On the 10th day of my internship, I went to Taipei Grand Hyatt again for another Hennessy sponsored event. It was mainly a Press Conference to promote the upcoming Hennessy Artistry - The Global Art of Mixing music festival, happening on July 27th in KaoHsiung, Taiwan. I arrived at the venue fairly early, helping out a bit.
People setting up the back board of the stage. The only thing I did was to wipe away any dirt on the board.
Today I did another research report, the topic is "light and glass". It's a really fun topic to do since it's really broad, and you can find many pretty images with those two keywords.
Again, here's the video version of my keynote:
Never mind the text, the pretty pictures are the ones that matters. I'll explain what I'm doing right here.
The first part is simply observations of light shining through stained glass and glass cups. The reflections are really pretty.
The second part is more of the focus of my research. It's my interpretation of how the combination of light and glass is used in designs. AND, this is where the Club Design book comes in handy! First, I looked into how light is used to illuminate alcohol bottles from the bottom. The image of 3 bottles against an orange background is taken from the book (Cherry Jam, UK).
Then I looked into how light is used to illuminate things from within the object. The first object is the lumi-drumsticks from Blue Man Group show. I honestly don't know if a person can really play with them, but the glowing effect (especially in complete darkness) is really awesome. Then, I looked into decorations. The purple, glowing floral block is also taken from the book (Cacoon, Germany). I'm just so fascinated by that book; there are so many state of the art light designs. Maybe I'm interested in light design too...perhaps I should go learn some stuff from Master Ray when I go back to school.
I apologize for my lack of update, I've become quite busy ever since my internship started.
Day 3 &4:
I learned how to measure a space, as well as drawing ground floor plans. This was a really good practice since I had no sense of space whatsoever. Mr. Lee taught me how to use a measuring tape and a laser tape. I practiced measuring the office and drew my plans.
So here it is, my second stop-motion animation experiment. I came up with the idea when I was slightly heatstroke and dizzy, so it might be a little bizarre. I did it with a small whiteboard, which was much faster than my previous attempt. It is still very rough, but at least the frame doesn't shift anymore (I got a tripod). It's composed of 80 pictures.
The second day of my intern was pretty amazing. Mr. Lee came, and he gave me an overview of my time at his company. He's a really interesting person with many innovative ideas (he showed me his sketch book), and that's probably why his company is doing really well. He also explained their "design process" - from observing, documenting all the way to creating the final display/presentation. It's not too different from what I do at school, but having to meet strict deadlines must be a lot more strenuous.
I had the opportunity to somewhat take part in a case that they were in charged of. It was a banquet for Hennessy at Grant Hyatt Taipei. Designers at TaiHoo came up with the entire design for the layout of the event.
I finally started my summer internship yesterday. I work at this place called TaiHoo Design, a design company based in Taiwan that specializes in set/space design. I got to know this company through my mom's friend's daughter, who collaborated with the company before (oh connections connections...). I've never done any 3-dimensional/space related design before, so I think this summer is a good opportunity for me to open up my eyes for another different option that I can consider in the future.
I didn't do much yesterday, since my boss Mr. River Lee wasn't there. I spent quite a lot of time looking through TaiHoo's design book collection. I love flipping through design books; I formed this habit back in the Dulwich days - Mr. McGrath's collection was great. TaiHoo's books are mostly about interior or industrial design though, which is different from Mr. McGrath's illustration books. Many designs are really avant-garde...they're the kind of stuff that will, uh, electrify your mind? At least that's how I felt.
This book really caught my attention (chuckles). I wonder when this will ever come in handy. This book completely tipped over my idea of nightclubs. I've never been to a club before, and I'm not quite sure why I imagine all clubs to be dirty, messy, filled with people who have nothing better to do than drinking and smoking... Oh well, call me insular and tacky. Almost every club included in this book has really avant-garde designs, in particular the lighting. Here's two that really caught my eyes with their dazzling lights/nice vibes:
I bought this game - Just Dance 2 - for Wii a couple of days ago. Originally, I was looking for Zumba Fitness, but I don't think Zumba is popular in Asia...so I didn't find it (I'm back in Taiwan now by the way). That was a little disappointing, since I was kind of interested in Zumba. Also my Wii is Japanese/Taiwanese version, so I wouldn't be able to play Zumba even if I buy it. This is why I ended up buying this one. It's Japanese version, so there are a lot of girly Japanese songs in it (I haven't tried all of them yet), but there are also a decent amount of famous English pop/dance songs.
