Pecha Kucha feedback

Pecha Kucha presentation

1. My essay was on 'form follows function' - if the modernist principle of 'form follows function' is relevant to contemporary illustration. In my essay I basically said that I think it is because as Carroll (1999) stated, the function is the 'what' of the work and the form is the 'how' of the work.

2. So we usually think about the message, story, emotion etc. that we want to communicate first, and then things like composition, choice of colour would usually come second.

3. I decided to do my research into the meanings of different colours in different cultures because I think colour is such an important and powerful thing as it can say/convey a meaning on its own - and if we want to use it for a specific reason, I think it's important that we first understand what our intentions are - the purpose of our work, the function, what we want it to do and who our audience is because this has such a great influence into what symbolism is appropriate for us to use in our work.

4. I started off by drawing what I've found out about the different colours in a culture I looked at. This one is the colour yellow in China - and in China, yellow represents royalty as the emperors used to wear yellow and yellow can also be found decorating palaces.

5. I also looked into the colour red, and in China red represents joy, good luck, good fortune etc. and that is why red is everywhere during Chinese New Year, weddings and special occasions.

6. I wanted to find out why red is such a lucky colour, or how it became a lucky colour. And according to Chinese mythology, there was this beast who would come out of hiding once each Spring, on or around Chinese New Year~

7. ~to destroy a village and devour its inhabitants. but the villagers soon found out that the weaknesses of the beast was sensitivity to loud noises and the colour red

8. So around Chinese New Year, people would dress in red, decorate everything in red and make loud noises in hope that this would drive the beast away, and according to this myth, it did and so red became a lucky colour and also a symbol for joy - people continued to do this every year and with time this became a tradition

9. So one of my idea was to make a book out of this and illustrate the story, in the style of traditional Chinese ink and brush art style for two reasons - one, because it's related to China and two, because I haven't really done much traditional/analogue stuff and I thought this would be a good opportunity to get back into traditional image making.

10. Then I thought about maybe simplifying this idea and maybe condensing it into one image - like a movie poster that summarises the whole story, still incorporating the Chinese art style to it. but then I thought, this doesn't really say anything, except that it illustrates a story, a story that isn't even mine

11. So I went to look for something else - and this is a video that I found a while ago, about 2 people, doing the same thing but in split screen format. This gave me an idea of maybe illustrating an event, such as a wedding or funeral etc. in split screen format. So one side is set in a western environment and the other set in an eastern environment so direct comparisons can be made about the use of colour~

12. ~like this illustration by Vidya Nagaragan for the Boston Globe. This split screen illustration is about how during the summer Boston is empty and businesses don't do as well in contrast to the school year where the city really comes to life.

13. But I also like the idea of making a 3D product as a final outcome like the book brief we got. So I found this; similar concept but in book format. Then the front cover, the mirrored design sort of reminded me of the mirrored designs you get on playing cards

14. So I had a look at some playing card designs and I thought maybe I could do the split screen idea in this way as I thought it would look quite fun and attractive but still showing the direct comparisons between the use of colour.

15. I spoke to Kristyna when she visited and she suggested the idea of maybe swapping the colour of things - to show how if the 'wrong' forms such as colour are used, it could confuse the idea/message you're trying to communicate and therefore confusing the audience too.

16. I thought this was quite interesting so I played around with this idea and came up with this - so in India red symbolises purity whereas here, we would associate purity and innocence with the colour white. again, I found this quite intriguing so decided to experiment some more

17. this time combining a feminine colour to some macho, biker, rocker type men.

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20. but I couldn't decide on which idea to do, as I wanted to know which one you guys would find more interesting.

Research

Found this video - not all relevant but I liked how they've split everything up - contrast/compare sort of thing.

Theory into practice - Map of understanding

Form Follows Function