Analogical Thinking (Week 9)

Welcome back everyone! This time I'm doing an illustration about myself. The picture above is what I've been drawing before and it represents my personality and the things that I like in my life. I will explain to you guys about this illustration.

Firstly, I draw the most part of my face as a shield. Why? It's because I have a perception that a strong person is a person who can endure everything, such pain, suffering, obstacles, pressure, and all bad situations. There are also some cracks in the surface of the shield because actually I've been rejected once by someone. However, those cracks are going to be healed as time goes by and it will always be an impregnable shield.

There are piano tuts in the bottom side, as you can see that I draw it as my mouth. I've been playing the piano since I was a kid and I like it. I also draw a shining sun in the middle of the shield that brings sparkling light with clouds around my face, as they represent my personality that I'm a cheerful person. I draw my eyes as the soccer ball and musical note on the top that represent my hobby to play futsal and listen to music.

My hair is divided into two parts, the left part is a cat's head, which I draw because my fondness of cats. The right side is an ocean with waves drifting along the sea animals, such dolphin and shark. Why? Because I like water and underwater creatures. Water also represents my personality, as I open myself to experiences and informations in my life and adapt to them. There is a metal hand under the shark as my ear, as it tells my excitement to rock musics. Lastly, the rainbow on the top represents my personality also, as an optimistic person.

So, that's all of my illustration about myself. Thanks for your attention!

Pareidolia (Week 8)

Hi everyone! Today I’m back with a discussion about “Pareidolia”, which is a psychological phenomenon of random stimulus being perceived as significant. For example, we saw a building window but we perceived it as a face, or even saw a door which looks like a face. This time, my lecturer asked me and my teammates to find out pareidolia things in our campus. We split into directions and find it out as many as we can. We felt like it would be difficult but later on we found it interesting and we realized that so many things around us can be looked like faces.  Let me show you the pareidolias that we’ve found.

The two big square windows on the top can be seen as eyes, and the five blue windows at the bottom can be seen as teeth as it looks like a face in general

I think this one is the best pareidolia as it forms a smiling face with a door handle as the nose

So many faces can be seen from wires, color paints, electricity power source, stickers on the wall, cardboards, woods, car, or even a toilet seat. I think pareidolia is an interesting thing that can sharpen our sense to see things around us with a greater sensitivity. That’s all about my topic this time, and I will see you guys soon!

4 Lessons in Creativity (Week 7)

How’s it going everyone, it’s me again with another new topic. This time I’m going to tell you my reflection about a video from www.ted.com with Julie Burstein as the speaker and it is about 4 lessons in creativity.

There are 4 people who can be said as successful persons as examples. The first one is Mira Nair, an India people who was firstly inspired to dedicate herself to theater from a folk theater in her country called Jatra. And later, she became an award-winning filmmaker. The lesson that I get from this person is we have to open ourselves to get experience. We have to embrace experience as we will become more creative by learning from it.

The second person is Richard Ford. This person inspired me so much that he could become a novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize even he is having dyslexia, a disorder which can lead to bad comprehension in language and reading. He said that some of powerful work comes out from the most difficult parts of life. I learned from this man that our weakness will not stop our destiny as we keep embracing challenges in our life.

Richard Serra, a great sculptor is the third person as the example. He was firstly a painter but then he left paintings and becomes a sculptor. I can learn that we have to push ourselves away from limitations.

Finally, the last person is a photographer named Joel Meyerowitz. He had been in a building rubble that was caught on fire. At that time, he felt that he had to take pictures, but suddenly a cop hit his shoulder and told him that taking pictures is prohibited. However, he kept taking pictures that it had to be recorded as history, in his mind. He said that passionate optimism is important, as it forced him to take many pictures about this place.

We live in the cycle of creation and destruction. We have to be ready to let go of something, taking challenges, or even undergo bad situations in life. That’s all of my reflection about this video.

Marshmallow Challenge (Week 6)

          What’s up everyone, this time we are talking about a challenge that I did last week. The challenge was quite fun, I think, because it needed a good teamwork and the materials used for it were interesting. The challenge was to make tower-like building with a little marshmallow standing at the top with raw spaghetties as the building structure. The winner would be the people who made tallest building. The class was divided into groups, which every group consisted of 4 people. My group were Winny, Beth, Nurul, and Me. There were also other materials to build the structure, that were masking tape, scissor, string, and small bag.

          In the early process, we didn’t make any sketches, knowing that there was a time limit to do the challenge. However, we planned the building structure very well. We decided to make a strong base by placing the bag at the bottom and stick the raw spaghetties on the top with the masking tape. It was really hard to stick the spaghetti onto the bag, because it was really fragile. It was also easy to fall down if it’s not balanced. It took quite a long time to build the base structure, while we saw other groups' were like in almost-done condition. However, we kept going and worked hard to do the base. We helped each other to stick the spaghetties. For example, when I held the spaghetties that need to be sticked, other people tore the masking tape and stick onto it. After we stick the masking tape, we tied it with the string for extra safety. After we made the base, we formed the spaghetties into a triangular pyramid. We knew that this shape would make the structure stable. And lastly, we put a piece of spaghetti and place the marshmallow on the top. Luckily, it was quite balanced and my group was the winner of the challenge. 

          Mostly the other groups didn’t think about the base structure and their building fell down easily. I think the solution to win this challenge is to make a strong base first, so it will not fall down later on and not to do the building hastily.

Graphic Designers Who Broke the Rules (Week 5)

          Hello everyone! This time we are discussing about artists that broke the rules again. However, these artists are profound in a sector from my chosen study, that is graphic design. So they are great graphic designers, and here is my discussion about them.

1. Stefan Sagmeister

          This graphic designer is from Austria, who is famous of his poster design for AIGA in 1999, which displays a naked man with typographies in his body. I think he broke the rules that graphic design doesn’t always created in normal mediums, such as papers or posters. He has so many kind of typography mediums, such as body, trees, water, or even human’s face. We can see these kinds of objects for typography in his book “Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far”.  He also has many good quotes for me, such as “Worrying solves nothing”, or “It’s very important to embrace failure and do a lot of stuff – as much as possible. It’s much, much better to wind up with a lot of crap having tried it than to overthink in the beginning and not do it”.

Poster for AIGA Lecture, Cranbrook, Michigan, 1999

Trying to Look Good Limits My Life, 2004

Things I Have Learned in My Life so Far Book Cover, 2008

Poster for Lou Reed's Set the Twilight Reeling, 1996

2. Milton Glaser

          He is an American graphic designer who is best known for his "I Love NY" logo. He is also a good graphic designer using colors, like the poster for Bob Dylan. I like the way he used many colors to form hair. The way he made "I Love NY" logo was also interesting. I learned that good graphic design doesn’t always come out with a complex drawings and color compositions.

I Love NY Logo, 1977

Bob Dylan Poster, 1967

3. Shepard Fairey

          I think this graphic designer mostly broke the rules. He is an American contemporary designer who can apply graphic design into street art. He is famous of his Obama “Hope” poster which was used in the events of American presidential election in 2008. He also put up his piece in Melrose Avenue Street in Los Angeles. This street painting is very wonderful with many colors and drawings painted on the wall.

Barack Obama "Hope" Poster, 2008

Urban Street Art, Melrose Ave, Los Angeles