College Project.
Final Project for Survey Of Southeast Asia Art & Culture.
Final Project for Survey Of Southeast Asia Art & Culture.
We were required to submit three postcards that are themed with the Art & Culture of SEA together with a rationale. The cards are intended for tourists and visitors at a museum.
I decided to choose Thailand as the country I would design the postcard of because I've been to Thailand a few times for vacation, and absolutely loved the place! In doing so, I hoped to learn more about the art and culture there and decided to research on that country.
'During the Ice Age, a Naga swallowed all the water of the world.'
Based on my research, the naga plays a great influence in Thailand, whether it is in literature, architecture or sculpture. Because of this, I chose to design my postcards based on the naga to show that Thailand is greatly associated with this mythological creature.
For the postcards, I’ve decided to design it based on the mythological story concerning the naga. A Vedic belief tells of a time during the Ice Age when a Naga swallowed all the waters of the world and coiling its serpentine body to hibernate on the top of Mount Meru. The earth suffered from a severe drought and human beings were dying. To restore life to earth, God Indra hurled his thunderbolt to the deadly serpent. The bloated naga busted, causing water to stream down the mountainsides, circulating as rivers throughout the parched world.
'The Naga coiled it's body to hibernate atop Mount Meru. The earth suffered a drought and human beings were dying.'
For the art style, I’ve decided to use stylized art in a vector format to design my postcards. It's based on narrative art (which tells some kind of story), and thus will be a stylized representation of the events that happen in the story.
Based on further research, I've discovered that traditional Thai paintings are primarily composed of Buddhist art, which represents or narrates episodes of Buddha's life and teachings. The paintings showed subjects in two dimensions without perspective. The size of each element in the picture reflected its degree of importance. Thus, I’ll be designing the postcards based on the methods of said composition and style.
'To restore life to earth, God Indra hurled his thunderbolt to the deadly serpent. The water burst free to circulate once more through the body of the world.
Through studying traditional Thai paintings, I’ve also observed that the colours used in the artwork comprises of mostly brown and red tones. They do have some blues and greens, but it’s muted and not very striking. The more outstanding colours used are gold and red. I’ll be incorporating this colour palette (instead of vibrant colours) into my design to ground it back to Thailand as the art style that I’ll be using is an international graphic style.
I’ve also decided to keep some graphic elements and composition in the designs consistent throughout the postcards. This is so that the entire layout will make them look like a set, as the colour mood will be different throughout all the postcards.
'This is Part 1 of 3 in a postcard set. Want to find out what happens next?
Go to: http://www.tourismthailand.my/naga to find out the full story!'
The postcards will be based on the story, split into 3 parts, sort of like a collection. That way, tourists will be encouraged to send more than one postcard during their stay in Thailand so that the recipient will get the entire story. However, recipients can also access the tourism website that will be provided at the back of the postcard if they want to know the full story.
