The publication is the first part of the project, which will be incorporated into the stop-motion video. In the publication, I am showcasing the places I have been throughout all these years. I am making this a more collage and hand-done style, because this is a personal memory book. Here are some sample pages, as well as some 2 of the many drawings that I am going to use in both the publication and the video. In addition, I used green and blue paper to represent earth.

I have been collecting all the info and illustrating the places I have been in the past 2 weeks.

I can finally move on to the layouts, which the publication will be printed on a nice green and blue paper.

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the screencaps will be uploaded soon!

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South Korea

Seoul

Gyeonghuigung Palace

Lotte World

Namsangol Hanok Village

Hanbok (traditional clothing)

kimchi

www.visitseoul.net

Australia

Sydney

Sydney Opera House

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Seafood

Kangaroo

Koala

http://www.worldtravelguide.net/sydney/sightseeing

South Africa

Cape Town

Big 5 – Lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, rhino

African Penguins at Boulders Beach

Oudekraal panorama

www.tourismcapetown.com

Durban

beachfront

www.durban.kzn.org.za

Johannesburg

Gold Reef City

Zebra

http://www.joburgtourism.com/

New Zealand

Queenstown

Sheep

Sea Kayaks

Fishing tour

Mountain biking tours

www.queenstown-vacation.com

Auckland

Sky Tower

Maori (origin of Auckland)

http://www.aucklandnz.com/index.php

Hawaii

Honolulu

Green sea turtle

Palm beach

Beach

Manta Rays (fish)

Oahu

Pearl Harbor

www.gohawaii.com

Las Vegas

Casinos

(MGM, Bellagio, Luxor, Venetian)

www.lvcva.com

Vancouver

Lion gate bridge

Ski

Monk Harbor, boats

Salmon

www.tourismvancouver.com

Tokyo

Shimjuku

Shibuya

Ginza

Imperial Castle

Roppongi District

Akihabara District

Tsukiji – Sushi, fish market

www.jnto.go.jp

Beijing

Tiananmen Square

Forbidden City

Summer Palace

Great Wall

www.bjta.gov.cn

Rome

Trevi Fountain

St. Peter’s Square

Colosseum

boots

pizza

cheese

www.romaturismo.com

Vatican City

Sistine Chapel

Milan

Milan Cathedral

Royal Palace

interior of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

Piazza del Duomo

Paris

The Louvre Museum

Arc de Triomphe

Elffel Tower

Palace Vendome

www.parisinfo.com

Berlin

Berlin Wall

The Brandenburg Gate

www.visitberlin.de

Frankfurt

traditional timbered house

Administrative Building of Commerzbank (Architect: Richard Heil, 1973)

www.frankfurt-tourismus.de

Munich

Siegestor

Beer

German Sausage

Amsterdam

Red Light District

Old Amsterdam

Bike

Windmill

Keukenhof Garden – tulips

Dutch traditional costumes

www.iamsterdam.com

London

Big Ben

Tower Bridge

Red telephone booth

www.visitlondon.com

Oxford

Oxford University

Dictionary

www.visitoxford.org

Cambridge

Cambridge University

King’s College Cambridge

www.visitcambridge.org

Hokkaido

Sapporo

Milk

Cow

White Lovers Chocolate Biscuits

Sapporo Brewerty

Crab

Otaru

glass work

Victorian-style street lamps

Thailand

Bangkok

floating market

tuk-tuks

Thai-airline

Phuket

Big Buddha

elephant

beach and sunshine

www.tourismthailand.org

England

London

London Eye

Mysterious Stonehenge

Warwick

Warwick Castle

Manchester

Manchester United

Old Trafford

Scotland

Edinburgh

Edinburgh Castle

St Gile’s Cathedral

www.edinburgh.org

Ireland

Dublin

Guinness

Dublin City Hall

Dublin Castle

www.visitdublin.com

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Week 1

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Minimalist Photography I – David Burdeny

Japan 2006 & Antarctica/Greenland Project 2007

“Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada, David Burdeny has degrees in both Interior design and a Masters in Architecture. At the age of 12, David started to photograph the prairie landscape and make his own black and white prints in a makeshift darkroom that also served as his bedroom closet. Primarily self taught, his architecture and design background greatly influences his penchant for simple exacting photographs of sky, horizon and the marks humankind leaves behind. Influenced by notable photographers such Michael Kenna, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Fay Goodwin, David purposefully photographs in poor light and near darkness. He uses unusually long exposures to see that which our eyes can not. Moving beyond the literal, his images have been described as ominous, haunting, beautiful and meditative.”

