Hey all,
I'm kind of stuck in a rut at the moment with where I'm heading with my folio. The pitch is coming up, but I am yet to select my finals for both presentations- the reason being not having enough in my folio. That and the direction my teacher would like me to go in wouldn't suit my brief culturally. My brief has a focus on promoting Asian culture to the people of Melbourne.
Could I possibly have some advice on creative ways to promote culture through a brand identity + poster? Without losing any significant meaning if I'm manipulating Asian characters?
(Packaging would be easier once those two are done.)
Please and thank you!
Hey Prudent, welcome to the forums. ;D Great to see some activity on the VCD board.
Definitely feel the whole folio rut thing haha. Don't worry - you'll get there in the end, even if it feels like ages away atm. 👊 If you're concerned about pure bulk/mass in your folio, something that worked nicely for me was just trying out a whole bunch of different methods. I even used tea and coffee at one point to test out some new stuff! Haha.
Re: finals, have you spoken about the cultural sensitivity with your teacher? Could you elaborate on the brand a little more?
Tea and coffee sounds like an exciting endeavour, I have been experimenting with watercolours recently!
I have spoken to my teacher about cultural sensitivities and she seems to have left the decision making to me.
The tricky part is that she's the one marking. :-\
My client is an association which aims to promote, embrace and educate about Taiwanese culture (to sum it up). Earlier in the year I've decided to do a brand identity for a Taiwanese festival that will be presented on merchandise and a poster (pres 1), and a children's activity pack (pres 2) with the aim of encouraging children to engage with other cultures.
So far I have played around with symbols on the national flag, national animals/flowers/food, aboriginal patterns, and folklore to a degree to name a few. Taiwanese culture is a little complicated to pinpoint as they do not have a 'distinct' national identity, I have found.
Are there any helpful tips to stay motivated and put yourself in the VCD mindset when at home?
Hey, sounds like a really cool project!
Watercolours are cool. What else have you tried? For one of my presentations, I was designing really compact backpacker accommodation, so I went out and found samples of different timbers and stuff. I actually included those samples in my folio. I also tried spray paint to get different textures, even though it wasn't really relevant to what I was doing. Plus paints, crayons, Photoshop, Copics, pencils - basically anything I could get my hands on, just to show I was trying lots of different options and being comprehensive haha.
I don't know heaps about Taiwanese culture, but could you work with geography a bit? For example, from memory most of the population lives on the west coast, with many mountains down the middle and to the east (out Hualien way). I wonder if you could use this as inspiration for certain designs? Or looking at the contrast between, say, Taipei around the Taipei 101 area, and the more mountainous regions like Alishan? I think some cool stuff could be done focusing on this sort of contrast.
Re: motivation, I honestly didn't do heaps of my VCD stuff at home. I tried to get to school a little bit early and did a lot of it in the library (or through other classes lol - don't recommend this). But as far as the mindset stuff goes, I've found just sitting down and doodling can get me in the mood. One doodle leads to another, which leads to something else, and then you've stumbled on a new idea. Include these sketches in your folio, too - it's nice to include the entire process, even if you think the initial sketches look terrible haha.
I haven't considered physical geography before, thank you for the inspiration! I shall experiment and see how the outcomes look. I think so far I have tried Photoshop, Illustrator, Copics, watercolours, brush strokes, pencils, mashing geometric shapes together, something like that. Spray paint sounds fun to try...
Thank you so much! (:
Do you love Copics?!
Quite so... I am yet to find a place with student discounts! (Have been building a collection.)
I could literally talk to you about Copics for an indefinite amount of time hahaha.
Which are your faves?
EDIT: By the way, you might find this thread I made useful?
Ah yes! I loved that thread and have been using some of your recommendations as guidelines throughout the year- so far successful, haha.
I can't choose which colour I like as my favourite just yet, as a the combination of multiple colours can make something truly amazing.
In saying so, I love to use Y11 and Y17 for highlights when blended with undertones of blue/pink/green.
Do you have a particular favourite Copic colour or combination?
snip
Anyone know what I should actually be doing in terms of exam prep?
I am writing up notes now but don't know how to go about studying for the exam.
My folio was pretty well done and think I'll be getting quite a good mark for it. How can I ensure that my exam won't pull down my folio mark and hence my study score?
Thanks!
Hey,
I'd definitely practise doing exam stuff under timed conditions as much as possible. I think this was my biggest challenge in the actual exam. Like, I felt I could render pretty well, but only with what I was used to and with no time conditions. Some things just aren't possible in the exam (for exam, I prefer using Copic markers, but they'd easily seep through the entire exam paper), so be prepared in that sense. :)
Hi Guys, Could I possibly get some advice on how to achieve a 47+ in Vis Comm next year?
