Art & Design Projects
The following are the major art & design projects of the past few years.
Dragon in a Fishbowl (bachelor project)
Tief (EP art)
Miepie & der Schnuff (children's book)
JoRNa (postcard initiative during the Covid-19 pandemic)
Nani o shite imasuka? (Oneshot Manga)
Dragon in a Fishbowl
Project Type:
Bachelor Project
Year:
2022
Dragon in a Fishbowl is about a girl whose world changed one day when fish fell from the sky. Since then she has lived in her own world, her own fishbowl. It is a metaphorical animated film about depression and anxiety disorder.
In my Bachelor Thesis “Storytelling in Western Vs East Asian Cultures - How is Mental Health being displayed in Movies?”, I analysed how storytelling in East Asian cultures differs from Western. As part of my bachelor project, I have written and drawn my own animated short with the storytelling structure Ki-Sho-Ten-Ketsu, which is widely popular in East Asia. As my main topic and theme is mental health, which was and still is a major social topic, the animation deals with depression and anxiety in a metaphorical way too.
Tasks and Responsibilities
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To come up with the final story and its storyboard, the main events were determined in the Ki-Sho-Ten-Ketsu storytelling structure. Then, the treatment and the script were written.
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After the story has been outlined the main character was given a form. The character sheet was created as a reference as well as the main location - the room. The challenge was, to create a heroine, who fits the story. As the story is supposed to be relatable to everyone, the heroine is a stereotypical school girl.
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Based on the script, the storyboard was sketched out. A template, which is often used for animated films, was used. The storyboard displays the scene as a sketch, describes the action happening in the scene, and dialogue (if applicable). It also determines the cut of the scene.
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To visualize the final film, style frames of the key scenes were painted digitally.
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An animatic is the “movie version” of the storyboard. Its pictures are being deprived and the final timing is determined. Also, music and SFX are used to get a better feeling of the possible final result.
Styleframes
Animatic
This is the animatic of the story “Dragon in a Fishbowl”.
The Art of Tief
Client:
Mikouai
Year:
2022
“Tief” is the EP of the young German Rapper Mikouai. I had the honour to illustrate and paint its cover art, the logo and logos for each track, and artworks for the tracks: Zeitgeist, Rinnstein, and Oedipus.
Tasks and responsibilities
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For the EP I designed the “Tief” logo, which is a wordmark. In this case, hand-lettering was most suitable. For each track, in the right corner, the title was included. The logo appears on the front cover and on the animation of each each track.
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The cover illustration of the EP features a hand reaching out of water. The scene takes place in the lake in front of mountains in New Zealand. It is the hand of a slightly broken and wounded, but creative individual.
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The artworks’ interpretations were quite specific as well as surreal and abstract. Painting various symbols and metaphors was the main challenge.
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As the main track Tief has a music video, it was requested for each and following track to have an animated artwork, which would also represent the track. Thus, subtle animations for each tracks’ artwork has been created.
Artwork of Zeitgeist
Artwork of Rinnstein
Artwork of Oedipus
Check out the music of Mikouai on…
Miepie & der Schnuff
A children’s book
Client
Suse Baumbach
Year
2020
This story was written by the talented Suse Baumbach, who has entrusted me with the artworks and design of her self-published children book “Miepie & der Schnuff”.
It is a lovely story for toddlers featuring Miepie, a plushy and the main character of the story.
Tasks and Responsibilities
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The main characters Lisa and Miepie were illustrated and designed by me. There was a rough reference, who Miepie is supposed to be. However, the final design needed to be visualized.
Also, to ensure continuity, the main scenery needs to be visualised from each angle. -
Of course a children book cannot live without its colorful images and paintings. All paintings were drawn digitally and underwent a review process.
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For print, the text and images were layouted accordingly. Also a logo for the picture book was designed.
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Various Merchandises such as stickers and postcards were designed too.
Hello, I'm Miepie. Shall we be friends? Because then you can help me get Schnuff, because Schnuff is the very best. I haven't even told you what Schnuff is? Oh, then it's about time. Let me tell you a magical story - about friendship, love, cuddles and, of course, Schnuff.
JoRNa Postcards
Year:
2020
Project Partners:
Aktion Deutschland Hilft
Macromedia Unversity
This project originated as a Student Initiative by Johanna Vilsmeier. and me. It started as a small initiative around March 2020, but we had big goals.
In these depressing and hard days, people need positivity—a message from their loved ones or images that brighten up their days.
Tasks and Responsibilities
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Together we wanted to spread a positive message, giving people some hope and also the ability to reconnect during times, where it was mostly impossible to meet face to face. Thus, we came up with the idea to illustrate traditional postcards with positive illustrations. We also wanted to send hospitals and health care institutes postcards as a sign of gratitude and encouragement. All profit is also being donated to Aktion Deutschland Hilft.
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We focused on the positive sides of the pandemic, and there were few. People saw, for the very first time, clear water in Venice, people stayed at home and were able to focus on themselves, their hobbies and their mental health, even though it could have been though during those uncertain times. People needed other ways to reconnect and stay in touch.
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As part of the initiative, we also took care of acquiring sponsors, getting the postcards printed, creating a website for the campaign, and staying constantly in contact with our partner Aktion Deutschland Hilft. It was also a challenge to manage all the sponsors. The sponsors were mostly local businesses as well, thus, we wanted to promote them through this initiative.
The postcards could be ordered from its dedicated website back then.
Nani o shite imasuka?
Year:
2015
Project:
One-Shot Manga Drawing Contest, 3rd Prize
“A desperate wolf met a sly fox. A girl (Rin) is about to jump into her death from the school’s roof top. A boy (Inui) happened to see her, going to her to tell her: “Nobody would care about you if you died”
This project was made for an online manga contest (hosted by Comic Welt, Ihabo Azzamo) back in 2016. This story won the 3rd prize.
The story shall highlight the complex and unpredictable human mind as well as themes such as bullying, depression, and suicide.
