Design Principles - Project 1: Self-Portrait

27/9/2022 - 11/9/2022 / Week 5 - Week 7

Hayato Saito / 0350466

Design Principles / Bachelor of Design in Creative Media

Project 1: Self-Portrait

---

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Create your own A4 self-portrait, apply design principles knowledge.

- Write a 150-200 words rationale for your final idea.
2. Upload both designs in PDF file in your blog.
3. Send your blog link here.
4. Your blog must be in your actual name for easy identification. Make sure it has:
a) Visual research
b) Idea exploration
c) Feedback from lecturer
d) Final design outcome (pictures must be neatly cropped and must not be shadowy/blur)
e) Brief reflection for the week


Materials: Any medium. Digital is allowed.

Contemplate your life experiences, which includes your culture, your family, your friends, your school days, your favourite hangouts, your favourite music, food, musician, etc. Observe your surroundings, people, vehicles, buildings, plants, signages, nature, and activities. Record these in sketches, photography, and/or video recording. Study all the visuals that you had collected. Select visuals that you find relevant and interesting to you, which you can translate into a design work to create a portrait of yourself. Remember to apply design principles in your work.

---

Fig.1.1 Mindmap

This is the mind map about me and I decided to incorporate my personality, favorite color, apperance into my design since I didn't know how to incorporate most of the other things.

VISUAL RESEARCH

Fig.2.1 https://pin.it/2u0fzdI

Fig.2.2 https://pin.it/62pHkwB

Fig.2.3 https://pin.it/6j3fbyb

This is the artwork that gave me the idea of overthinking that I am using in my design.

Fig.2.4 https://pin.it/6KNH8aR

Fig.2.5 https://pin.it/43NiuN6

Fig.2.6 https://pin.it/3Pomn3z

Since Ms. Jinchi suggested me to look for some position that can describe the laziness, I tried to find the suitable position for my design.

IDEA EXPLORATION

Fig.3.1 sketch #1

In sketch 1, I drew his shoulders in an exaggerated manner and drew the strong parts of his appearance, such as his beard and long hair. The black lines in the background represent my overthinking personality. I used my favorite color orange for the background and blue for the T-shirt to create contrast.

Fig.3.2 sketch #2

Fig.3.3 The outline

Fig.3.4 The first draft outcome.

In this design, I am lying in bed, which represents my lazy personality, my exaggerated hair represents my overthinking personality, and the color of the clothes I am wearing is my favorite color, orange. 

Fig.3.5 The process of the drawing 

I decided to develop the sketch 2 by changing the way I am sleeping. And the reason why I also changed the style of drawing is because I felt like the previous style was too simple and too boring and also hard to add the details.

FINAL OUTCOME

Fig.3.6 The final outcome

In this design, The messy blanket and the way I sleep represents my laziness, the exaggerated hair and the jumbled lines describe my overthinking. I put emphasis on the hair by using almost half of the entire this de for hair and by using dark tone color only for the hair part. The orange colored clothes that I am wearing in this design represents my favorite color. I changed the style from the initial idea to make this more realistic. The reason why I changed the background to blue color is because I wanted to create kind of contrast between my clothes and background and I also wanted to make the emphasis that I put on my hair effectively by using light tone color.

---

FEEDBACK

Week 6... Ms. Jinchi said I should think think about how I describe the laziness, being lazy and I can exaggerate my hair and create the thoughts that I have above my head to describe my overthinking or create the jumbled lines with my exaggerated hair.

Week 7... Ms. Jinchi said my design still doesn't really show the laziness so I should think about how I can describe it effectively. I have to change the way I lay down on the bed to describe laziness. 

---

REFLECTION

Through this project, what I did well the most was understanding what this project is about and the depth of this project which is something I was struggling with during the previous assignment. The most challenging aspect of this project for me was coming up with how to incorporate things about me which I chose from the mind map. What I did to get over that difficulty is that I spent more time than I usually do in order to research about what I want to describe to get inspiration. Because of that I was able to find the way and incorporate my ideas effectively. What I learned throughout this project is that even the most seemingly minuscule things can change the impression of the design for the better or for worse. The feedbacks provided by lecturer further motivated me and inspired me to come up with my final product. This project made me realise that we have many ways to make the designs have meaning and depth effectively.