I've been playing this for 3 days now, and I LOVE this game! It is so addictive. Most of the dances are pretty easy to learn (some are even quite silly/funny), and dancing for 30 minutes a day is a pretty good workout. My arms are especially sore after dancing. My favorite song to dance to is Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now), because there's my favorite Running Man move in the dance routine! I love these 90s dance songs.
Here's a video of the game and two random people dancing to the song that I found on Youtube. I love the cat t-shirt guy; he's so into it, and he does the Running Man move right. This is pretty entertaining to watch... so I don't think I'll ever film myself playing this game. My plan is to play this everyday this summer, and hopefully I'll get somewhat fitter, hopefully.
I might be able to pick up some easy moves that I can use in next year's SG dances ;)
This is the concentration portion of my AP Drawing portfolio. I wasn't really satisfied with this because I feel like I didn't put enough effort in it, and the theme is fairly "trite". Oh well, I did a lot better in my 2D concentration. I started with using flowers as hair accessories, then merging hair with flower, then I basically focused on flowers (textures). The style of drawing (oil pastels on black paper) is what made my works somewhat unique. Again, I try to keep them in the right order.
I did AP Drawing last year (sophomore year). I think I'll use some of my works here for my college portfolio. To me, AP Drawing is really different from 2D design. I like the latter better, because there's more variety. I did graphic design in IGCSE at my old school, so I was able to use some of the Photoshop/Illustrator skills for my posters. Anyway, here we go...
The following is the concentration section of my AP 2D design portfolio. I used paper collage for all 12 works. I painted most of the paper I used, but I also used poster paper, color aid, and gift wrapping tissue. My idea was to use collage to experiment and create folds and patterns of fabrics. In the end, I focused on creating scarves. Most of the patterns were inspired by Asian countries: China, Japan, India, Thailand (many were inspired by Thai fabrics...*chuckles*), Indonesia.Works are in the order of my idea development (I try my best to keep them in the right order).
Since I've started to put all kinds of art-related things on this blog, I might as well document my portfolio. I'll begin with this year's AP 2D design. Here's the breadth section.
I have to find ways to entertain myself when I'm home 24/7. I found a pack of origami paper in my room, so I thought I would re-learn how to fold paper cranes. I was thinking of using them to decorate my dorm room next year, so I experimented with decorating my room in California today.
This was the original idea, did it about 2 years ago when I lived in Shanghai. I remember my old school folded a lot of paper cranes for Japan. I just stringed them up and hung them by the window.
This is my very first stop motion animation, done with photoshop. I think I took about 57 pictures. It's really unrefined, I need to figure out a better way to take pictures so the frame won't shift. Since I'll be doing stop-motion for my fall special project next year, I should experiment with it a few more times this summer.
Today was going to be a really boring day, but I decided to take a stroll in the neighborhood.
It was actually my first time walking around Woodbridge on my own, since
I was always worried that I would get lost. I get lost really
easily...no joke.
I love these Vans; eye-catching but not ostentatious. I have this unusual fondness for bright red clothing and accessories.
Typical Southern California weather. That little lens flare over there reminds me of Star Trek Into Darkness that I saw a couple of days ago. It was brilliant.
Hi. I'm terrible at keeping this blog (who knows how many times I've attempted to post "meaningful things" and then discarded them), Hopefully this time I'll last a little longer.
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I'm currently on my first week of summer, and it's been pretty relaxing. I have plenty of work to do over the break, but I should be able to cope with them. Oddly enough, I kind of miss SG. This year is so different from my first year there; I've made a lot more friends, and I became more comfortable with just being Veronica. I'm still often awkward, but I think I'm on the right track of being who I am.
Speaking of being myself, I discovered my passion for dancing. I've been a part of SG's dance program for two years now, and this year's concert was a particularly incredible experience. I think I really went all out to perform, and surprisingly, I wasn't nervous on stage. I also had the opportunity to work on a choreography with my friend Catherine. The picture above is from our dance. I would say it leaned towards hip-hop, and the song we used was Feel Good Inc. by Gorillaz. It was a really interesting experience; neither of us had choreographed anything before, so it was a long and difficult process. The result was really good though. We received lots and lots of compliments after the concert. "The mask one was really cool", sweet compliments like this made me really happy.