The Unofficial NM Minor

About

Hello! My name is Juni.

I call myself the unofficial NM minor because NM mods make up most of my UEs. I didn't declare NM as a minor because i wanted to do modules like Media Writing (which i did), and of cos, Visual Comm!

This blog documents my assignments for NM2208: Principles of Visual Communication (Semester 1, 2009).

Useful Links

• NM2208 Homepage
• NUS Homepage
• IVLE
• NUSmail

Credits

Layout by Firdamatic
Graphics by Juni
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Assignment 2 - Making Images Talk

This week's assignment was for us to create a pictogram, which basically is a pictorial representation, of a location in Singapore.

As i was brainstorming for places to use, i decided against using the common locations like the Changi Airport or the Merlion. That was what made me pick the radical choice of PSA.





I chose abstraction number 3 to be my chosen pictogram because it was fairly simple and yet i think people would be able to understand that it was referring to PSA.

My first attempt at abstraction of PSA met with numerous criticisms. Some people said my cargo boxes looked like oxygen tanks (i have no idea where that came from), other people said it just looked like a black mess.

Siti suggested that i made my abstraction white-based, then it would be clearer to people, so that's what i did.



At first my cargo boxes did not have lines on them but i put them in make it more cargo box-like. I consulted Siti again but she still said that the abstraction didn't look like it was supposed to be PSA in the end. She suggested i add in something else to make it look more like the sea port that is PSA.

I was considering either adding waves to represent the sea or adding a ship at the back of my abstraction. I tried the latter but it turned out looking quite strange. In the end i decided to take on MORE work by adding a picture of a cargo ship with a 3D perspective and placing the containers on the deck of the ship.



I changed the layout of my abstractions to fit the portrait layout that i've decided my portfolio should be in. I picked the 4th abstraction as my final pictogram as it was sufficiently simple enough but at the same time retaining enough details for people to make out that it was supposed to represent PSA.





I also included how the abstraction can be applied as a sign in Singapore.

With all that work, this assignment has changed from my worse one to one of the nicest ones! Too much blood has been put into this assignment for it not to improve!