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

Mind Mapping (Week 4)

          Hi everyone, this time I was drawing mind maps with my friends, Winny and Beth on mahjong papers. We were using the color markers to make the mind maps more attractive and colorful. There are 2 mind maps that we’ve done, one is about “Pursuit of Happiness” and the other one is about “Creativity and Innovation”. At first, we made the outline about the mind map. We divided the "Pursuit of Happiness" into "what", "how", “love”, and “obstacles”. After we made the outline, each of them branched and become more detailed and specified. We gave many examples in each division and also decorated the paper with colorful pictures. We found it was exciting, because we could draw and give colors in the paper.

          In the second paper, we also did the same. The topic was about “Creativity and Innovation”. After we made the outline consisting of 4 branches, “what” and “how” for Creativity, “what” and “how” for Innovation, we also did the drawing and coloring on the mind map. Many interesting drawings and colors are made to represent the ideas.

          After we made the mind maps, we found that it was easy to memorize the topics. I also found it was exciting to read the mind maps, knowing that there are a lot of pictures and colors. I think that I should make the outline first when I’m doing a project, just like creating the mind maps, because we will be more interested to read something clear and consisting of colorful pictures. These mind maps also develop our creativity, by drawing and giving colors to make the mind maps.

Artists Who Broke the Rules (Week 3)

Hello everyone, now it's about artists who broke the rules. There are 3 of them who draw my attention and here they are.

Salvador Dali

Surrealism is the style of this man’s artwork. He is a Spanish artist who likes to draw things that just come out from his head. He did the paintings without thinking what the paintings will become that make him different with other artists. Other artists think first about what they are going to paint. His paintings are unique because he paints things not in the proper way, such as drawing elastic clock, distorted creatures, or even make an illusion paintings which give you different perspective when you see the painting from far distance or close distance.

 Salvador Dali, Old Couple or Musician, 1930

Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Time, 1931

Salvador Dali, The Temptation of St. Anthony, 1946

What inspires me from this artist is that we don’t always have to stick in the rules and that will make greater artworks that come out from our imagination.

Damien Hirst

           I think this man really broke the rules in art. He is a contemporary artist from English whose artworks are mostly preserved animal’s dead body placed in a box. This man chooses ‘death’ as his art concept which artworks are very different with other artists’. He also make skull as his artwork. He built a museum of his artworks that we can feel ‘death’ when we enter the museum and see the artworks.

Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991

Damien Hirst, For the Love of God, 2007

This man gives me inspiration that art doesn't always come from proper imagination, knowing that he can put death into an art. I think imagination comes from countless sources.

Andy Warhol

             He is an American artist who is known for the pop art, which is a form of art that depicts objects or scenes from everyday life and employs techniques of commercial art and popular illustration that emerged in the mid-1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. He used contrasting colors to draw paintings of celebrities, such as green and red, yellow and black but it can form a great painting of famous people.  

Andy Warhol, Mao Zedong by Andy Warhol, 1972

Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol, 1967

Andy Warhol, Michael Jackson by Andy Warhol, 1984

The contrasting colors that he used inspires me that color dissonance doesn't always make things look bad. Different things can be mixed to create a great artwork.

Brainstorming Reflection (Week 2)

         This reflection is about what I did in the second week of creative thinking class. This time I brought 3 mahjong papers and markers to write on the papers. The students were separated into groups which each grup consisted of 3 people. Each group had 3 roles that were leader, scribe, and photographer. I'm with Winny and Beth (Kai Ting). I became the leader and they became scribe and photographer. The mahjong papers and markers were brought for a game in the class. The game was to write down 100 ways to do something. Each group had to choose 3 from the topics that were given by the teacher. My team chose ‘how to squeeze a lemon’, ‘how to kill a cockroach’, and ‘how to cause a paperman to die’. I, as a leader encouraged my teammates while they were working and help them to think about the idea. They worked on writing and documentation. 

The first one is to think about 100 ways to squeeze a lemon. In the early times, we gave many ideas that came out from our head. We thought of kitchen stuffs, such as squeezer, knife, or bottle that are able to squeeze a lemon. However, things got harder when we reach about 30 ideas. We began to think critically to find the next idea. Then I looked around things in the class and I realized that stuffs from class are also able to squeeze a lemon, such as chair, table, door, or even eraser. Not only stuffs in class, but also from our house or anywhere. Animals are also able to squeeze a lemon and finally we finished the first paper.

The second is to think about the ways to kill a cockroach. At this time, we did it faster than before as it only took around 25 minutes. We just thought about things around us or everywhere and most of them are able to kill cockroach, if we used it in the proper way and a little sadistic. 

The last one is to think about the ways to cause a paperman to die. Mostly the ideas are almost the same, knowing that there is only a little difference between the ways to kill a cockroach and a paperman. We also finished this one earlier than before.

         After I did this game, I realized that there are a lot of ways to do everything. I also think that we need to think more critically to be creative. Every tool can be used for any purposes if we find out the way to use it properly. We also need to be keen with environment around us and more imaginative.