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Calligram

 


In this piece of work, I wanted to represent the country that impacted the way I am as a person. I moved to Dubai when I was 12 and lived there until I came to Florida for university. The letter I wrote to my future self spoke a bit about Dubai and I wanted to embrace the country that changed me to be who I am today. I created the Burj Khalifa and the Burj Al Arab using the pen tool to make calligrams, outlining the structures with my letter instead of filling in the text. I wanted the edges and outline itself to be visible instead of the fill because the unique building shapes are what make them so special. I chose these two buildings because they are very well known for representing Dubai. This is because Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world and Burj Al Arab is the only seven-star hotel in the world. I added sand because Dubai is a desert city and I wanted to represent that as well. I also added a sun using the word Dubai to create it, with colours of the sun. Lastly, I created an abstract shape using the three countries that have influenced my life; Hong Kong (where I was born and raised for 12 years), Dubai (where I lived during my teenage years), and Japan (where I travel every year to meet my grandparents). I made sure to use colours that represent the buildings themselves, and tried to create a contrast between the sand and the Burj Al Arab as orange and blue are complementary colours.

The letter I wrote to myself:

Dear future me, Hello from 2023 Naisha. I am in my sophomore year of university at the University of Tampa. I am technically in my third semester and just started a year ago. As of now, I am still an international student and our parents have not moved from Dubai to Orlando yet. How is life in 2043? Did I finally get my green card and my American passport? Do we still live in America or did we move somewhere else like Japan? Am I married to someone amazing? I hope they treat us well, as well as the men we read about in the books we enjoy reading. How many kids do I have? I wanted maybe 2.  Am I a good mom to my kids or my furbabies? I don’t want to be harsh or hurt them. I am enjoying my career path as a graphic designer so far. Using Illustrator and Photoshop is fun, and creating art is a good outlet for me. I do not feel creative yet but maybe it is because I have not found my style yet. I hope after 20 years I have finally found my style and have a good job. As of 2023, I want to be a website designer or a UI/UX designer. I’m interested to know what kind of jobs have opened up in the future. What is new in the graphic design field? Does that even exist still or did AI take over the art industry fully? Do we know how to code yet? I hope we learnt more than just HTML and CSS because coding is so important in 2023 for jobs. Are we still in touch with Pati and Ana? I hope so. They’re amazing people and genuinely are kind souls. Did we finally adopt a pet? Maybe even multiple? I really want to get a cat while living on campus but I still don’t feel independent enough to even take care of myself right now. I hope that in the future I will be an amazing chef and good at cleaning. I bet I still hate doing the dishes. I hope all is well in the future for us and that we are finally happy in life. I know in the past, we had our mental issues because of Covid and quarantine. Love you and take care of yourself, Naisha from 2023 signing off

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