Assignment Three: Birthday Card

Research

How birthdays are celebrated in Malaysia:

In Malaysia, all birthday celebrations family and friends gather together to enjoy food. They may sing along together or play musical instruments. Friends or relatives who visit give presents to the person celebrating their birthday or they may give an ang pao. This is a small red packet filled with money. If relatives do not know what to buy, the money is a good present.

At about 16, when teenagers start to invite boys and girls to their parties there is lots of dancing and games to help find a partner. They often make their own games so that everyone eventually finds their own partner. The trick is always to have the same numbers of boys and girls!

At 18, birthdays are celebrated with family members or people may go to the movies with their girlfriend or boyfriend. At 21, people usually have a big party. At all birthday celebrations people have birthday cake with candles and they sing the 'Happy Birthday' song in English, Chinese or Malay.

Extract from BirthdayCelebrations.net

The Ideation of The Birthday Card

In my opinion, birthdays are often celebrated among children and young teenagers. They celebrate their birthdays by inviting their families and friends to their birthday party. When I was a child, I use to have birthday parties every year with my beloved family. My mom made me cupcakes so that guests who attended the party will not waste the cake. So, my mom made cupcakes instead. In addition, I like birthday parties which are based on a super hero theme and my all time favorite will be BATMAN. Those days, my birthday parties looked very colorful and noisy!

For this assignment, I have chosen this birthday card layout as my reference to my re-designed birthday card.

References

Based on these layouts this is the sketch of my birthday card

In this sketch, I use BATMAN as the character of this card because most children love superheroes characters. There are many famous superheroes characters in Malaysia such as Superman, Spiderman, Kluangman and many more. As for the cupcakes, it has become a common trend in Malaysia to serve many sizes of cupcakes to the guests. I also fill in the background with rainbow colors to describe a joyful and happening mood of birthdays.

Steps to My Birthday Card

I start with creating the rectangular shapes by using the rectangle tool in the background. Then rainbow colors are filled in these rectangular shapes.

I then trace my sketches using the 'pen tool'.

Then the cupcake is filled with colors to make it look cheerful.

The cupcake is placed on the background of the card.

Next, I traced the Batman character from my sketch and fill it with black and grey colors for the costumes and yellow for the belt.

The Batman character is placed below the cupcake as if it is lifting the cupcake. This is symbolize that cupcakes or cakes are the typical dessert served during birthday celebrations.

I also stylized the Batman character using the 'drop shadow' filter. Then I made a rounded rectangular callout using the 'rectangle tool' and 'twirl tool'. After that, I designed the callout using the 'extrude & bevel' 3D effect.

To decorate the cover of the card, I added black borders using the 'line segment tool' and 4 stars at the edges of the card using the 'star tool'.

For the greetings page, I used the 'symbol spray tool' and picked these shapes.Then I repeated the step to illustrate a garden for a harmony mood.

Lastly, the greetings are added using the 'type tool'. I decorate it by using different types of fonts and colors to make it look cheerful.

Final Outcome

Assignment 2: Festive Calendar

Welcome to the making of my festive calendar specially designed for the second assignment of Computer Graphics subject.

Ideation of the Festive Calendar

First of all, i have chosen the month of August '09 to design the calendar. I picked this month because I would like to highlight the Independence of Malaysia which falls on the 31st of August. Thus, I planned to design the calendar filled with the theme of history and patriotism. I represent the five former prime ministers of Malaysia with the background of Jalur Gemilang (Malaysian Flag).

I chose this design/layout as a reference to my calendar.





From my ideation, I picked this layout as the nearest design to what I have sketched out. In this layout, I assumed the insect is the main subject of the calendar and the background of the calendar is something that the insect is trying to go to or to get. From my naked eyes, I imagined the insect is a bee that is heading to its hive.

In my calendar, I convert the insect to the illustrations of the five former prime ministers to reperesent the history of the rulers of Malaysia and also convert the background to the flag of Malaysia as a spirit of patriotism and as a representative to the world. In addition, I insert the words '51st Independence Day' to indicate the 51 years of independence day in the year of 2009. Also, I added the days and dates of the month and highlighted the weekend and the independence day at the bottom part of the calendar.


Design of the Festive Calendar

Below is the rough sketch of my festive calendar. Stay tuned for the final outcome!


Tools Used in the Making of the Calendar

Step 1: I draw the outline of the five former prime ministers from my sketch using the pen tool.

Step 2: I have chosen black color for the illustration of the former prime ministers to give a shadow effect that means the history of the rulers of Malaysia behind the independence day.