Make sure you're passionate about viscom and design in general, pick a folio topic that you're interested in, invest in your folio and start working on it as early as possible, take advantage of term breaks by getting as much of your folio done during then as possible, make sure you stay healthy and don't pull too many all nighters, look for constant feedback from your peers and teachers, offer constant feedback to your peers, frequent sites like dezeen, designboom, archdaily and dribbble, see if you can gain access to your viscom classroom during recess and lunch, accept the fact that parts of viscom have a certain element of bull!*$^ and just throw as many annotations into your work as possible.
Seriously, about that last one, one of my friends managed to impress the teacher literally by drawing intentionally random arrows and annotations all across his folio.
I missed out on a 47+ because I slacked off a bit on exam prep since it felt pretty uninteresting to me, especially in comparison to folio work. So don't do that, I guess.
Hello!
I have a question I hope someone has the answer to!
If I am thinking to design a book cover for my folio, what copyright issues do I need to think about? For example, can i use an existing book? If not, can I simple change the name a bit (Eg. Harry Potter to Barry Botter)? What about the publisher's name?
Also, If i want this as communication need one and I want to do environmental design for communication need two, any ideas on what I can design for my client being the author itself or a publishing company?
^Agree on above. Don't neglect exam prep throughout the year, particularly under exam conditions.Hi Joseph, when would you recommend starting exam prep? Thank you!! :)
I could literally talk to you about Copics for an indefinite amount of time hahaha.
Which are your faves?
EDIT: By the way, you might find this thread I made useful?
Oh wow. I used this thread when I was making my folio,it helped so much that I got 100 on mine. So much work goes into those folios 😅
Congratulations! Awesome work. :) What would be your top tips for future students looking to smash their folios?
People need to choose a client and need which they are passionate on working on. Also, if you can get a real client which I did, it is much easier to get feedback and improve your folio and designs implementing this feedback.
Your teacher is your biggest tool! Like, not to be rude or anything, but take advantage of thier well of knowledge. My teacher pushed me along the design process, challenging my ideas and correcting my messy drawings 😁. The final product however, was professional as ever and it was thanks to her but also, it comes down to your motivation and if you choose to use the feedback or not.
With your folio, literally experiment with anything like anything, I used some really weird coloured powder and even spices to experiment with different colours. Also annotate everything basically.
By the way, did you apply for top designs? With your folio I figure you would have gotten in.
What did your folio focus on? :)
Top Designs - nah, was told not to as my folio used the AFL logo in some of my idea generation. I don't even know if that's a thing that precludes people, but that was the advice I received at the time haha. Don't think I would have got in, anyway. Are you applying?
Aw ): that's okay, yeah the copyright rules are quite stringent. I think you would've, your folio was amazing! I literally sent that article to my friend and we were spellbound.
Yeah I have applied, but my hopes aren't high ha, last years top arts was hopeless even though my friend and I had 100 folios 🙃.
My parents have a mustang car hire company (Melbourne mustang car hire) and it was actually my teacher who suggested I create a interior design, floor plan for a hypothetical stall at an expo. Presentation 2 was huge, I had to create a promotional package containing a little teddy bear, business card, notepad, fragrance bottle, shirt and tote bag. It was way too much but my teacher was like you need to do this much if you want a good score, so I was like okay 🙃
Sounds amazing! What did you use for the finals?
@yourfriendlyneighbourhoodghost wowww 100 on your folio! Congratulations! And Joseph your folio is stunning!
I applied for top designs as well this year for systems! Good luck to you:)
I'm doing viscom 3/4 next year, when do you recommend starting exam prep? Thanks.
Sorry, totally missed your earlier post on this! yourfriendlyneighbourhoodghost will have a more recent opinion on this, but from memory I started ramping things up a little through September holidays. :)Thank you so much!
Thank you so much!
No worries! Feeling good about VCD for next year atm? :)
@yourfriendlyneighbourhoodghost wowww 100 on your folio! Congratulations! And Joseph your folio is stunning!
I applied for top designs as well this year for systems! Good luck to you:)
I'm doing viscom 3/4 next year, when do you recommend starting exam prep? Thanks.
No worries! Feeling good about VCD for next year atm? :)
Not too sure if I'm confident in it, but more confident in comparison to my other subjects for sure. It'll be my fourth folio subject so people think I'd be used to it but nopeee
Still banking on VCD to drag up my atar though!
Fourth folio? You deserve an award lol. People underestimate folio subjects, people are like it's just drawing and I'm like ahhhhh you have no idea 😂Folio subjects really deserve better scaling :-\ (I know there's objective calculations behind the scaling but still can't help but feel that way lol).