These are the final installments for the first part of the brief.
To be fair, I was quite impressed with myself after doing these animations. Especially since I was new to the software, and it normally takes me a while to warm to a piece of software. In some respects, I think that I could of done alot more in terms of developing the animations, say if I had spent more time experimenting and testing the limits of After Effects instead of relying heavily on effects. On reflection, they do look a tad unnecessary and detract away from the nature of the word, and as I said, relies on the effect to give it a literal meaning.
Feedback from the storyboards had been good though, but by having too much confidence in what I had produced without a variety of responses to the word restricted the outcome for this brief.
In spite of the last few words on the final animations, I do think I have communicated the word 'pop'.
After making the A2 images, the time was to start conceptualizing our animations in the form of storyboards. After an inspirational seminar on how to go about actually doing a storyboard, not just doing the first thing we think of which is gridding up a piece of paper, and just going ahead to try to think instantly what we wanted, but doing initial sketches, considering the format size, angles, using axes for positioning, use of dimensions and so on. Despite this, I have started with my method of just going with an idea and trying to learn from it.
This set is the outcome for the large scale images, just to test the water with the 2 words I was unsure about choosing from, either pop, or fold, as I think close speaks for itself in being a limited, or rather too dull a word to animate, all I see is closed doors, and a long corridor with no lights.
This next set is after we had the seminar today, so this is a cheeky backblog, the difference being that we had our After Effects introduction session, and an afternoon workshop, where we started to learn more about how to actually apply this method of strategic planning for animation. As it is most probably going to underpin alot of what we are going to be doing for this particular brief.
Each particular sheet had a set of principles, these were as follows :
To go back to something I used to do on a very basic level - at school in my free time at lunch, making animated banners for emulator sites on fireworks - was refreshing to say the least.
Apart from how to navigate around the program, and how to understand the timeline and so on.
It works quite like the same as Photoshop, and InDesign in the way that it is used for prepping and laying out a piece of work, except its also used for finishing it.
One of the main things to remember is that it works like InDesign where you have to keep all the files used in the same folder, otherwise it causes a whole heap of trouble when editing and moving the project around.
Some more of the pearls of incredibly helpful wisdom was that every project must contain at last one composition which is more or less the programs equivalent to layers.
Before opening or indeed starting any document/project, the settings dialog box has a multitude of confusing settings that have to be addressed before starting a project. Issues include things like aspect ratio; the size/format of the frame used, for example 16:9 (widescreen), Frame rate; determines how many frames are in a second, which can effect how smoothly the animation goes, and finally preset; this is screen standards/resolutions used to determine quality and effects on where the final project will be placed, for example PAL or NTSC.
PAL is the European standard for display, and NTSC is the North American/Asian screen standard for display, the best example found for this would be when you turn on a Gamecube, it usually asks you if you would like to view the screen in PAL or NTSC, which the difference is either a 50Hz or 60Hz refresh rate, but one thing we did learn straight away is that PAL plays back at 25 frames per second. Other resolution issues to do with display quality includes how many pixels have to be rendered for the final project, which is covered in more detail in the second paragraph down.
When using something like still images, its best to use a widescreen square pixel preset setting, as it is right for the format and context of internet streaming, but where as if using some form of digital video, using something more like a square 4:3 format would be more appropriate, due to the way the pixels are shaped and are viewed on screen.
Fast forwarding on a bit, when using the playback feature, instead of using the real time playback, using a feature on the far right of the playback panel, the Ram preview slows the animation down to view the problems that may occur when playing in real time. This feature - before it plays back - calculates how each frame will look for final playback, the green line showed in the timeline shows the progression of how long it is taking to calculate how the end animation will look.
One of the most important parts of animation is keyframes, these are indicated on the bottom right of the timeline palette. This area is also similar to sorting out layers, where you can edit variables such as how an object travels across a motion path, which are made using anchor points. The diamond icon in the bar is used to create keyframes, which are essentially key points in the sequence that are used as checkpoints for the object to travel on. The nearer the middle dot is to a certain point, the quicker it will travel, as is with all animation, time is a major factor and it is never, NEVER on youre side.
Almost any Adobe based file can be imported into After Effects for use, Illustrator, Photoshop, and even Flash or video files, but you must change the settings to fit the settings used in the document, not just to avoid irritable messages, but to keep things easy and running smoothly, just like when links are missing on an InDesign document. REALLY ANNOYING.
To finish, some shortcuts; select a layer and press : [P] - Position, [A] - Anchor point, [R] - Rotate, [S] Scale, [T] - Opacity, [O] - Time, these are all to show the various layer properties for each object/path etc. Holding shift is standard to add more and thus you can view multiple properties of the layers using this technique.
The video was the result of the session. We all love pong.
From the three words we got from the "randomizer", these are the 3 responses to the words, having to include the text somewhere on the images we produced was the only mandatory requirement. The first sheet is the initial development work towards the images made on A2 paper.
The 3 words were; fold, pop, and closed.
Out of all the responses to the first task set within this first task I would say the fold one was probably the most intuitive out of them. Obviously due to the crafty approach, making me consider making a typeface from folded paper, even if it has been done before, I still think it would be worthwhile.
The point of this task was to see if we could represent the word effectively, using limited restrictions as to what we could produce.
From my research I know that the Trinomic sole was developed using a series of microsized hexagonal shaped cells in order to maximise not only effiency, but cushion the wearers feet and thus enhance performance.
So my starting point was to use hexagons as some sort of starting point for possible design influences. I mocked up a hexagonal prism to see if there would be a potential problem concerning a packaging solution similar to it in the way it had to be assembled, and if it would ruin the overall finished product.