Step 3: Then, I draw the Jalur Gemilang using the pen tool and repeated the shapes of the red stripes to give the effect which the flag is blowing in the wind.

Step 4: After that, I insert the crescent and the 14-pointed star in the flag using the pen tool also.

Step 5: After completing the main subjects in the calendar, I added a classic effect background at the bottom part of the calendar and adjust it accordingly.

Step 6: Then I added the dates and days in the classic background using different types of fonts and sizes. I also adjust the fonts according using the stroke tool to give the bold effect on the fonts.

Step 7: I also changed the color of the fonts for the weekend of the month and the independence day. In addition, I also added dividers to show the weekends of the month and the August '09 headline.

Step 8: Lastly, I give a title to the calendar which is '51st Independece Day' and adjust it accordingly to place it in the center of the calendar.

References

In this section, I will show you all the pictures and ideas that i obtained from the internet for my research and guides to complete my calendar.

5th Prime Minister: Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi

4th Prime Minister: Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad


3rd Prime Minister: Tun Hussein Onn


2nd Prime Minister: Tun Abdul Razak Hussein


1st Prime Minister: Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj

Malaysian Flag (Jalur Gemilang)

Final Outcome

This is my festive calendar based on the Independence Day of Malaysia.

Thank you! time for assignment 3

Steps to Redesign my Logo

1. I used the pen tool to draw the star symbol and I filled in the star with yellow color.

2. I used the ellipse tool to draw the circle and I filled it in with green color.



3. I draw the outline of the coffee cup from my sketch using pen tool.



4. Lastly, I insert the Starbucks Coffee headline.


And finally, the completed redesigned logo.

Rough Sketch of My Redesign Logo 2

This is my 2nd rough sketch for my redesign 'Starbucks' logo. I used the 14 pointed star symbol from the Malaysian flag, to resemble the unity of 13 states and the federal government of Malaysia. In addition, the picture of a cup of coffee in the center of the logo to show that Starbucks is a coffee shop.

Ideation 2 for Redesigning Logo

The symbol of star in the Malaysian flag. In order to localize the 'Starbucks Coffee' logo, I decided to use the star symbol for the background of my redesign logo.

To give an idea that Starbucks coffee is a coffee shop i chose a picture of a cup of coffee to portray the message to everyone.

.The Rough Sketch of My Redesigned Logo.

This is my rough sketch for my redesign logo. I change font of the the original logo into Islamic calligraphy and later on i will apply the colors of Malaysian flag into the logo.

.The Ideation of Redesigning My Logo.

To represent the "Starbucks" logo with Malaysian features I pointed out the national religion of Malaysia, Islam and the majority citizens of Malaysia, Muslim. So, i redesign the "Starbucks Coffee" words in the logo to Islamic calligraphy form.

Malaysian flag. In order to localize the "Starbucks" logo to fit the local culture and local settings in Malaysia, i represent the colors red, blue, white and yellow of the Malaysia flag.

Logo that I choose. STARBUCKS

Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington, USA. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 16,120 stores in 44 countries. Starbucks sells drip brewed coffee, espresso-based hot drinks, other hot and cold drinks, snacks, and items such as mugs and coffee beans. Through the Starbucks Entertainment division and Hear Music brand, the company also markets books, music, and film. Many of the company's products are seasonal or specific to the locality of the store. Starbucks-brand ice cream and coffee are also sold at grocery stores.

From Starbucks' founding in Seattle as a local coffee bean roaster and retailer, the company has expanded rapidly. In the 1990s, Starbucks was opening a new store every workday, a pace that continued into the 2000s. Domestic growth has since slowed, although the company continues to expand in foreign markets and will open a net of 900 new stores outside of the U.S. in 2009. The first location outside of the United States and Canada was established in 1990s, and they now constitute almost one third of Starbucks' stores.

By late March 2008, Starbucks had more than 16,226 stores worldwide, including 11,434 stores located in the United States. On July 1, 2008, the company announced it was closing 600 under-performing company-owned stores and cutting U.S. expansion plans amid growing economic uncertainty. On July 29, 2008, Starbucks also cut almost 1,000 non-retail jobs as part of its bid to re-energize the brand and boost its profit. Of the new cuts, 550 of the positions are layoffs and the rest are unfilled jobs. These closings and layoffs have effectively ended the company’s period of growth and expansion that began in the mid-1990s.

On January 28, 2009, Starbucks announced the closure of an additional 300 under-performing stores, and the elimination of 7,000 positions. CEO Howard Schultz also announced that he had received board approval to reduce his salary to $10,000 per year.