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A creative Vietnamese artist draws Disney stories in traditional Đông Hồ art styles, a woodblock art style of the Nguyễn dynasty common class.

Source: Anh Khoa Phung Nguyen

vietphuc

Besides fashion, other aspects of historical Vietnam are being reconstructed as well, including weapons. Vietnamese long saber called gươm (劍) of Nguyễn dynasty has just been reconstructed by a group of dedicated enthusiasts.

Source: ‎Đinh Công Ngọc Hiếu

vietphuc

A really creative re-imagining of Việt phục of Nguyễn dynasty in a modern setting. Here we have yếm, áo tứ thân, áo ngũ thân, and áo dài.

Source: Đỗ Tuấn Vũ

geee13

Minimum unit

#산들 #studio ghibli #ghibli movie #ghibli art

These are the photographs that i chose. One type of photos that I love has a broad view of natural sights. I love the contrast of the dramatic background of landscape or structures with the small but interesting human figures in them. This is also the style of the English photographer Jord Hammond, who i followed on Instagram and discovered his amazing photography gallery. I also love photos which play with colors. For example, the photo of tomatoes next to the green mint basin: using light tint of green with the orange-red mixture gives the photo a pastel-like palette and an old, vintage feel. The contrast in that photo was not emphasized so it looks very calm too. In contrast with that photo, the first photo - shot by Tran Tuan Viet, a Vietnamese photographer working for National Geographic - used the candlelight’s contrast with the dark background to create a very dramatic feeling. What used to take lots of my laptop’s storage is food photographs. I love them because of how genuinely beautiful the details look. I also love how one same food can be set into different flat-lay settings which then evoke different feels. Making the food look good in photos is also very challenging in terms of colors, composition, and angle.

Designer Spotlight: Chip Kidd and Jennet Liaw

For this project, we chose Chip Kidd, who is most famous for his clever book designs, as the professional designer we want to talk about. Among many of his books cover designs, I really love the “Naked”, “Dry” and “Seek My Face” cover. I love that the design is very simple and can convey the meaning of the title and the book itself. In the “Naked” cover, if you remove that dust jacket, on which is an image of a pair of shorts, you will see an x-ray of the hip, as if you have just stripped the book naked. The same literal depiction of the book title is also seen on the “Seek my Face” cover, which has an image of a painted face of a man without facial details. I find this technique very clever and impressive that it makes me want to immediately buy and read the books. In contrast with the literal “Naked” and “Seek My face”, the “Dry” cover shows an effect of melting letters on a plain white surface. The melting contrasting with the title Dry makes it even more interesting and evokes the curiosity of the viewers.

The young artist Jennet Liaw also has many beautiful works with clever ideas. She works mostly with typography and illustrations. One of her illustrations that I chose here is the work called “Phases of An Idea”. I love the unexpected transition from the moon phases to a lightbulb - the symbol of ideas. The design has a rusty effect which makes it even more interesting. I also love her typography of the word Louder, in which she incorporates the increase of letters’ size to illustrate the meaning of the word itself. The values transition reminds me of a combination of gradient and figure-ground technique.

I really enjoy looking into these clever designs and the similar design characteristics of a professional and a young designer. These designs make me think about what to put into my designs to impress the viewers and how I should develop my design ideas in the future.

For this assignment, I chose this website: https://boutiquejapan.com/cherry-blossom-season/

What I love about this website is the simplicity. The sans serif font gives me a feeling of cleanliness,; it is modern but also very elegant. I also love the combination of bold and thin typefaces. In terms of the logo Boutique Japan, I really love the idea of using the red circle, the symbol of Japan, as the ending dot. When doing the research for websites, I came across a lot of page logos using the red circle as part of the “Japan” word, which is very repetitive and boring to me, so I appreciate the unique idea here.

What I also enjoy seeing on this website is the stunning high-quality photographs. I love that the photographs are enlarged so that the viewer can see them clearly. I think it’s very smart to do this because it does not only look elegant but also help the viewers appreciate the beauty of Japan.

Barnes Foundation

On this field trip, I learned a lot about the in-house job and its difference from an agency job. I was very impressed by how small the in-house design team is, especially with the previous team having just 1 person. I also learned about their design process, from choosing colors to the types of paper and at the same time still having to manage the budget. It very interesting to know that in the real life design job, it is not unusual to have your design changed multiple times until it satisfies clients’ requirement.

I really like their project working with artists’ portrait photographs and their own artworks. I love the idea of combining the artworks and the portraits into 1 frame which shows that the works represent the artist themselves. I also enjoyed their story about the upcoming event’s design that they had changed 3 or 4 times because of the restrictions from the donors. It taught me that I will have to be flexible in the future to be able to work with different clients.

I didn’t have a chance to go look around the artworks, but I will definitely come back to see them.

Picturing and poeting

I was first drawn to this book because of the bold yellow cover. Inside the design is unexpectedly simple and minimal, which I didn’t think of looking at its bold cover, yet I find this combination very interesting. Each chapter of this book is a collection of random, sometimes weird, designs and drawings from different categories. In terms of book design, I was really surprise to see that there are different types of paper in the book. Also, the texts are simple, highlighted only by colors and located in the very left corner of the left page, which makes me feel like the author really wants me to focus on the visual more than the text. This book is full of images so readers may finish it in only an hour or less, but I recommend reading it slowly to see and feel the author’s ideas and emotions through each collections. For me, this is definitely the ideal book to read in my free time.

