A promotion poster for PHOTOSHOP CS4

Though we are living in a world full of new high technologies, if sometimes we go back to nature and illustrate things as simple as it is originated to be, I believe it will give our life a big surprise and impress a lot of audience.

The picture above I found out on the Internet is the newly published promotion poster designed by Bates 141, Jakarta for Photoshop CS 4. The format is exactly the outlook of photoshop. However they used real materials to replace those electronic icons on the screen according to exact sizes and then they took a picture of it as their promotion for CS 4. That is, this picture was not made by computer. It is a real photo taken by people. I must say I was surprised and impressed when I first looked at this poster.

What I want to express is that, we are using more and more computer to design nowadays and as a DGC student, we cannot avoid conputer either. But in my opinion what appears on the screen actually all generates from our daily life and the real world. We get idaes from what we see from our maybe simple surroundings and these simple images gives us new ideas to create and design the more complex images on the computer.
Complexity all comes from simplicity. This is what I believe when people design.

I guess what I think about today also has something to do with "PRAGNANZ". Sometimes simple things can express much more than complicated figures. They go back to nature and give audience space to think more.

Miserable Wednesday

I guess it was because I was too happy on Tuesday that made me had such an miserable and damn Wednesday.

I forgot to bring the umbrella with me the THIRD time and it soon began to rain cats and dogs after I got out of the dorm. I ran to the library, on one hand, intending to print the notes about the presention in DGC class. On the other hand, I had no choice but to wait for H to pick me up, otherwise I would definitely be late for the class or even worse, trapped in the freezing library wet and cold until the rain stopped. Thanks to H. This was the second time she helped me get out of the damn rain this week. But I didn't know at that time she would help me for a third time later.

Three hours passed quite quickly because we had presentation this week. During the presention some students got out of the classroom and came back without umbrella. I thought it was great that finally the rain has stopped. But when the class was over, it began to rain heavily again! I was frustrated to see this situatuon. At this time H gave me her umbrella because her following classes are all in the same building. With H's umbrella I managed to go back to the hall and get my own umbrella during the one hour break at noon.

At that night I was reading a picture album. The whole book was just so so but there was one picture which caught my I and made me moved.



The picture says, a friend is the best gift for yourself.

Once more, great thanks to H!

ps: It didn't rain any more after I got my own umbrella, not only that afternoon, the following days as well.

Communication design is a SCIENCE!

I never knew that design could and should be so scientific until Mr. Williams showed us some amazing examples of communication design on this week's class. The most inspiring one, of course, was the Northwest Airline logo. When I first looked at this logo, it seemed no big difference between other logos we see in our daily life. The blank stroke in the red part created a W and an N in one letter. This kind of design is quite normal these days because I have seen other designs in which this kind of creativity is applied.(But now I cannot think of the example I have seen. I'll put them on as soon as they came up to my mind.) However, what makes Northwest Airline's logo stand out is the little arrow cut by the blank stroke. Before Mr. Williams explained this point, I seldom paid attention to this little part. But afterwards the explanation of the little arrow enlightened me! How wise of the designer to have come up with this idea!

After having seen these amazing designs, I start to think about how to be a GOOD communication designer. GOOD, as for me, means that at first a designer must be a good observer. A designer must be sensitive to the environment around him/her. He/She must pay attention to not only commen things but also pay attention to details of surroundings. Only when a designer is aware of these details and have patient to work on them can he/she understand the symbolic meaning of a certain design. A designer should discover more than other people can see from a design much much more than its physical meaning. Then a designer should, of course, be creative. However creativity may not always born to a designer. So a designer should have a widely access to everything from photos to movies, from music to travlling. These elements I believe can all inspire a designer to create. Thirdly, I think that a designer should also be a scientist of life. Because what we are discussing here is COMMUNICATION DESIGN. It's different from pure art for that communication design must convey some meanings to people, in other word, these designs must reach to people's life in some certain ways. This can be explained as a interior designer should understand to usage of equipments in one's household and could not make designs cannot be used by people. Being a communication designer is great. A comuunication designer is not lonely. When a design is accepted and applaused by people, I guess a designer will be happy with satisfaction.

After the assignment of the Grail was assigned, I suddenly came up with this picture below. I saw this poster at a bus stop. It says "Pets are for life. Think before you have one". The letter T in "PETs" is replaced by a human hand whose gesture is just like the letter T. And below this slogan there are six cute animals who are doing the same thing like the human hand. This picture is created to be warm and considerate. And in my opinion, the target audience of this poster should be the young and the old, and as well as the one with great care of animals. Because the eyes of these animals in the picture are pure and innocent, which express that what they need is just care and love. This information can easily draw attention of little children and old people. And for those who have great care for animals, this poster can make them work for animal care and then can draw more people's attention to this point in order to make people all around to care for pets. I think this is a good creative idea and I hope that I have analysed it correctly.

Now I start to feel it's interesting to study DGC. It will a great satisfaction if I can make people happy through my designs one day!

School Starts & Gate to DGC

《We Start Here》
Believe it or not, ASH 600 is one of the most difficult venues to be found out on this campus. But I was lucky to make it because Helena had lessons there before and I have orchestra rehearsal every week just one floor over this room. September 2 was the first day of school, and for Helena and me, this was also our first day to be a REAL DGC student. Helena and I are the only two mainland DGC students this year, and we used to be quite nervous before about having lessons with HK local students. But to our surprise, we were happy to find out what inside this room was something we could call it multiculture. The professor was nice and humorous, and from the "interesting story" told by classmates, I found them interesting and ambitious. But what both Helena and I realized afterwards was that our classmates didn't seem to have much talk with each other very often. Maybe we are just not very familiar with each other. But I believe there will be one day that we can mingle easily!

《Dried Leaves》

Aactually I found out this strange phenomenon last year. When it's time for trees to grow and flowers to bloom in theory, some leaves in HK start to become yellow and even kraurosis. I haven't found out the reasons yet. This picture was taken this morning when I went up the slope. The contrast FRESH and DRIED, GREEN and YELLOW was absolute and shocking. So I took this picture and posted it here. And, I am looking forward to the next week. See u.