FUN FUN FUN

Hello! It's already week 6 and I found this class refreshes me a lot from a very exhausting week of assignments and classes. This time, I will fully share about our class activity this week. We usually have our class on Mondays, but this week we also had a make-up class on Thursday, and I think this week is one of the most exciting week from the whole 6 week of classes. Especially also because projects always done in team of 5-6 people.

So last week, we were assigned to list 50 dishes which is made from 2 ingredient that we randomly given, and we have to decide one dish for starter, one dish for main course, and one dish for dessert for our menu. This Monday we have done our menu with side dishes and drinks, and submitted! It's kind of funny because the ingredients that we have are durian and soy sauce, which is actually very strange to make a dish with. Here is our completed main menu;

                  

                     A rather simple cover for our book

Our starter dish

                  

                        Our main course dish

Our dessert dish (I made this one!)

So beside submitting this menus, we were also told to bring a marshmallow per group (one of my team member brought the whole package), and our teacher gave us a small bunch of glue tack and 15 long spaghetti sticks. From those ingredients, we were challenged to.. build a tower using spaghetti sticks as tall as possible with a marshmallow attached on top of it.

          

           

So we made the tower, and it was really unstable. We found troubles all over and fixed them, and found another problems, and fixed them again, and somehow it goes on and on, until finally it stands by its own.

Our survived tower (yeay!)

But well, life is not that easy. After all of the group's tower done, we were challenged to the most unwanted and disastrous thing for our group. It is to take out the marshmallow with only a person's one shot bite, with hands on the back. I was like screaming in my heart and my group was holding their breath. The purpose is to test how well it was made and how strong it was. Well, our group knows the answer for our own tower.

My team member, Ben, pulling the marshmallow

Yeah it broke. But we have so much fun and we laugh all the way through. It was really fun.

So we move on Thursday, new day, new groups too. We were told to submit our mock up product of various themes, and our group choose "future defense mechanism". So we meet up before class outside school, and we made a sort of futuristic gun with drink package, can, water bottle, branch, anything that we can found there. We haven't plan the gun's details, but it is going well as we found new materials on the process and we were quite satisfied with the final result.

With the same group, after a brief presentation of the product, we were faced another challenge, which is another fun waits. So we were given a story plot, which is told that we were trapped in a spooky island. Before dark, we have 1 hour to dress ourselves as similar as the monsters in the island, who eats humans, which have 3 fingers, half of the body covered by black mud, have a very long hair,  doesn't have any eyes in the face, and have egg trays attached in their part of body. We brought the materials per group, which is things like trash bags, cellophane papers, egg trays, large papers, masking tapes, and many other things.

So we choose a model from our group to dressed up with. We start from covering her with the black trash bag and begin to make the extra long hair. After that, we cover her eyes with a hat and begin to make eyes behind her head. Attaching here and there, finally we added additional things like wings or so called horns on her.

And after done, I take pictures of what other groups doing with their models, which I found all are very interesting and unique.

So after every group done with their models, it's time for a very brief presentation of what they are wearing. I would say that every team's monster were all different even though has a same instruction, which is look very interesting when all completed.

Our teacher, Ms.Tan, with the monsters.

The 5 team's unique models!

While seeing and experiencing so much fun in this class, I also learn many things. I learn how to corporate with my team members, how to gather idea with them, how to express thoughts, how to work and completing things with them. I also learn how different perspective of other teams are actually exciting to combine. This way, I learn how to accept differences and I learn how to actually working together with people that we don't used to work with. No matter the result was, bad or good, I feel that the more important thing is how to solve problems with others and how we make and feel things into a fun way to learn. I found these mini challenges and projects develops me into a better person in environment and also to encourage me to be a more creative person, seeing how unique and creative my friends are. I would love to have more fun with them while learning more about them.

               

Creative, Unique, Innovative, Useful

Hi again! After a very tiring first few weeks, finally, I can feel a little bit relaxed while making my assessments. Most of the subject's assessment for this week is to research for things, and while doing them, I found some interesting images of products. Instead of doing my assessment, I keep searching for another similar images and now I want to share some very interesting ones here, the ones that has all four value that is essential in the product, which is creative, unique, innovative, and of course, useful.