I went speechless for a while after looking at David Burdeny’s series. His photography captures the essence of the subject matter by eliminating other elements in the scene. The subtleness makes each of his photographs so strong and breathe-taking. It’s amazing! He is the Kenya Hara in design to me. I totally LOVE it!

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Week 2

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Architectural / Landscape

Ted VanCleave has shoot a series at the Disney Hall designed by Frank Gehry (one of my favorite architects). This series captures the structure and form of the Disney Hall.

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Week 3

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Hand-crafted

Julien Valle’s works

Thomas Demand’s works

Julien Valle is a very inspiring motion designer, his work greatly involves hand-crafted elements and look-a-like objects. He makes me think of Thomas Demand, a photographer who tends to construct scenes with paper and shoot it. Each of Thomas Demand’s photographs is one or more steps removed from reality, creating tension between the fabricated and the real. It’s pretty interesting to compare their work and find similarities.

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Week 4

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Minimalist portraits and landscapes

He focuses a lot of everyday subjects, including nature, architecture, city streets, his family and express them in simple forms. Harry Callahan was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. He purchased his first camera in 1938 and joined the camera club at Chrysler Motors, where he worked. Strongly influenced by a 1941 lecture and workshop given by Ansel Adams, Callahan traded his enlarger for an 8 x 10 view camera. In 1946 Callahan was hired by László Moholy-Nagy to teach photography at the Institute of Design in Chicago.

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Week 5

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Tilt-shift

So, a friend of mine showed me this video for her Type in Motion class. It is a stop-motion video created by Sam O’Hare, who shoot over 35,000 photos for it. At first, he used a 24mm tilt-shift lens, but he figured it will be better for him to do the effects in post-production instead. Here is the making-of: http://aerofilm.blogspot.com/2010/02/sandpit-short-film-by-aero-director-sam.html

After seeing this video, I started to research on the tilt-shift lens and techniques. I found that it’s rather expensive to buy a tilt-shift lens, but photoshop sounds more reasonable, since I have it already! I found this online tutorial very helpful.

http://www.tiltshiftphotography.net/photoshop-tutorial.php

I will definitely get out there and try taking some shots for this tilt-shift photography when it gets warmer.

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Week 6

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Minimalist Photography II – Bernhard Quade

http://widget-72.slide.com/widgets/slideticker.swf

He is impressed by the interaction between natural and people, which they both affect each other. Bernhard likes to explore how one’s life and thoughts and surrounding change one’s impression and expression. He definitely love capturing the moment of different light, colour and movement, because he strongly believe that things are constantly changing across time.

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Week 7

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Master of Street Photography

Matt Stuart

Matt Stuart’s work features opportune street scenes which reflect the absurd and fleeting nature of life. He shoots everyday and everywhere he goes. I found that his work is really fun, colourful, humorous and full of contrast.

http://widget-1f.slide.com/widgets/slideticker.swf

“Born in 1974, Matt Stuart was raised in the leafy suburbs of Harrow, North West London. He admits to a less than distinguished school career, but was called upon aged 11 to play a trumpet solo in front of the Queen Mother. Her Majesty’s reaction is not recorded. A little later, in 1986, Matt discovered skateboarding after watching the film “Back to the Future”. Skating occupied his every waking moment until 1994, when he looked up from the half-pipe and noticed that girls had got a lot more interesting. He also indulged in a brief, ill-advised affair with Kung Fu. Matt’s father, keenly aware that his son would never be the next Bruce Lee, introduced him to photography, handing over books by Robert Frank & Henri Cartier-Bresson. Ever since then, photography has been Matt’s overriding passion, although he’s still quite interested in skateboards and girls. (But thankfully not Kung Fu).”

