Month: November 2017

First and foremost, I personally enjoyed this project, creating a character and coming up with a back story and try to make it fit into a set story was fun. For my character the first thought/ inspiration from the book was Daito and Shoto. When I read the description of their avatars being samurai like and carrying swords I instantly related because in most video games I play that let me create characters I always tend to make ninja like avatars to play as. My character is named Shadow and he is a 25-year-old male who was taught by his strict father the ways of the ninja assassin that has been passed down since before the Oasis launched. Shadow’s father also known as “Black Kistune” passed down the black diamond that is infused into the user’s forehead until they die or transfer it to their next of kin. When activated the black diamond transforms into a black Kitsune mask that grants the user the ability to hide within the shadows and manipulate them at will becoming “Shadow Kitsune”. Shadow at the same time embraced his mother’s love and kindness until her sudden death. Shadow being taught the ways of the avatar assassin struggles from following his father’s footsteps or going off and doing what he wants to do, which is go on the egg hunt and become a Gunter. Shadow uses his mastership with the blade and various ninja tools to play the game fairly like he wants, but finds himself at times using the Kitsune mask to one up other players.

My drawing style for the project is appropriate with what was asked for I believe. My character is made from scratch and shapes drawn in illustrator. Normally I would of like to have drawn my character on paper make it nice and pretty on how I want it to look and then image trace it, but not being able to do that was a bit of a challenge and I enjoyed it. My character goes with my back story very well, although I feel like I normally would have wanted to present it with the mask on I wanted to show an actual person behind the mask to show more of my character. I tried to keep my character close enough to look like a ninja/assassin and somewhat of a Gunter too.

With the poster design, in my head I wanted to incorporate my character and have a sunset background. Sunset background and Japanese aesthetics just popped in my head. Also, I didn’t want to have a lot of text just enough to get the main points of my character. I also didn’t just want to place the text there, so I created a scroll and place it on the bottom of the page to give reveal the info I wanted. Kind of like a Japanese scroll the unveils passed down information, only this time its unveiling my avatar. I place my character’s name on top and in bold black letters to show hierarchy. I used a lot of the basics from the tutorials like the pen tools, shapes on shapes, the line tool, the white cursor move tool, and then towards the end of the project I started using the pencil draw tool and just drawing the objects due to the frustration that some of the parts I wanted in my character were not coming out the way I wanted. So, the pencil tool was extremely handy, plus I have a laptop with touch screen so drawing the pieces and objects were pretty easy.

After reading a couple of chapters from Ready Player One it was not hard to fall into the world of the book. An online world of 80s pop culture and video games, sign me up.  Being born in the 90s and having a mom that was all about the 80s I was excited for this project. For this project I wanted to include a bit of a 80s feel and include a bit of 80s pop culture images. I wanted to go with the Dystopian feel right of the back and first thing that came to mind was 80s Horror and weird imagery. For some reason the imagery of the prom from the book I wanted to put into my project and so I found an image with a few couples and just placed them around the collage and made a few alterations. I wanted to include a small tribute to my mom in this by including references of her favorite scary movies “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Friday the 13^th”

After working on the tutorials I was playing around with a few things on Photoshop and one thing I enjoyed doing was making a person look like they were dissolving. While it was fun and the actual work could be used on itself I just wanted to include it in the collage with other works. Gas mask, crumbling buildings came to mind for dystopia so I tried to include it in my collage. For the feel of the collage I wanted to make it feel like an old black and white movie that you would see late at night, kind of like a twilight zone feel.

I used the quick select tool a lot in this project selecting and grabbing pieces from the images I used and putting them in my collage. I used a bit of Gradient maps to change my layers to a black and white feel like I wanted. My dissolving man I used the dispersion effect that I picked up I downloaded a brush online and used it for the dissolving effect.

Mexican design heavily focuses on balance. Looking at all four of the examples in the presentation, we see exactly how they utilize balance. Three main kinds of balance were talked about during the presentation as well: Symmetrical, Asymmetrical, and Radial balance. Mosaic balance was also discussed however the first three were the main focus. After reviewing the designs on the website, it is hard to say that any aspects of them are hard-wired into Mexican culture. Balance itself isn’t something that can be simply adopted and labeled to any part of Mexican culture or any culture. One thing that I also noticed in the example websites was that the symmetrical balance is very apparent. The content of the sites was well-organized, lined-up, and spaced accordingly throughout the site. I personally don’t feel like these aspects would constitute as cultural appropriation if one were to use aspects of balance within their web design. These aspects are crucial to any wed design and should be considered much they seem to be within Mexican design.