I found this sofa design is very innovative and very suitable for daily needs, especially for those who likes to read, because beside it saves spaces in a room, it is also make the one who sits can easily place or take the book. I also love how the designer picks the red colour so it stands out well with the books and the black shelf.

I really love this one because sometimes I also feel how having an umbrella for two or more person under it is very inconvenient. Well this one, is a very simple design, with just attaching two umbrellas, but I found it very interesting and very useful. It seems very easy to carry too!

I would love to have this cup because it combines a mug with a plate. I have never think about this and I think this is very useful and very unique. Somehow it shows a modern feel even though it is very simple.

This one is actually very suitable for people these days, people who sticks themselves with technology in whatever they do and wherever they go. This one also has a very simple design, but very useful yet unique.

Same as the above image, this one is also related with technology usage. As the time goes people tends to invent things that will make everything easier. Now this one is to use handphone without carrying your own drink with your hand, just attach the phone case which is also already works with the drink hanger. I would also love to have this one since I also text a lot while carrying things.

Everyone might now know this one, but I think this is a very creative  invention, which is actually effects  life style of most people in this world. , which is to take a self-camera without bothering people to take picture of  someone else.

This one is a unique cup which is made to drink a tea made with natural tea leaves. It is designed to drink a tea with a simple way without any tea pockets and so. I think this is a very innovative design yet this is a recommended cup for the ones who loves to drink tea!

For those who loves shopping, this simple tool can be an unique way to make  you easier to hold your shopping bags.  Of course, the weight you're carrying will be the same, but at least you won't hurt your hand because grabbing the tight plastics in your hands! I would love to have this  creative tool for my mom who loves to shop!

This soap grater is a very creative way to substitute a liquid soap by using a bar soap which is will be grated once you press the metal part. It is grated to a very tiny pieces so it can be easily dissolved with water. This is a very simple thing, but I found myself fascinated by how the designer actually think about simple things like this.

The last but not the very least is this cake server. This invention actually made in purpose to cut the cake easier with a precise amount of potion and to take the slice of cake easier by just pulling them away from the whole cake. I found this tool very useful for parties and those who has bakeries and  restaurants to make everything faster and a nicer look. 

Based on these inventions, I now understand that invention is made with purposes, and mostly because there's a problem behind it, which is made the designer or the inventor will create the problem-solver, in this case, a product. I found that everything is very interesting, includes how the inventors sees and solves the problems with their ideas and imagination, with things that is actually never thought and realised before with other people. I learn that to invent great things, it is essential to be creative and to be daring with things that is new, and by seeing new things, we can learn a lot of way of thinking from many different perspective. Somehow seeing things like these also stimulates me to have brand new ideas, and I think I would come to make them real someday.

Breakthrough into the World

Firstly,

Did you find this person familiar?

Honestly, most people would not know just from looking this picture. He might seems ordinary, but well who knows that he's actually brings a very big influence to the world just by his ideas and creativity. Some of us, especially designers, must have known the name, Milton Glaser.

This person, is nonetheless, the person who makes one of the world's most famous and iconic design of all time. And everyone must have known his design;

Yes. I love NewYork. With creating a symbol of heart to symbolise love and to shorten the word "New York", this have been one of the most popular and well-known icon around the world, not just in New York. We all know that this logo has been followed and used by many many people in the world. Even we can see there are so much people who used it and changed the "NY" into another initials. Who knows that this simple yet creative design will make a breakthrough for almost all countries just because a simple shortened sentence. He's a genius indeed.

Born in New York City at 1929, he's one of the most adored American graphic designers until now. He has his own studio named "Milton Glaser, inc" yet his works are very well-known. His works has been featured on exhibitions, museums, galleries worldwide, and we can find his permanent collections on many museums world-wide. For us designers, he's one of the most inspirational artist to make a breakthrough for bringing one of the first modern design concepts in the world. 