10 fashion design that I like

I try to choose different designs of different styles. Some of them are very classy and modern while the others look incredibly unique. They all have interesting patterns/textures that grab my attention immediately.

The one I love most is the Kimono (pic number 4). What is special here is the use of modern pattern and color scheme with a traditional item like Kimono. The color strips run both vertically and horizontally, leading our eyes all over the dress. The designer play with Complementary colors such as violet and yellow, which makes the Kimono look bold and modern. But surprisingly the designer doesn’t use saturated colors inside; instead, he uses a light red tint (pink) to bring back the traditional feel of this design.

For this project, we went to East Passyunk Avenue. We chose Sunday without realizing that there’s a Superbowl match and ended up wandering around looking at closed stores (I actually didn’t know that people close on Superbowl day). We intended to eat at a bakery called Essen Bakery, but when we got there they were sold out (yes, of everything), so we got in a pub nearby. The food there was fairly cheap. I was craving for bread that day so I had vegan coconut french toast with maple syrup on top as my brunch. It was unexpectedly tasty!

After the food, we took a short walk around to look for cool typography and design. I really love the logo of the South Fellini shop (the 6th picture). The bright blue - yellow color combination caught my attention at first. I also like the composition of the illustration where the girl leans down to the boy making a triangular form. The text is very interesting too: the color doesn’t really stand out but the outline white line emphasizes the font very well. The overall style of this logo gives out a retro vibe which I really love.

time management

To be honest, i’m pretty bad at time management even when I use bullet journal. The main reason is that I usually spend too much time on planning and end up not having much time left to do the things I wrote down. Right now I’m trying to change that habit by making a spread in the weekend before that week, then fill out the things i have to do during the week, instead of making the spread mid-week. I try to organize the tasks by how important they are and how long they will take (especially with design projects, I will try to divide them into small parts to do in many days). I also try my best to do the homework right after they are assigned so i don’t forget anything.

Best of 2018

I want to talk about the A thousand Beginnings and Endings book cover design. In this cover, what i love the most is the use of black bachground, which make me think of mysterious old myths and stories that we are not sure if they are true or not. Black also looks very elegant. I love the delicate small details such as the angel’s clothes and bowls of food on the table. My favorite thing in this cover is the line quality that looks very thin and precise. The color in the drawing lines shift from blue to white, from red to orange, instead of staying just white on a black background. This combined with the excessive use of detail makes the drawing much more gorgeous. Because this book is about Asian legends and myths, the creator put in details such as the chopsticks and the long dresses of the angel that suggest Asian ancient style of clothes. I absolutely love the idea of using cloud shape as in old Asian drawings and letting the figures floating around, which create a magical and unreal feeling.

Go to Philly for a trip to Japan

https://rikumo.com/

This is a Japan-made store that has wonderful and unique home decors and accessories. They have all kinds of kitchenware, dining supplies, and goods such as calendar stamps and charcoal pencils, all in Japanese style. Checking out unique home decors and kitchen supplies has always been my ultimate hobby when I was in Vietnam (and I love Japan too what a wonderful combination!), so I’m very excited to find out about this cute store.

I love how the vibe here is simple and clean, which gives me a sense of calmness. I realize that I have walked past the store on my way traveling around the city several times, but never know what is inside. Wandering around on their website, I found out so many little cute things that I would love to have for my (future) home. I recommend everyone to check out their available products on the website; maybe you will find something for yourself (although I find them a little bit pricey). Right now I'm staying in Myers Hall, so I don't have to use many kitchen supplies. But next year when I move into Ucross and start to cook on my own, I will definitely buy their products!

Interesting advertisement

These are all very simple but smart ads. Some have only images and others incorporate both typography and illustrations. I particularly like the Sour Lemon candy ad, in which there nothing but a face of a man squinting on a yellow background and a small image of the candy wrap at the bottom. I have tried this candy before (actually i have 2 full packages under my bed because i LOVE it) and i have to say that this ad is very realistic! I can easily imagine the sour flavor just by looking at it.

I love the yellow background - simple but very iconic representation of lemon flavor. The Photoshop work in this ad is also incredibly good. This is a very strong advertisement to me, considering the ability to truly convey the most dynamic feature of the product despite the absence of texts or descriptions.

Talkshow with Martin Venezky

This is us all happy and excited at the beginning of the year when we didn’t have to care about any final.

This is my first time coming to a talk show of a professional graphic designer like this. I love how he started the talk show very passionately with his book design works and had to stop midway because he said it would take all day just talking about them. I actually really enjoyed his talking about book designing, which is one of my favourite fields of design (i may be a book designer in the future, who knows). He also shared his opinions on the clients’ preference of eye-catching designs over the meaningful ones. He made me really have to think about the idea of design i want to pursuit in the future.

I really love the q&a section in the end when he answered a lot of my actual questions about how a real designer do their works and deal with their problems. I learned that in order to be a designer, i would have to equip myself with not only the techniques but also the thinking and problem-solving skill. I would definitely come to another talk show like this in the future.

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