DESIGN EXPLORATION - TASK 1
DESIGN EXPLORATION - TASK 1
29TH AUG - TBA (WEEK 1 - WEEK 7)
NG VEYHAN (0349223) / BACHELORS OF DESIGN (HONS) IN CREATIVE MEDIA
DESIGN EXPLORATION
ASSIGNMENTS DOCUMENTATION
Instructions
Process
Task 1
When deciding on a theme for this project, I wanted to go for something related to astronomy, as I was quite fond of the sky when it came to works related to design. As a splash of uniqueness, I also wanted to add something that was related to my own culture. Therefore I settled on this idea of using Chinese astronomy as a base rather than the more widely accepted Western system.
Initially, I wasn't sure on how to start designing a watch face, as I only had a passing interest in them. After searching for some watch models online which had a space motif to them, I came across the Campanola line of watches from Citizen that are only available in Japan.
(Fig 01, Campanola Watch Product Page)
The design was overcomplicated with all the unnecessary dials and flavour text, however there was the base that was quite inspiring to help begin my designing process.
(Fig 02, Campanola Watch Product Page)
As for the part that included parts of Chinese astronomy, it was easier to find these diagrams that showed the positions of the constellations relative to the North Star. At this point, I wanted to somehow incorporate these designs into my watch face in a way that won't clutter the watch face.
(Fig 03, Campanola Watch Product Page)
I also did some sketching digitally and physically to see if I could come up with a wireframe that could convey the required information as well as add some extra data such as date and direction in a way that was minimal in a sense. One of the sketches I made looked similar to the face of a compass, and it gave me the idea to make a watch face with elements similar to that.
(Fig 04, Sketch of Watch Face)
Proceeding from this sketch, I ported this sketch over to Photoshop and began to draw over the provided template for the watch. When prototyping this very early interface, the idea was to have the normal three hands of a watch, the date written on a moon globe that travels along the circumference as the month progresses, and have a compass indicated by the rim sections glowing in its respective creatures colour. (i.e. Phoenix of the South = South side would glow red)
(Fig 05, Early Watch Face Prototype)
Simultaneously while working on the watch face, I also began to work on the accompanying wallpaper. The wallpaper was set to feature a starscape with the Four Constellations of Chinese Astronomy. (Phoenix, Tortoise, Dragon and Tiger) The animals would be illustrated as a nebula to as part of the theme. The different elements used in the watch face would also serve as translucent foreground objects as embellishment.
(Fig 06, Early Wallpaper Layout)
Due to the scale of the project, it was recommended that I reduce the number of animals and focus on developing each more. After some discussion with Ms Noranis, I decided the best course of action is to drop the tortoise and tiger, leaving the phoenix and dragon, which I felt were good contrasting animals visually as one was red and one was blue.
(Fig 07, Wallpaper Layout)
The starscape used in the backdrop of these prototypes were currently all just pictures taken from the internet. For this project, I wanted to try procedurally generating this landscape using Blender. Following some tutorials and some fiddling around, I created a few images with different hues, brightness, star count etc.
(Fig 08, Creating star scape in Blender)
From the trial pictures I rendered from Blender, I nailed down the traits that I needed in this background. It couldn't be too bright to not draw attention away from the watch elements that the viewer should focus on, the stars couldn't be too bright, and had to be a neutral colour from blue or red to not clash with the animal illustrations. For the colour of the stars I eventually settled on one that was yellow.
(Fig 09, Star Scape Sample Render)
Another part of the watch face that I had to make now was the elements of the watch that made up the timekeeping aspects of it. For the watch, I planned to model a metal outer rim and watch hands. The smaller subparts of these metal bits would be 2D instead as the opacity of those could be adjusted.
The metal parts were also modeled in Blender, and I used a normal metal material for most of it, the watch were also inlaid with a little glowing material, as well as the second hand being mostly made of this glowing material, to give the watch face some dynamic lighting. The metallic material was white at first, however it seemed to give a wrong impression of being to formal, so it was changed to a classy yet playful colour of rose gold.
(Fig 10, Modelling Metal Watch Parts)
The movement of the watch hands had to rendered in Blender as After Effects does not support 3D models later on in the pipeline. Ideally I would have exported a video file with a solid colour background that I could key out, however it would affect the lighting of the watch elements. In the end I had to export each frame as an individual image file and stack them together.
(Fig 11, Watch Movement Image Stack)
Now that the 3D parts of the watch face was done, I moved onto working on the 2D elements that would it behind the 3D parts. The 2D elements were made in Illustrator so the vector artwork could be scaled up or down to accommodate the size of the watches image file. It was rather simple design that wasn't complicated to make compared to the other parts.
(Fig 12, 2D Watch Elements)
One more part that needed to be done for the watch design was to make a design for the strap. One of the watches I own has a strap with a stripe running along the edge of the strap, which I felt fit the fancy and fun look I was going for. An idea was to have the texture of canvas with the strap, however after realizing that these watch strap materials were made with smooth rubber I decided against it. With the theme colours of rose gold and dark navy, I changed the colours of the watch strap accordingly.
