Ziweiliu's Blog

Ivy
Here are some thoughts on your sketches.

General: Try to include a brief, 1-sentence description of your concept for each interpretation. It would make it easier to quickly understand your intentions for the idea, and might help focus your concepts as you work…

Spread
1. Where do you plan incorporating the Title of your narrative? Would it be on one of the spreads, or would there be a title page, cover, etc…?

2. I like how you have laid these out almost as a kind of “storyboard.” I think it helps to see them in sequence like this. You might also consider jotting little notes below any spreads where you want to help the viewer better understand what they are looking at (like a small caption, expelling what is happening…) Not neck. but just an idea.

3. You have these large repeating words, which I think is interesting. You might also consider how often can you do this, before it gets too repetitive. Or, what about some moments without any large word, for contrast in the visual sequence. (Just give it some thought). Some work beautifully like relationship between China and Black Hole.

6. At this scale its a bit hard to get into the details here of structure and organization. I would say that I can see that you are beginning to define some grid relationships, etc. I would have to see larger to get more into those issues, though.

7. Is the third one done with the large vertical “Gift” the folded booklet to poster? Difficult to tell. I think it is, starting with what it looks like when opened-up to be the poster (?) If so, my suggestion here is to order your sketches in sequence as if each step was a frame in a movie. So, the first sketch would show the booklet when Closed, next the first step in opening it, etc. Right now I am getting an overall sense of this piece which looks good, but difficult to understand “it’s story.” Think of how you present your sketches in that way, as well as how each step or page etc. is a piece of the narrative you are showing the viewer. Again, seeing at a larger scale would be neck. for more detailed comments about what is going on. I do, however, love how the idea of this form in conjunction with your narrative played off one another already (i.e. your idea of the Dark and Light of the Blank page etc.) I really felt that last Friday you were already experiencing a great interplay between your narrative itself and how your visual interpretations could work together and influence each other, which was great to see!

8. Not sure what’s the Interactive here. Just difficult to tell and I don’t see a label for it like the others.

9. General thought: try for each to put briefly into words how you are approaching your interpretation. In other words, how is each interpretation different? Or, what are you emphasizing within each. I think that kind of thinking will help push your concepts away from one another (in a good way). In the same way at the Studio we would push our design directions for clients away from one another, in order to provide the most possibilities of exploration for ourselves and for our clients to chosoe from. Does that make sense?

Don’t think of the venue / form itself as THE INTERPRETATION, that should be only a detail of your design solution. That is why I feel putting into words how you are framing the interpretation could help define your process.

Let me know if you have any questions. Best,

Jennifer