When I think about freedom, I associate it with my life. What I’ve been through as as a child till now. Yes, it is something personal. Something that some may have encountered which is being controlled that whatever you do, you feel as though you are being watched. Every steps you take is not decided by you, but by someone else. Every decisions in life, your school, dressings, friends; all weren’t decided by you and you alone. It’s like your life is already written for you. It’s already planned for you. All you have to do is to obey and follow.

So, I approached this theme in a way that it brings out a certain emotions, and message through the subject used.

The subject I used is a little girl who looks like a doll as to portray that she is lifeless just like a doll, being controlled by its owner.

http://katinisani.clanteam.com/digitalpaint.html

The Crowbar Awards are here again.

 This year, the Crowbar Awards are looking for works that promote the rich cultural diversity and people of Singapore.
- School Assignment, Problem Statement 5

Well, for this piece, I chose dance as the rich cultural diversity in Singapore because, each race have their own traditional dance and at the same time, dance is elegantly beautiful, unique and artistic. Thus, I thought of the tagline, ‘Dancing towards DIVERSITY’. For my style, I try to focus on the colours as the main representation for the different cultural groups and symbols like heart, and stars to represent togetherness, love, harmony and the stars is to show that each of us individuals are special in their own ways.

This poster I’ve done is for Ministry of Information, Communications & the Arts since it is in charge of the creative industries, arts, heritage, library, media, infocommunications and government public relations.

The candy company who make M&Ms is launching a new product of candies called “Rainbow Drops”. They want a series of poster ads to promote the new product, using the concept ‘a colorful and enjoyable eating experience for young executives’.  The final and approved tagline for this new product is “Rainbow Drops Keep Fallin’ on My Head… but that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turnin’ red ”.
- School Assignment, Problem Statement 4.

So, here’s are some of my ideas and sketches.

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This is the chosen one. The reason why I chose a guy instead of a girl is because to me, it is more effective to have a guy. As, we know young executives, majority are guys who is always busy with his work that he needs to take a break. Thus, this is why I chose this sketch among all. “This is to indicate that he is happy and taking a time off, eating the ‘rainbow drops’ candy.

Since it is called ‘rainbow drops’, I was thinking of a more literal way of having the candies falling from the sky thus, this is why I chose a bird’s eye view instead.

After I’ve decide to work on this, I transferred my sketch into my laptop and trace it at Adobe Illustrator. Then followed by colouring it and add highlights & shadows to it at Adobe Photoshop.

The reason for me picking up the type of font is because I want to have a more kiddish feel to it and not a very bold, serious font. This, in a way goes with the theme and message.

The packaging wise, I try to follow M&M since it is a company that launched M&M so, to keep the identity there and don’t really run off to a totally different company.

http://sunsation.com.sg/

Well, how shall I put this.

I know I’ve picked the best design. But at the last resort, it’s been disapproved so my final design that was picked is the one in the site now! Thank god, they love it. Eventhough I didn’t use flash for this one, i did learnt new tools like, creating contact form, menu bar and lots and lots of pages. Thanks to my three sisters who was the cause of the pressure I’m facing. Without those pressure, I think I won’t be able to finish it. I stayed up the whole night till 5am today to get this done. Of course, despite my sisters being busy with her daily life and work, I still can managed on my own. I did research and learnt it online, step by step.

Here are some references:
http://dreamweaverspot.com/adobe-dreamweaver-tutorial-contact-forms/
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Dreamweaver/10.0_Using/WSEE4C0148-A6F4-4bf5-9DEF-CE06AB026214a.html

What I’ve learnt and gained?

- Just experienced working on one website have already taught me a million things.

- Yes, first is manage your file well. If not, you have to redo everything from scratch!

- Know where you save your files. Make sure that all the one for the website, including images, videos, pages created are all in one folder.

- Make sure you don’t move them, if so, the image you upload in dreamweaver are all gone!

- You need a lot of patient as there’s alot of pages and links to do.

- For a beginners like me, it is quite frustrating when you don’t know that these might have happened and have to keep redoing it from scratch.

- Make a template so that it is easier to link up the pages. If not, you’ll have missing links in your page and it is difficult and troublesome for you to search back one by one for the pages to link.

- Basically, doing a website, you need to have alot of patience, a quiet area (away from distractions) a clear mind, motivation, encouragement, inspiration and of course, for beginners, RESEARCH, READINGS and INSTRUCTIONS!

I’ve done the different design layout for this website.

The image I’ve used for the selected one which is the third layout, I bought it at https://www.123rf.com/

So, since I’ve bought it and my dad chose this for our company, I go ahead and develop on it. With this, I have done flash/ animation to make it more interactive and engaging. I’ll upload it in my next post.

KBridges Company Website design. KBridges is a newly build company. My sister gave me this task of designing layouts and so I’ve designed according to what is expected by the client. The client didn’t really tell me what they want as they said, “Anything up to you.” Since they are new, so they have no idea about how they want their website to look like. My sister designed a logo for them since they didn’t have one. With that, the client likes and chose my third design layout. But sadly, they can’t afford to pay the company and so they backed out.

I designed it in a way that it follows the logo colour to gave it a theme and identity. I choose the images based on their tag line which is, ‘Your missing link to a competitive edge’. So, the first thing that comes in mind is puzzle and business people. Thus, this is how I produced these designs.

Referring to Grids and Layout, choose a magazine of your choice and re-design a 2 page spread on one of the articles featured in the magazine. You are to recreate the work in either Photoshop or Illustrator. (Full size: 2 A4 pages, colour)

The original article layout and design:

The original layout, they use Column Grids/ Modular Grids. For the first page, it’s three column grids. It is divided into three but the two column was occupied with one full picture of Avril Lavigne. The next page, it can be two column grid or modular grid. It can be both actually. So, here goes. My design.