- http://www.mattstuart.com/

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Week 8

Lomography

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Week 9

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IR filter

http://widget-70.slide.com/widgets/slideticker.swf

Infrared photography captures radiation wavelengths just beyond the visible spectrum. It captures scenes that cannot be seen through human eyes. IR photos often involves deep black skies, bright white foliage and sometimes bright blue skies. It can transform into extraordinary images when captured with infrared.

http://www.tutorial9.net/tutorials/photography-tutorials/infrared-photography/

http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/infrared/

http://www.dpfwiw.com/ir.htm

http://dpanswers.com/content/irphoto.php

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Week 10

iPhone Photography

Few weeks ago, John brought up the iPhone photography app called Hipstamatic. I have been using this app since last Christmas. It is a great app with a variety of lens and film choices. It gives the photographs a very vintage feel, as it is inspired by analog cameras. I didn’t really look into the background of each lens until that class. After that, I did a little bit of research and found more inspiring photographs shot with Hipstamatic.

After I finish this semester (my final semester), I am planning to shoot a series of photographs by these two iPhone apps and perhaps make a short stop-motion video based on the series. It should be a lot of fun!

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Week 11

Week 12

Happy Holidays! I have been relaxing and enjoying my time here in Hong Kong. I guess I was too exhausted from making Axle constantly for 2 weeks, 20 hours everyday. There were times when I feel really upset about Axle and had doubts about my designs. I am glad that it ended up looking pretty good. However, according to my standard, the end product is not 100% there yet. There are several things that I’d like to improve when I return from Christmas break:

1. The spine looks cracked, because of the ink. I printed out at least 3 copies of each divider page, but the spines are still cracked. I will try to print them with different printers in Hong Kong, since it’s really cheap to print (I think I spent over $200 on printing at TEL….). Hopefully, it will work out.

2. Chapter 2 of the book (Bike Anatomy) was a fail, because I didn’t end up using transparent film and overlay them to show the parts of bike. The production of this chapter involves lots of crafting and glueing. I was almost there, but I screwed up the last page (1 bubble!!!!). I ended up reorganizing the layouts and made it worked, because I was running out of time.

3. I feel like the binding of the book did not turn out as great and precise as the ones I did for practice. It still looks fine, but I am not entirely happy about it. I will definitely fix it for my next copy.

Things that I am happy about:

1. The combination of meticulous illustrations and high quality photos seems to work very well. The feel of the book turns out as planned – high quality, meticulous, precious, collectable, clean and simple. The illustrations are my favourite part of the book, not just because of the time I invested in them, they express my focus on the word “detail”.

2. Typographic decisions were quite accurate. It serves the purpose and matches the tone of the book. I personally don’t like justified type, but it suits the theme of the book, which is highly structured and engineered. I went into each line of the contents and fix the tracking, just to make sure that there are no “rivers” and it’s easier for reader’s eyes.

3. Every little detail of the book is obviously important to me. I carefully pick up a hint of colour from the photographs and incorporate the colour into the illustrations, lines or type.

4. I sliced a part of my finger with an industrial x-acto knife back in 2nd year. I never touched that knife again since then. However, I feel like I should overcome this phobia / fear. I picked up this knife again to build my book case. AWESOME. I spent 10 hours doing that. FEAR IS GONE!

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I learned a lot from making this book. To be honest, I just love looking at bike and I ride them sometimes, but I never really spend the time to study its structures and how it works. This gave me a really good opportunity to go all out and learn something new. The interviews with people at Urbane and Cycle Shoppe were great. People there are very nice, informative and funny. In addition to the books and web resources, the interviews really helped with my research. I enjoyed learning the binding and production of the book a lot. It has been a wonderful experience to make my own book, starting from nothing to holding onto the finished product. I love my book, I love it. Thanks for those who gave me helpful advices and suggestions, especially to my buddies – Meghan, Greig, Manwai, Emma, Farah, Yvonne! Thanks Reg, you are awesome and full of knowledge! I will come pick up the book in 2011

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I didn’t get to take some portfolio shoots for the book, but I took some quick shots with my iphone.

PHOTOS: http://s218.photobucket.com/albums/cc173/efok/AXLE/?albumview=slideshow

Then, I typed out all the possible numberings for the chapters and compare them. To be honest, I use DIN for numbers in 99.99999% of my projects. This typeface is just beautiful. LOVE IT!

to be continued

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nahhh or NAHHHHHHHH

grrrrrr… (sigh)

:/

I am on ch.4 now! This chapter is about bike anatomy.