(Fig 13, Altered Watch Strap)
With the 3D parts modelled and added to the watch, it was also used in the layout of the wallpaper. I designed some additional radial lines used within the rim as it looked better with the scaled up design of the rim. The Phoenix and Dragon were also completed, and the colours of the stars around them were hue shifted to match each animal respectively.
(Fig 14, Wallpaper Design)
All the elements of the watch design were assembled in the template file, and in turn the animals illustrated in the wallpaper were used in the design of the watch. It would be too cramped to include both of them at the same time in the watch face, therefore, I used the animation reel to help showcase te transition between each animal.
(Fig 15, Watch Design)
Fortunately PSD files were directly portable in After Effects, thus the animation reel was completable with the file for the watch design. Animating the normal watch hand rotations, I made the elements at the center rotate at a different speed to give it parallax. The illustrations of the animal would also rotate faster and be masked off under the elements to transition it into the next one, with a subtle hue change in the background.
(Fig 16, Animating Watch Movement)
Reflection
WEEK 1: I wasn't quite sure what Task 1 entails at this point, as some of the competition guidelines were vague at best.
WEEK 2: I've always had quite a vested interest in stars, though I wasn't able to see them often myself due to the area that I was living in. The air of mystery and scale to them, as well as the strong curiosity towards them, was something that I wanted to capture in my work. Therefore I settled on space as a primary theme. I also felt that a watch design paired well with this theme due to the strong association of navigation with space travel.
WEEK 3: In terms of how I wanted to make my design unique, I turned towards my own culture. Chinese culture had their own system of constellations, which was also something that I was somewhat aware of, but didn't dive too deep into it before. As this aspect of Chinese culture is underrepresented, I felt that it would be interesting to incorporate these elements into my design.
WEEK 4: I did have a little background in illustration, being my first interest in the world of design. I haven't incorporated much of it in my assignments throughout my time in Taylor's, though. As such playing with layer types as well as the different brushes and settings was something that needed some readjusting to. Hopefully I am able to produce a passable illustration for the mythological animals.
WEEK 5: At this point I have already completed the rendering for all the 3D elements required for the watch design, I still was left with more minor 2D elements and to complete the illustrations required for the animal designs. The process of exporting the animation was quite tedious when porting these materials over from Blender. However, it seemed to pair together well, especially with some tweaking with the lighting from the 3D animation portion.
WEEK 6: As the deadline for Task 1 approaches, my work on the watch design and artwork also reaches it conclusion. Now that I am able to see my work be assembled together into its final form, I'm quite happy with the result. Thankfully the deadline for this task was quite comfortable and there were no large setbacks or such.
WEEK 7: With the submission of Task 1 completed, we were instructed to think of ideas on what mediums the themes from Task 1 could be incorporated into. The freedom of choice was actually quite paralyzing as I was completely unsure on what I wanted to do as my own creation. Asides from 3D animation and illustration, I wanted to try something that was familiar yet not done before in terms of my own experience.
WEEK 8: For this week I focused more on my other modules as their submissions we immediately after this week. While I did work on some preliminary ideas on the theme of the output, I had also decided what form this work would be. As a pet project that I had put off for the longest time, I felt that it was a great opportunity to be able to expand on it in this module.
Feedback
WEEK 1: No feedback yet, due to the week being the first in the semester.
WEEK 2: I had presented the theme for a watch design to Ms. Noranis, it was interesting that there were some references to some newly released media such as games as well as references towards Chinese culture. In order to blend these two vastly different themes together might take some work though. I was advised to continue by planning out the layout first and seeing how that goes.
WEEK 3: The watch design currently had a military aesthetic to it, and didn't quite reflect the space exploration theme that I was going for. Instead of a very clean minimalist look, some accents such as detailed curves could be added in order to give the watch design a less "formal" look. The layout I had planned currently for the artwork still needed some changing.
WEEK 4: I had completed a rendering for the starfield to be used as the backdrop for the watch. From what I have shown, the stars could be dimmed down a little to keep important elements of the watch face visible. The idea of having an accurate set of constellations to be rotating around the watch should be kept as a low priority as it would be lost in the backdrop.
WEEK 5: Currently, there has been only two of the animals completed out of my initially planned four. Ms. Noranis added that perhaps staying with two animals would be a better choice in order to reduce clutter on the watch face, and made it easier to incorporate into the watch design. The idea of having a nebula illustrate the animals still needed some work to see if it could be incorporated properly into my design.
WEEK 6: For the overall design of the watch face, it was quite well executed, with just a focus on two animals instead of four calling more focus towards each design. However, there are some minor corrections that could be done, such as tweaking the metallic elements to a friendlier colour, such as rose gold. Ms. Noranis also noted that the animation I made for my watch was also one of the smoother ones.
WEEK 7: There was no class for this week as Ms. Noranis was on leave. As it was the beginning of the next Task, I worked on an idea myself for now.
WEEK 8: No feedback for this week as it was currently Independent Learning Week.
SUBMISSIONS:
TASK 1:
Wallpaper Design:
Watch Design:
Watch Animation:
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