And here are some of his famous works;

This is one of his most famous poster that shows the silouette of Bob Dylan, 

the name written bellow the poster, with colourful hair. 

This is very interesting for me because he only used lines to represent the hair and the face, 

and used colours to make it stands out.

This one is used for DC comic books, which is stands out for "Detective Comics", popularly called as "DC bullet" design. This one also brings out a beginning of modern logos which is used a more simplified yet meaningful icon to represent the theme and the brand.

Only uses letter B and circles, he cleverly uses colour to hold the design. This is also one of his famous logo designs, again with a simple yet strong logos.

So overall, personally, I really love his works, especially how his ideas for maintaining simpleness to bring out a new kind of design that has barely appeared to the surface is very sublime. Making such a breakthrough sure is not easy since he had to do things that people won't take risk at, but he managed that. I admired him for his creativity, his unique yet simpleness, his ideas and his style, and I will keep learning so someday I can take the same path as he did, to be productive and innovative, to make things new to the environment and to the world.

Brainstorming; Differences Make it Wonderful

A brainstorm activity sure essential for our daily lives not only as an art student, but also as a real artist. For first or second time it might be a little hard to come with something interesting because ideas. This week on our Creative Thinking class, we're working in team. But first, our lecturer, Ms.Tan, asked us to pick individually one out of 10 topics to be brainstormed with. So that time, I personally picked out "Ways to teleport home". At first I have a little difficulties of gathering unique and creative ideas. The first and second ideas usually would be the common ideas in mind, for this case, like using teleport machines or something that is really actually common and comes first in mind. But after a few writings and thinking, the ideas will getting wilder and wilder, like jumping into a warp portal, use a magical book that will send us to anywhere we write on it, have a super powerful magnet attached at home and on ourself so it would stick instantly, and other ideas that is getting crazier and unrealistic.

One of my brainstorming page note on my cellphone at that time
(excuse for my bad handwriting as I wrote this hurriedly).

So after the times up, we have to discuss our ideas with our group members. At first my team members was really quiet and didn't dare to talk anything. But finally, one by one each of us spoke out our ideas. Because of the time factor and also my member's majority choice at our first brainstorming session, we decided to go for the topic of "Ways to kill a crab".

Our brainstorm title written on a mahjong paper.

We finally comes with a decision of making our own drawing with our own ideas under our main title. So we work together all together in our paper with sketches first and some research to draw and present each of our ideas. We rushes to draw as good as possible to make it look more presentable when the time was ticking. We sketched with pencil first, then with marker, add some colour, and put finishing touches to beautify. At the end we ask our fellow members to identify the drawings to know whether the drawing is presentable or need more improvement in order to make people who sees understand our ideas clearly just by looking the pictures (because we decided to not write the ideas in words at all). And finally it's done! Even though it's not perfect, but we are having so much fun and many things to learn, whether from each of our fellow members or even from other teams.

Our final result

Even though it's not fully coloured, but it's interesting to see how the ideas from my other 4 team members with different styles of drawing, different ideas, different colours, different approaches under just one main topic in the same paper. This activity opened my eyes more that creative ideas has no boundaries, whether it's realistic or not, whether it's makes sense or not. My idea is for example.

My idea is to tell the female crab that the male crab cheated on her
so she would kill him alive because of the heartbreak.

One topic, different ideas.

It's fun to work with members with different backgrounds, different countries, different styles, different culture. We can learn their way of thinking just seeing how they work, how they interact with us, how they present their own ideas. Getting to know them better is actually something that I look forward with, especially to see interesting ideas that shows their interesting personality. I think this kind of brainstorming is actually very useful and very important to be done everyday in daily basis in order to sharpen our ideas. Overall, this little project is fun, very useful, and I love to do it more often. Alone or group, I think it would make our way of thinking to be more creative each day. 

Of course, as an art student, I want to make differences in my environment. 

Sure, everyone has their own lights that shines within them. And I love and I eager to learn more from seeing those lights.