Red Moon

View Here

I made a comic for my freshman design class! The assignment was “interactive design.” 

I’ve been a big fan of Emily Carroll’s creepy and awesome webcomics for years, and wanted to take a shot at making an interactive webcomic.

You’ll get to a point where you’ll have three choices! I can't say what happens when you click what, but each ending is different!

Design: Essence

My first design project of the new semester! THe assignment was to capture the essence of something, and I chose to capture the essence of "misery."

I was inspired by a few quotes from my favorite book, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. He writes:

"So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine, with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless."

From there, I decided to try to capture the essence of misery in a single person. I went back a forth between child labour and prostitution, and came to the terrifiying conclusion that child prostitution exists. I did research, and re-watched one of my favorite documentaries "Born Into Brothels" for inspiration.

I did a quite a few value studies in watercolor, then used photoshop to make color studies. My professor ended up really loving the color studies as a group, and encouraged me to use them for the final project. I ultimately decided to use a finished illustration for my final, but I still think the color studies are powerful on their own.

 
 

Final Version

I based most of my research and visual inspiration off of the sex trade in India. Here are some statistics:

• There are estimated 900,000 sex workers in India
• 30% are underage

source

Design: Measuring and Mapping

For my final design project, we were presented the problem of challenging an idea. I decided to challenge the idea of "if a boy picks on a girl, it must mean he likes her!"

 
 



This is problematic, as it teaches boys that violence isa proper form of affection. And it teaches girls that this violence is normal, deserved, and shows that they are loved.

Hopefully my point is clear: this behavior should not be encouraged by society, as the line between "flirting" and abuse is very thin.

 (I'd like to point out that I do not believe every little kid who has ever bullied/picked on someone will grow up to be an abuser. This comic is simply a warning that in some cases, kids need to be told that this behavior is wrong. And not all kids get told this)

Sorry for no update!

School's been keeping me busy! Here are some of my more illustration-based assignments for design class!

This was an animated assignment, we were supposed to have a dominant and subdominant features in a composition, and use animation to switch them.

Here's my first project from my design class, taught by Chris Harman.

My first "problem" was to create a geometric pattern using cut paper. 

First, I sketched a BUNCH of designs, before deciding on using a repeating triangle. I created the final design in Illustrator.

Then, I cut out the triangles from black and white paper. When I first did the project, I accidentally used an off-white paper, and it was very noted in class critique. So I redid it using pure white and black.

After we had a black and white version, we had to repeat the design using colored papers. I used a pink-ish tinted paper and some vintage patterned wallpaper I had leftover from another project.