Traffic Haiku

For this video haiku challenge, me and Samantha Putri could not verbally communicate each other with what we were doing. Seeing how she went first, I observed what she was doing and simply did the opposite.

Design Analysis

 This is a classic example of a k-pop band poster. It features all the members, their band name (U-Kiss), the name of the album it's promoting (contiUkiss), how it's their third mini album, all the companies involved with the creation of this album way on the bottom, and of course each of their respective names and role over the top. 

When listening to the song this poster promotes (Man Man Ha Ni which roughly translates into someone looking down at someone, that they're insignificant and easily defeated. Yup, that's a lot of meaning for a simple phrase ^_~) , we hear them lamenting how their lover had, in a nutshell, betrayed them and treated them like dirt; and now they're sick of being the nice guy and not taking any of it anymore.

 

The composition of  this photo is definitely relaying the message that these guys are dangerous in order to deliver the message and keep with the theme of their song. None of the members look particularly happy but rather miffed and dangerous. The bullet holes definitely help emphasize their dangerous nature. When analyzing the photo taken of them, we can see that it is a group shot rather than a close up of all their faces even though over half of the image is black. The members are standing in front of the backdrop as though falling into the darkness with the clever use of shadows. The angle of light further emphasizes their nascent to the shadows since over half of their bodies are covered in darkness. Some of their eyes are also covered in darkness. Usually we say eyes are the window to the soul, in this case, the darkness over their eyes definitely gives a foreboding sense that nothing good lies within them.

While the use of shadows portrays the meaning of the song, it also functions as a device used to lure in new fan girls and get them to buy the CD. It's a picture of a group of dark and mysterious guys who all portray the current standards of male beauty in Korea. The darkness of the photo also emphasizes their deviant hair colors, and what teenage girl doesn't think delinquents are dangerous yet exhilarating at the same time? Their clothes with the bondage-like straps also emphasize this notion of a beast held back. It definitely plays on the emotions of a girl's fantasy where a dark and dangerous man is 'sexy'.

Stamp

The creation of this stamp was quite very time consuming as a first time user of photoshop where the majority of the time invested was used to search for tutorials. Photoshop is so amazingly complicated that simply doing basic things was a journey in itself. This stamp has over twelve layers where each layer was created for the purpose of utilizing different tools: magic wand, healing brush tool, effects such as Inner Glow and Stroke, hue/saturation manipulation, color balance manipulation, size adjustments, rasterizing, paint brush, grid and well...I can probably go on till you fall asleep.