I regret so much for not making a prototype for this chapter. This chapter has a lot of problem, because it has 5 pages of transparent film. I found a whole bunch of problems after printing the layouts. Therefore, I made a prototype and solved all the problems. So, I decided to scrap the whole thing and redo it. I thought I should screencap them before throwing them into the trash.

CH4

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On the other hand, I also spent a few hours practicing the coptic bind. The card board is covered with vinyl. (I thought I should get used to it, so that I don’t mess up the cover for AXLE)

I used a vinyl with black wood texture.

quite nice

..totally ripped this part (lesson learned)

red thread x cream paper x black wood cover = a good match

1. What should I name my book?
So far I got..
AXLE, which is the central shaft for the wheel.
CYC, cycle? cyclist?
Pedal, a pedal of a bike..
I suck at naming.. hopefully I can get a good one from you guys?! (please)

2. Should the feeling/mood of the book be precious/detailed OR simple/clean?
I want people to see this book as a collection. It is a combination of nice paper and materials related to bike.
I do things clean and tend to keep it simple, basically simplicity and subtleness is my style.
However, I want to breakthrough this style and try something else.
I was thinking of getting into this blueprint tone, you know… the blueprints that architects do?!
Some vintage mood as well, not too urban.

3. What else should I include in my book?
The plan is to include:
1. History & evolution of bikes
2. Bikes anatomy & frame works
3. Types of bike
4. Function/practice – bikes in everyday life
5. Aesthetic – bike as fashion accessory

THANK YOU!

I am basically 70% done with the writing and transcribing the interviews.
The rest will be done this week for sure. I tried not to bombard the readers/viewers with information about a bike. I actually want people to appreciate bikes and look into its beauty of geometry. This is not a text book nor chessy reference guide.

Also, I have write up an USP for this book:
(BOOK NAME) is an indispensable collection and resource for bike enthusiasts, urban hipsters and fashion conscious urbanites to expand their appreciation of bicycles. It looks at bikes as both functional transportation devices and fashion accessories.
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SIZE

I cut out paper in different size to figure out the size of the book.
I tried 6.5″ x 9″, 6.5″ x 8″, 7.5″ x 9″, 7″x8.5″, 7.5″x7.5″, 7″x7″.
I ended up testing 6.5″ x 9″, 6.5″ x 8″ & 7″ x 7″ in InDesign and imported some text.
After that, I filtered down to 6.5″x9″ and 8″x8″.
At last, I decided to use 8″x8″, because a square page works so well with the geometric shapes and it reinforces the essence of a bike.

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LAYOUTS & TYPESETTING

After deciding on the size of the book, I started to test some typesets for the book.
I tried both 2 columns and 3 columns. So far, 2 columns seems to work the best.
However, I came up with a 5-column grid. Also, I need to keep testing the tracking and leading before I make the decision.



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PHOTOGRAPHY

I have gathered 200+ photos in my little “bike photos library” for this project.
I took half of them on the street and in the bike stores.
I really want to take a shot of all the bike parts, those kind of squared and organized composition.
Therefore, I bought a miniature bike on ebay and hopefully it will get here soon.

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ILLUSTRATION

I spent hours and hours (6+) illustrating this graph/illustration of bike and its parts.
The bike illustration is extremely detailed, but I am not showing you the whole thing just yet!
This is gonna be placed in Ch.2 of the book – Bike Anatomy & Frame Construction

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BINDING & MATERIALS

I will stop by Aboveground with Greig before the field trip to get some binding supplies.
Therefore, the intense binding practice section will be coming up real soon!
The book is divided into 5 chapters, each chapter will be 1 signature of 16 leaves.
This will be a hardcover book packaged in a box made with bike materials or something related.
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POTENTIAL NAMES
AXLE, CYC, Rim
Obviously I need help on this…………………………………..
I am not gonna name it BIKE, because it is just lame to name a bike book this way.
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I really want people to treat this book as an exclusive collection that is filled with useful information, nice type-settings, quality photography and detailed illustration. Let’s get this rolling!