I’ve decided to use  Hierarchical Grids because for a magazine to have modular and column grids are common. So I decided to try something new. This grid is common in web, posters and books but I wanted to see how it looks like in magazine. It’s not that bad, right? Well, that’s what I think.

-Katini Sani-

Create a full colour poster based on 3 of the Gestalt principles. Your work can be created on either software or using art materials of your choice. A3 size, full colour. Choose ONE of the following themes for your work (a) Rock N Roll (b) Peace and Love (c) Make Art, Not War

Ideas and Experimentations:

- My first idea is the cloud forming the peace symbol. I got inspiration when I was outside at the beach and saw images the clouds formed in the sky. So, with this idea, I thought of love and relate to a couple. So there’s a couple sitting down in the bench (backview), holding heart-shaped balloons. The girl letting it go and in the sky, there’s lots of it. This is to show, spread the love around and you’ll gain peace.

- My second idea is the hand forming the heart shape and in the background, there’s over-head bridge. So this is to form the peace symbol. But there’s no meaning though.

- My third idea is the flower. I used rose in particular because when I think of love, i relate it to red rose. It represents/ symbolises love and that it is well-known to others. Thus, I chose to use rose and experiment with it. So, I chose couples, yes, again. This is when, I broaded my mind and think of something else; family love, friendship love, paternal, maternal love, etc.

So i chose family love. This is how I produce the idea. And below is the end-product.

I perceived love as not only a couple relationship type of love, but a deeper meaning to that; maternal love, paternal love, brotherhood and sisterhood love, or in short family love. I am too attached with my family that they are my source of inspiration and motivation in every art piece I created. I aspire to create awareness to the people about the true meaning of love and also the importance of family and how love brings peace. I observed and noticed people around me having family problems led to separation or worst consequences. Thus, I intend to inspire the people who view my work and at the same time, create an art piece that are thought provoking. Thus, this explains why I love using illusion art, it gets people thinking. Roses, peace symbol or any other graphic symbols I used to help me in portraying the message across.

When there is love, there is peace. When there is peace, there is love. They exist concurrently. Since love is commonly associated to red roses, I chose to use it and blend the family in the rose as I want to portray that family do grow just like roses/ plants. They go through obstacles together, thus explaining the thorns on the stem. Ironically I make the stem, forming a peace sign to reflect the obstacles we go through yet, we can and it’s possible to achieve peace if we still stick together and settle it with a clear mind. The stem also symbolises the strong frame of a family that stick together through thick and thin.

Digital painting has always been my hobby, interest and a habit I should say. When I’m bored, I will open photoshop and start painting. Thus, the techniques and skills I have gained keep building up every time I experiment and use photoshop.

Alongside with my digital painting, I was inspired by a famous Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist named Thich Nhat Hanh. His quotes are almost based on peace and thus, he is also one of my inspirations in creating this artwork.

~ Katini Sani’s Artist Statement

Gestalt Principles used:

(1) Continuation (Law of Continuity)

“Continuation occurs when the eye is compelled to move through one object and  continue to another object” -6th Presentation

-Well, for the artwork I’ve created, the flow where the stems from the roots leads the eye to notice the flower then the human inside.

(2) Figure and Ground

“The eye differentiates an object form its surrounding area; a form, silhouette, or shape is naturally perceived as figure (object), while the surrounding are is perceived as ground (background)”  - 6th Presentation

- In the stem, there’s a carvings of the word PEACE on it. I wanted to use this principles to differentiate the text and the figure of the stem. The figure in the rose itself I try to use this principle to create the silhouette. And also the word, ‘LOVE’ on the rose.

(3) Proximity/ Similarity

“Proximity occurs when elements are placed close together. They tend to be perceived as a group.”  -6th Presentation
- For the background, i used this principles to create clouds/ pattern to look like the sky.

- Katini Sani

This is what I did for RP mascot. I know it’s a common, using an animal.

I chose turtle to represent RP. It may reflect RP by saying that it is as slow as a turtle. But in a good way, of course. Look at RP; it is slowly progressing in terms of education, facilities, technology, and fame and such. Furthermore, we are known to be a newly built school also.

Turtle are known to be smart, wise, self- reliance. Why? Because when a turtle falls on its back/shell, it is difficult for them to get up back. But it is possible for them to do so, on their own as they are independent and self-reliant. Same goes to RP. Even though we are in the news and get popular in the wrong way that our name or reputation been destroy just because of H1N1 or some other issues, we are still strong and still tried our best to rise back even though we fell in terms of reputation and such. Referring to what I have created and named it Turbot, it is wearing a high-tech suit, a helmet and the shell is actually some kind of robotic outfit that enables it to either fly or run faster. The remote control that it is holding controls everything.

Why I make the turtle wears a robotic outfit is because as we know a turtle is slow and such but he’s smart! Despite him being slow, he creates this robotic machine outfit to strive for the best, make a difference among the other turtle/animal and he actually learn it on his own. Just like RP, we use PBL and same goes to Turbot. He uses PBL to solve the problem of the fact that he is slow and need to do something about it to achieve its goal of having fast speed and able to fly high. Thus, this is how I derive to this mascot of RP being a turtle called Turbot and I think it would be an effective character design as it has a backstory and also not forgetting it has a character and personality. Its personality is that he is fun, enthusiastic, patient, eager to learn, good problem solver and of course an outgoing turtle! He makes friends everyday and of course, he is one competitive turtle! He loves challenges and will always strive for nothing but the best! People love him because he is cool, always with new invented stuff and of course, friendly!

The colours reflect RP’s logo colour; green and black.