Design Principles - Final Project

Ng Jia Jin (0331589)
Design Principles
Final Project - Billboards Design


Final Project - Billboards Design

Lecture Notes

Lecture 1: 5/6/2018

Ms Sherry and Ms Jin Chi briefed us about our final project in design principles which is called billboard design. For this project, we need to take photos of any billboards around the city. After that, we need to analyze the billboards that we took. We need to do a simple mind-mapping for the billboards and we need to analyze why is the billboards placed at the particular area. Besides, we also need to know what principles of design is applied at the billboards that we took. Finally, by using the knowledge that we have gained throughout the semester from this module, create an artwork by relating it to the billboard and use the principles of design used at the billboards and apply them to our artwork. It's not really a billboard design but more about designing our own artwork based on what we see around us.

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After knowing roughly about what should we do, I went around the city of Kuala Lumpur and took some photos of the billboards. I mainly took photos of car billboards because I like the layout and the simplicity of it.

Fig 1.0: Taken Billboards

Fig 1.1: Taken Billboards

Fig 1.2: Taken Billboards

Fig 1.3: Taken Billboards

Fig 1.4: Compilation of Billboards Taken

At first, when I was doing my billboards, I was going with the simplicity concept as shown at most of the billboards. I didn't really have a clear message for my final because I thought it was just finding the principles of design used at the billboards and apply it into my final artwork.

After getting help from my lecturers in the next class, Ms Jin Chi told me that it's not about applying the principles of design into my artwork only, I also need to send out a message to the audience that view my final artwork. The message needs to be related to the billboards that I chose. After getting a clearer path on what I should be doing for my final artwork, I decided to brainstorm my ideas from the billboards that I took. 

Fig 1.5: Mind maps (Brainstorming ideas)

After doing a mind map and brainstorming my ideas out, I went on to sketch some drawings out to have a clearer idea on what I am going to do. Since Ms Jin Chi emphasized on having a message for my final artwork. I decided to send out a message about air pollution since my billboards are all about cars. For me, having more and more car billboards around the city means encouraging people to buy more cars and it also means that the air pollution rate in the city will get higher and higher as times passes by. By the end of the brainstorming and sketching session, I already have a clear image on what and how am I going to create my final artwork.

Fig 1.6: Sketches for My Final

After sketching my ideas out, I transferred them digitally and start working on my final artwork with Illustrator. 

Fig 1.7: My Final Artwork at Adobe Illustrator 

Fig 1.8: Final Product on A3 size

The message for my final artwork:

The reason I added 2 rolls of trees in a different condition ( left is fresh & alive while the right ones are dry & dead) is to show the effect of air pollution has made to the natural environment. Initially, I wanted to add a color for my background but I decided not to at the end. Instead, I decided to compile some newspaper articles about air pollutions and crop it into an image and set it as my background. The reason being is that it's more related to the overall message that I want to send out to the public. Besides that, I also decided to replace the sun rays with the headlines of some air pollution articles around the world. Lastly, the reason behind adding a curvy road that leads straight the the sun is to show that this a path that leads to the betterment of the air pollution or the worse side of the air pollution around the world in the near future.