Illustration and Visual Narrative - Project 2

 26th September 2023 - 10th October 2023 (Week 5 - Week 7)

Asma' Binti Mohd Jailani / 0354335 / Bachelor of Mass Communication (Honours) 

Illustration and Visual Narrative

Task 2 / Honor Challenge (Digital Triptych) 

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BRIEFING 

During Week 5, Mr Hafiz introduced us to our second assignment, which was the Digital Triptych assignment in conjunction with Huawei's Honor Talents Global Design Awards. For the assignment, we were required to design a tryptich wallpaper that would tell a story in three parts. Based on the competition's guidelines, the wallpaper would have to be 3000 x 6000 px. 

The three themes available for the competition were:

    1. Cultural Prosperity · Celebration: A Totem of Renewing Festive Culture

Create with important traditional cultural elements of various countries, such as Lunar New Year, Mid-Autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Christmas, Mother's Day, Day of the Dead, Halloween and Eid al-Fitr.

    2. Renewal of life · Return: Contemplate human beings' relationship with all things.

With sustainable development as the starting point, your creations must incorporate the concepts of environmental protection, biodiversity, energy conservation and emissions reduction within the design details.

    3. Genesis · The Future: Imagine the Innovative World of the Future 

The world of the future will be constructed with the power of technology and art, using creativity and imagination.

I decided to with the first theme, and focus on Hari Raya Aidilfitri. 

DRAFTING PHASE 

While I had many elaborate ideas at first, due to time constraints and the massive piles of assignments I had from other modules, I decided to simplify my original idea a lot more and focus on a single traditional practice that is often carried out during the festive period. 

Figure 1.1: My very first sketch draft that ended up getting scrapped

At first I thought of making it about kuih tradisional, but since I didn't think I'd be able to sketch a lot of different kuihs into my piece without losing focus, I decided to settle for the practice of weaving ketupats instead. Ketupats also seemed like a more universal symbol of Hari Raya Aidilfitri, and would be more easily identifiable if submitted in a global competition. 

Figure 1.2: My second sketch idea for the digital triptych

For the colour scheme, I largely referenced this digital artwork from a Malaysian artist on X whose work I admire a lot:

Figure 1.3: A piece of artwork by the artist @ aydanadhira on social media platform X

I then made a wallpaper draft of the second sketch in Adobe Illustrator before showing it to Encik Hafiz during class for feedback. 

Figure 1.4: Draft 1 of Honor Triptych Wallpaper

After receiving feedback from Encik Hafiz, I was told that my second sketch needed better composition, as he was confused by what the focus of my artwork was. He suggested that the ketupat should be the focus of my composition since that was what I wanted to emphasise in the wallpaper, and he suggested placing it right in the centre.

Below is the revised sketch that Encik Hafiz helped me draft:

Figure 1.5: Sketch version 3

After settling on the revised sketch, I proceeded to draft up the finalised concept board for my Triptych wallpaper.

Figure 1.6: Digital Triptych Concept Board

For my second attempt at creating a Triptych wallpaper, I reused a lot of the elements present in my first draft e.g. the hands weaving a ketupat, grandma, and the colour scheme. I scrapped the plastic bakul and decided to go for an overhead shot of a plate of ketupat, with the hands and the tablet framing it. 

For the hand on the lower right of the frame, I took a picture from above of my hand holding something, before tracing it in Illustrator. 

Figure 1.7: Picture of my hand which I traced over for the wallpaper

I also masked a wooden grain texture for the table instead of leaving it plain, and added graphic accents in the form of a frustrated spiral above the hands on the left, as well yellow and orange markings around the central ketupat plate. 

FINAL RESULT

Figure 2.1: Finalised Digital Triptych Wallpaper

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the end result. It's not super elaborate or complicated, but I feel like it conveys the feeling of warmth, tradition, and family which I was trying to go for in comparison to the first version of my sketch.