Here is a sample of the pattern I developed, but shortly scrapped, after trying to juggle around with some hex based typeface I created, it became clear that this was far too dull and unoriginal idea for a company renowned for their slick, clean and in an abstract way expressive design work. An excercise tried, tested, but has ended with a slight sick feeling in my stomach.
On the plus side, I did mock another one of my initial sketchbook ideas up, an improvement on the hexagonal prism idea, but with more space to utilise, and an improved structure. Now by using this as a very basic outline for the full idea, I would have a timeline of events that not only interests the potential consumer, but promotes and informs the viewer to the outstanding achievements of Puma. Inside there would be an original pair of Atoms that are a collectors item, which gives the company at hand a small taste of what the company has to offer.
This is the result of limited visuals and a rebranding of the current logo design in set for mongolian shoe bbq. Feel like I have skitted dangerously close to plagiarism here, especially with the logo. However before I go any further let me clairify my intent, delivery and distribution methods.
The packaging itself is a result of a purchase, as is with any shoebox, but the concept being that it being obviously related to the loosely based theme of food concerning the promotion.
This is to give the chosen audience of the 18-30 age bracket a novelty in recieving their shoes in a way that is distinct, individual and makes them proud to have bought a pair of shoes from the website. Generally got good feedback from the initial designs, just that my problem analysis was a bit all over and not well thought through, but at this early on I would agree with this comment.
Just a little note on what we were doing with Mike in our photoshop tutorial, finally learnt how to do a Duotone correctly and not make it look like a snails lunch. First we needed a full colour image, I just grabbed a photo of when I went to egypt. Converted to grayscale, adjusted the contrast, etc, the went to mode and selected Duotone.
After that I toyed around with the various levels presented to me, just to essentuate the various tones present in the image, and to get to grips with what a combination of colours can do for an image, not just purely on an aesthetic basis, but a practical one.
With the option to do more than just duotone, there is also tritone, and quadtone. So I though I'd pop a cheeky tritone up just so you can see how lovely they can be.
Suffice to say I learnt a fair bit in the session, mainly about colour selections, how to create our own swatches and load swatches. The swatch bit was handy, as we were shown that there is actually a number of swatch books that - depending on the print you want (gloss/matte/solid matte) - would give you every pantone reference, which is particularly handy, especially when you need an exact colour match and you have to send it off to the printers. There is also a large selection of spot colours available to choose from.
The handiest part for me was the edit colours which basically enables you to spin a wheel on the colour spectrum and it pins down relative complimentaries to use. This is handy especially if like me you spend many an hour traipsing through swatches like a doped up mac monkey.
On a more serious note, when creating colour libraries/books, its very important to save the file as an ASE file, otherwise it may hinder the use of that book/library in other Adobe programs. For example, if using tints then it wont register with the other creative suite members.
Last week on this day, we had our first type workshop with Graham, where we were doing some exercises to exploit the personality/mood that can be attained by manipulation of type by some basic tampering with it.
Using the word dog as a model for moulding into the various attributes given to us: angry dog, sad dog, scary dog, scared dog, etc. We were also told at the start of the workshops that we were only limited to using serif and sans serif fonts, rather than use something decorative, which can be misleading most of the time if not used in the right context. I didn't save what I did as I thought that I had learnt enough, as well as knowledge prior to the session.
4 main factors to consider when approaching any typographical matter:
Size - Determines the impact/effect of the type on substrate
Sans serif/serif - This effects the tone/manner of the type
Weight - This also is an aide for the effect on the page and personality of the type
Case - IT DEPENDS ON what you are trying to say.
This week's exercise was focusing on the space between the letters, and how the space can be manipulated to attune to a certain piece of type's function.
Kerning was the technique applied, by identifying the largest space in between the letters and effectively kerning the letters/words, and not over-kerning which can effect legibility.
We then upped the ante by having to kern a proverb, using limited techniques to make the proverb appear as if it was spoken rather than just manipulated by the computer. The following are examples of what I did in the session. The proverb is one of Thai origin "Grabbing excrement is better than grabbing flatulence" - this basically means be happy for what you have.
The next 2 are outcomes/development from fourthreetwoone into reading onetwothreefour. This task was set to see if we could manage the task of changing readability so the class as a whole could identify with the type.
These are the finals I used for the brief, I used the till monkey as a self explanatory way to sum up the main activity of my holiday despite the mundanity of the actual activity, I think I did a rather good job. We could put this up in shops to warn customers of our presence.
The Logo was adapted from the Wychwood brewerys finest Hobgoblin beer, since it was a ruby beer, I ran with that despite positive responses to my visuals for the Hobgoblin itself. I also think there is more versatility in this design.
The word was from the most common phrase that comes forth from my mate from home and work, which is used as a greeting, verb, noun, adjective, in fact you name it and I guarantee that 'Werd' has been used for any purpose. Initially from the research 'werds in a day' The geometrical shapes to form letters came to me as soon as the word overprint was mentioned.
The final colour image I used is in fact a mannequin I found many years ago and adpoted into my household, and now resides in my bedroom. Her name is Candy and I thought that since i took a picture of her on a disposable camera, I would blast some heavy halftones on her, just to see what would happen. Try her from a distance otherwise shes just a girl viewed from beer goggles.
The first brief since we got back from the summer break, its more of an exercise to test our knowledge, or rather to see if we can all use colour on a basic level of understanding.
From our summer work/material the task was to produce a one colour pictogram; depicting an activity
A 2 colour logo; which could be a real organisation, or ficticious
A 3 colour word,
and a full colour image. (there were no specifications for the full colour)
The only other limitation was that the postcard format images/type were all from source material. Since I spent alot of my summer working, drinking, listening to crap metal bands and watching b-movies, I tried to best reflect that with the subsequent worksheets.
Each sheet I did was for each specific postcard, to keep everything focused and easy to pick out particular images that were relevant, and which were just not working.
