: Poster – Save, Prevent, Kill

Assignment: To design a poster targeted at general public, and that it conveys message through its layout.

Criteria: Final prototype to be A3 sized.

 

I had quite a few quirky themes, but I figured that they are not suitable for the general public. Ideas like saving the garlic chili sauce from Macdonald’s, or save Superman. Well, the example of aliens was given in lecture, so I suppose that was where the inspiration came from.

In the end, I decided to use a supposed restriction – we were supposed to put “Supported by the Communications and New Media programme” and the NUS logo on the poster – into a strength.

And I began to brainstorm on what kind of public service announcements would the CNM department support? That was when I hit upon an idea: Cyber-bullying.

Here is Version 1.

 

Comments from the class were generally favourable. I raised the question as to whether I should colour it and there were differing views. My second question was as divisive, whether I should change the quote in the top left corner.

I was content to leave the poster as it was initially. However, a later consultation with Ms Siti changed my mind. That, and the fact that  many of my classmates used colour to great effect (which obviously raised the bar.)

So this is the final prototype for Assignment 4.

 

I will have to admit, the quote in the corner, the poster messages, I had more elements than some of my classmates. I think while I am happy that I did not sturggle too much with multiple elements in my poster (which I suppose in communications is the logical or cognitive appeal), somehow my classmates’ posters which used emotional appeal left great impact on me too.

Hmm, NM3215 anyone?