Design Exploration - Projects Compilation

Week 1 - Week 16 (29/03/22 - 13/07/22)

Ng Mei Ying (0340563)

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📌SDGs Project: Design Exploration



Week 1 | Module Briefing 

During the first day of the virtual class, Ms Anis briefed students on the module structure and the submission outline for each project. In this module, students were encouraged to future explore their specialisation skills to produce a final output that parallels the current international Sustainable Development Goals. They were multiple goals available for students to choose from such as “zero hunger”, “sexual equality” and many more. Ms Anis required all students to do some research on the SDG topic after she explained about the SDG and the example of the current creative outcomes.

The Sustainable Development Goals

Week 2 - 4 | SDG Research & Brainstorming  

This week, students had to prepare their research on the chosen Sustainable Development Goals including the primary ideas brainstorming. I was not quite sure which SDG to go with last week. Hence I decided to take a look at the current design exploration output which was related to SDG. There were some ideas in my mind which include something that creates awareness related to the current Ukraine war, social mental health as well as corvid disposal’s environmental recycling. 

 # Consultation Note:   Ms Anis mentioned that the primary idea was good, and I could consider working         on it. However, I needed more research to support the ideas I’ve currently to ensure they were workable.

During the next week, I decided to go for SDG that related to mental health after the consultation session. I was planning to explore animated illustration that create awareness for mental health at the beginning. However, lecturer mentioned that animation would create more resonance with the audience. After consideration, I decided to create advanced motion graphics with character animation for this project as this would be a great chance for me to learn character rigging using Duik Bassel.

Mental Health current data research during pandemic period

Mental health related visual research

The project’s planning

SDG video storyline planning

Week 5 | Design Proposal Presentation  

This week, students required to compile their research on the selected sustainable development goals together with their project planning. The research I’ve done involves the early symptoms of mental health among the people especially the young people, types of mental illness, the impact of mental illness, the hidden reasons that people tend to not seek immediate help during and also the effective solutions.

 # Consultation Note:   Ms Anis mentioned that the research and the presentation was good and I should pay more attention on the audio selection as there will be no dialogue in the video.

SDG Design Proposal Presentation Slide

Week 6 | Storyboard Refinement 

The story of the motion graphics video revolves around a day of a young university students who suffered 

the early symptoms of mental illness which includes lack of energy, poor sleeping experience, low mood, anxiety, low self esteem, thoughts of commit suicide and many more. Most of this early mental health symptoms were portrait in different scene using a conceptual visuals. The middle scene showed that the character refused to talk about her mental health and chose to hide the issues from the people around her.  The ending scene shows that the character finally decided to seek help from professional before it deteriorated. The first version of storyboard contain more scene than the second version. The second version of storyboard had lesser scenes, hence its more practical to work on it.

 # Consultation Note:   Ms Anis mentioned that the story planning was good and easy to understand. I should proceed to find the suitable audio or music for animatic.

Storyboard version 1

Storyboard version 2

Week 7 | Sound Research & Animatic

When the main storyboard visual had confirmed, I proceeded to search for the suitable audio or music that match the story well. The beginning of the story was moody low in mood and negative and the story would turned positive at the end of the video. I proceed play and chose the audio that the storyboards visuals well. 

 # Consultation Note:   Ms Anis mentioned that the current music selection create a good resonance to the viewer and the overall story flow was good and easy to understand.

Audio collected for the video

Audio editing and matching using AE

Animatic version 1

Animatic version 2

Week 9 - 10 | Concept Design & Assets Illustration

Progression Update Presentation 

This week, students are required to present their current project working progression with Ms Anis on Teams meeting. Students who attended the session had to present whatever they have done on week 10 along with the learning reflections. During the presentation, I showed Ms Anis my character design and some progression of the background design. I also shared the rigging issue while doing the rig test using Duik Bassel in AE. Below was the progression of character and environment illustration.

Character sketches

Character design in Ai

Character design version 1

Character design version 2

Background & Props Design

Scene 01 style frame 

Scene 02 style frame

Scene 03 style frame 

Scene 04 style frame 

Scene 05 style frame 

Scene 06 style frame 

Scene 06 style frame 

Scene 06 style frame

Scene 07 style frame 

Scene 08 style frame 

Scene 09 style frame 

 # Consultation Note:   Ms Anis mentioned that the progression was good and it’s good to show the problem-solving skill in order to produce a presentable project outcome based on the given deadline.

Week 11 - 13 | Animation Production 

To start with, I needed to clean up the Ai illustration and rearrange the layers before the Adobe illustration  file was imported to Adobe After Effect. Next step, I imported the Ai file into the Ae software and created the character rigs using Duik Bassel. After completing all characters rigging, I proceed to animate the character and the scene in Ae.

AI layers arrangement for Ae animation

Character rigging using Duik Bassel in Ae

Character animation process in Ae

Environment animation process in Ae

Motion graphic video export (version 1)

Week 14 - 15 | Final Presentation & Final Production 

 

Final Presentation  Slides

Final SDG Video

 # Reflection:   This could be one of the most exciting modules for this semester as I got the chance to have a deeper understanding of global sustainable development goals. The research phase during the first few weeks was a little confusing as I didn’t have a clear direction on what to create for SDG by using my current skills. When the study weeks passed by, students’ workload had become heavier and it was difficult for me to follow the initial plan I created in the early days. As result, I needed to cut down some tasks to ensure the completeness of the final output. I found that it’s meaningful that have a group of students discussing the SDG and also how students could contribute for the social with their efforts and skills. Although most students preferred to attend virtual classes compared with physical ones due to the pandemic, the positive side to study and work from home could push me a little bit more to search for instant solutions as there would be no instant reply from classmates and lecturers from time to time. In a nutshell, I’m grateful that my lecturer was very tolerant of my working process and my fellow friends were willing to provide feedback and suggestions that helped me a lot to complete this meaningful project.