Title:

Asian Pacific Culture Week / Asian Pacific Community Night Market

Context:

This project was ongoing for two years. I was first commissioned to do a graphic back in 2019 by the Cross Cultural Center (CCC) at UC Davis for the Asian Pacific Community Night Market (APCNM). After working with the CCC for a few months and finalizing a graphic, the night market was canceled due to Covid. Although it was disappointing to not see the first project come to fruition, I was really lucky that the CCC reached out to me the year after to work with them again. This time for the Asian Pacific Culture Week (APCW), which was an online event. I was asked to use elements of the original graphic to match their new theme. Overall, I really loved working on this project especially because it was one that celebrated my own culture as well.

Tools:

Illustrator

Process Part One: Asian Pacific Community Night Market (2019-2020)

The first year working on this project was a really big learning experience for me as it was my first paid commision project. I learned a lot on how to work with a client that I have been able to implement on other commision projects.

For APCNM, I was given a theme for the graphic, which was centered around bringing the community a part of home, upbringing, and a new home to share stories and connect. Some of the elements suggested were flowers, hands, animals, and something to symbolize home.

I first started by making a sketch that included a lot of the suggested elements. I drew a lot of the animals and flowers that represented different Asian Countries.

Draft One Initial Sketches

First Draft

After turning in the first draft, I was given a lot of feedback and was told to try a different direction. A critique I received was that the first draft looked too East Asian. After meeting with the coordinators of the CCC, I was able to work with them more clearly to find a new direction that was more representative of all asian cultures and the theme of home. Elements emphasized for the next draft were hands in different skin tones and more flowers/less animals. Based on the feedback, I got the idea to have two hands holding up a house and flowers. I later came up with the idea of creating the house out of lego-like blocks to further emphasize the idea of connection.

Draft Two Initial Sketches

Final Draft of Part One

Process Part Two: Asian Pacific Culture Week (2020-2021)

About a year after working on the Night Market Graphic, the coordinators reached out to see if I wanted to work with them again on a graphic for APCW. Due to the pandemic, the new theme was about sharing experiences across communities and sparking connections across time zones and through screens about culture, home, and identity. To avoid confusion on what the coordinators wanted, we had a meeting before I started working on the graphic to figure out what elements they wanted. Some specific aesthetics mentioned were “a cyber futuristic aesthetic, glowy, and fluid” and the suggested elements were a diverse color theme, lots of flowers, sparkles, and a more muted center-piece. I was given a lot of great inspiration photos to work off of for my sketch and graphic.

Inspiration Photos

Sketches

For the final draft, I focused a lot of my effort on improving the flowers from the previous years as well as working on gradients and textures for the entire graphic. Instead of using a tree within the arch, I end up placing line drawings of flowers. Overall, I really enjoyed giving a modern spin on the idea from last year. It was fun to be able to use more of the skills I learned in Illustrator in the year between to create an improved graphic!

Final Draft