One argument that I will bring up that may not have been emphasized in the presentation is how the Mexican culture itself is used in any design, not just web design. Currently I’m working on another project that is tied to cultural appropriation. I’m sure most are aware as well as I am that during this last holiday that passed, Halloween, many cultures such as the Mexican culture as well as Native American culture get appropriated in the form of costumes that kids and adults wear. This form of cultural use is considered cultural appropriation without a doubt because the cultures are deliberately being exploited for what they are not intended to be used for. Seeing that as long as the Mexican culture is not being used for purposes not intended for, cultural appreciation may be a better way to describe uses of the culture in modern designs.

In the discussion on Japanese design we discussed a plethora of examples that teeter-tottered between being cultural appropriation and nothing at all over cultural appreciation, and some that constituted cultural appropriation. There were some aspects of Japanese design that seemed to “adopt” shapes and drawing styles such as brushstrokes. When in reality, these are not solely Japanese design rather they are more simply just artistic design. There were other examples however that were more obviously Japanese design such as the text and use of “cute culture”. Cute culture consists of using “cute” animals or figures within designs. After looking through examples of cute culture, it was easy to note that Japanese culture definitely usescute culture, but does not own it therefore is not considered cultural appropriation for using any kind of cute animal within a design. A culture cannot simply adopt something as vague as cute animals.

One aspect of Japanese design that was not discussed as thoroughly as I thought it would be was the fashion style: Harajuku. This fashion style got its hype from the Gwen Stefani song/album because she used this style in her video. Harajuku Japanese design I believe is definitely one aspect that if used in another’s design would 100% be considered cultural appropriation. When Stefani used Harajuku design in her video, she struck a huge nerve because what she did by using this fashion was stereotyping Japanese culture completely. Because she used the fashion style for something that it was not intended for, it makes the video cultural appropriation even if she said she was inspired by the culture to use the design. Japanese design has been the oddest to discuss and analyze for cultural appropriation. Throughout the entire discussion I have yet to see an example of cultural appreciation within this design. It seems to either be okay to use a part of Japanese design or it would be considered cultural appropriation if on did so.

Food, fashion, beliefs you name it. People from all over the world have come up with a myriad of unique ways to do it all. Design is no exception. It takes on many forms and is characterized by different qualities from country to country. Among the most reliable styles the world offers is Scandinavian design. Serene color palettes, sleek lines, and heavy use of natural resources, only make up one aspect of its best qualities. Scandinavian design’s critical acclaim and staying power can be attributed to its functionality, utility, and naturally, its timeless beauty.

The design elements which were discussed last class were straightforward fairly balanced in terms of showing designs that could be considered cultural appropriation versus ones that could be looked at as appreciation. After having a discussion about examples of things that could be considered cultural appreciation, I think that to anyone who isn’t studying this like we are would not think of cultural appropriation after watching How to Train Your Dragon, one of the movie examples discussed.

In Sweden, Denmark and Norway, Scandinavian-American relations had hit a new low a couple years ago over what they say are cases of cultural appropriation using offensive and racist images of Vikings. Specifically they are objecting to TV ads for Capital One credit cards and the use of the name “Vikings” by the Minnesota NFL franchise. I had forgotten about the capital one commercials until now and there were quite a lot of em portraying Vikings. Then we come to the continued discussion of a football team using a logo and calling it freedom of speech and not seeing the bigger picture that its cultural appropriation, just because its a white European culture still makes it appropriation.

But there is still appreciation out there after seeing the video game that was discussed on Tuesday, a video game created by Swedish developers and uses design and some cultural content/ folklore gave us the discussion that that was not appropriation it was more in the realm of appreciation. The video game didn’t represent the game negatively, the creators were Swedish and in my opinion it looked like an independent video game, a game that was made for fun or education and not for a profit.